SWAZILAND: A KINGDOM IN CRISIS

Action for Southern Africa (ACTSA) has devoted the latest edition (Winter 2010) of its quarterly magazine ACTSA News to a ‘Focus on Swaziland’.

Here is one of the articles, SWAZILAND: A NATION IN CRISIS, that summarises the extent of the economic meltdown brought on by the chronic mismanagement of the Swazi Government; the crisis in public services, the inequalities in the kingdom headed by King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, and the fight for human rights.

Until recently the Swazi regime has successfully managed not only to hide the country’s gross inequality and lack of rights, but has also hidden and failed to act on a growing financial crisis which threatens to bankrupt the nation.

For many years the economy has been reliant on external sources. During the apartheid years Swaziland benefited from investment from companies unwilling or unable to operate in South Africa or war torn Mozambique. More recently, the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) has provided two thirds of government revenue.

The global recession, recent reform of SACU and most of all financial mismanagement have produced a massive but predictable black hole in the Swazi economy which, until recently, has virtually been ignored. Following major criticisms from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), members of the Royal Family and Government have attempted to address the problem by approaching other countries in the hope of obtaining a loan - so far with no success.

In their desperation to obtain approval for a loan, at the end of an IMF delegation to the country Swaziland’s Finance Minister Majozi Sithole announced new tax rules, the privatisation of some public services and plans to cut 7,000 public sector jobs. The IMF’s encouragement for cuts to jobs and services in a country where 40 per cent are already unemployed will inevitably increase the number living in hardship, and trade unions have criticised the measures.

The majority of the Swazi population live under the harshest of conditions. Almost 70 percent live on less than a dollar a day and over a quarter are reliant on food aid. Swaziland has an HIV rate of 26.1 percent (the highest in the world), the consequences of which are horrendous: life expectancy has plummeted to 47 years, and 30 per cent of children are either orphaned or are living with a critically ill parent.

Much of the nation’s wealth lies in the hands of a tiny minority. The Royal Family and its entourage continue to benefit from a massive slice of the national budget, generous contributions from business and industry and the vast Tibyo fund; an undisclosed amount held ‘in trust’ by the King for the people of Swaziland, but only ever used to support a very select minority. $6 million in government funds is lost every month through corruption and, while the country’s semi-feudal agricultural system helps to prop up wealthy landowners, those who farm the land remain in poverty.

One area unlikely to see substantial cuts is the country’s security forces.

The vast military might of this tiny nation and its huge police force lead many to ask what threat the nation faces when it hasn’t seen a war in over a century. This vast force is more focused on keeping order within the country rather than defending it from any external threat.

The Government has promised not to make cuts to education and health, but both areas start from an already low funding base, and cuts to higher education were made in January this year [2010]. In March 2009 Swaziland’s High Court ordered the Government to adhere to its constitutional commitment and provide free education to primary school children, but the legal order did not demand any actual action. A further court case resulted in the judge ruling that the provision of free education was dependent on resources, not a commitment in the constitution.

Despite its problems little is invested in the nation’s health. Leaking roofs, unreliable water supplies, a lack of beds and ‘burnout’ among nurses are commonplace in hospitals and clinics.

According to Sophia Mukasa Monico, Country Coordinator for UNAIDS in Swaziland, these appalling conditions are keeping patients away: “Women are refusing to come to some clinics and hospitals because of the poor environment and the attitude of the health workers.”

Swaziland may call itself a democracy but in reality bears little resemblance to one. The country’s power lies firmly in the hands of the King and those he appoints: the Government and local chiefs, who have extensive powers over their communities, including controls over land and the right to education. This contributes towards a climate in which people feel highly restricted and unable to speak out.

Freedom and rights in Swaziland have become so bad that the country now ranks lower than Zimbabwe and DRC [Democratic Republic of Congo] on the respected Mo Ibrahim Index for participation and human rights. The repressive Suppression of Terrorism Act is used liberally to brandish anyone who speaks out as a terrorist and is regularly used to harass, arrest and torture dissenting voices. In a country where political parties are banned and the main opposition has been declared terrorist, trade unions often fill the resultant void by providing a space where political dialogue can take place. The Government is attempting to limit even this by pushing ahead with a Public Services Bill which would prevent state employees from discussing anything deemed ‘political’.

Despite this, and against all odds, voices of dissent in Swaziland are increasing. Many in Swaziland find it difficult to fathom why the international community is so reluctant to take up their plight.

One factor is a Government which uses every opportunity to portray a completely inaccurate picture of the country.

Tourists see a nation which projects itself as successfully marrying modern affluence with cultural traditions. Those who arrive from South Africa will be surprised at the impressive highway, lined with luxurious houses.

Announcements at Matsapha International Airport proudly inform passengers of the US $150 million project to build a new [Sikhuphe] airport. As they visit the cultural village or experience the infamous Reed Dance, in which young virgin women dance for the King so he can choose his next wife, tourists will remain oblivious to the poverty and inequality that lies behind this facade of affluence and culture.

Much of the media is strictly controlled by the Government. Radio and television are largely under the control of the state, the Observer Group of newspapers is controlled by the Royal Family and the Times of Swaziland Group, although independent, practices extremely strict self censorship.

Issues which many would consider to be in the national interest are often blocked in the interest of national security or to protect the country’s image. In October the Prime Minister, Barnabas Dlamini, announced the creation of a law which would require newspaper columnists to seek permission before writing critically about the Government.

Attempts have even been made to restrict foreign coverage of sensitive issues in Swaziland.

After decades of silence there is a growing global movement working to highlight the dire situation in Swaziland.

The Swaziland Democracy Campaign, with chapters in both Swaziland and South Africa, is building momentum for a regional and international campaign for democracy and rights.

Voices within the United Nations and in particular the International Labour Organisation are slowly growing stronger but are consistently met with procrastination from a government desperate to hold on to the status quo, which hides behind the country’s rich and unique culture.

The world is waking up to the political and economic crisis is Swaziland, but it is doing so far too slowly. With few natural resources, a small population and because it is often overshadowed by its regional neighbours, the situation can far too easily be overlooked by international governments. As well as pressure from within, if Swaziland is to see any fundamental and positive change in the near future, it will take many voices from across the globe to speak out about the plight of the Swazi people and ensure that international governments stop ignoring the growing political and economic crisis.

WOMEN SUFFER FROM MALE HIV POLICY

Women in Swaziland are reporting that men who have been circumcised as part of the government’s anti-HIV drive are refusing to use condoms during sex because they believe the ‘snip’ means it is impossible for them to spread the virus.

Many of the women did not realise that men who have recently been circumcised must not have sex for six weeks after the operation.

And six in ten women believe they will be victims of gender violence, because men would refuse to use condoms after being circumcised.

These are some of the findings in a report published this month (December 2010) by the Women’s HIV Prevention Tracking Project (WHiPT).

WHiPT, a project that brings community perspectives, particularly women’s voices, to the forefront of the HIV and AIDS response, concluded that the Swazi Government was ignoring the impact its circumcision policy was having on women in the kingdom.

There has been much reported about how male circumcision can supposedly reduce the risk of spreading HIV. In Swaziland, the Government has whole-heartedly bought into the idea that all sexually-active males should get the snip, even though there is ample evidence that circumcision doesn’t prevent the spread of HIV, or at best it makes no difference one way or another.

The WHiPT report called Making Medical Male Circumcision Work for Women is believed to be the first attempt to find out from Swazi women what their experiences are with men who have been circumcised.

WHiPT says that although the Swaziland Government’s policy of male circumcision includes monitoring and evaluating how the policy is working there is nothing in place to see whether women are benefiting, being harmed or not being affected at all, by the policy.

WHiPT interviewed a total of 73 women in 10 communities in rural and semi-urban areas of Swaziland. Of these 73 women, 64 had heard about the Medical Male Circumcision (MMC) project.

When asked if they were aware that there is need for consistent condom use after MMC, only 61 percent (39 out of the 64 women who knew about the project) said: Yes. This same percentage of respondents was aware that MMC does not provide 100-percent protection. Only 52 percent (33/64) knew that men need to abstain from sex for six weeks after MMC.

There’s a fear that men would increase their sexual risk-taking behaviors because they feel more or completely protected by MMC. This fear was expressed by 55 percent (22/40) of the women.

One of the women interviewed told the researchers, ‘Men would think they are 100 percent protected and they will continue to have sex without condoms with multiple partners putting me as wife at risk of getting HIV.

Only 47 percent (30/64) of the women said they talk about MMC with their partners. However, 86 percent (55/64) of the women were willing to be involved in the decision-making process to support their male partners during the healing process and to discuss circumcising their male children.

Fifty-two percent (33/64) of the women reported they are not comfortable asking their male partners to use male or female condoms, as men are the sexual decision-makers.

Only 33 percent (21/64) of the women said that they are currently and consistently using condoms.

WHiPT reported, ‘This number may be higher than other cohorts in Swaziland, given that the women surveyed were assumed to be predominantly HIV-positive.’

The women who are currently not using condoms said that their male partners would refuse to use condoms even when circumcised because they’ll falsely believe that they are 100-percent protected.

One woman told the researchers, ‘My partner does not want to use condoms even now. Nothing will make him to change his mind to use it. Men are difficult to convince.’

About 61 percent of the women said MMC would negatively impact gender-based violence, because men would refuse to use condoms after being circumcised. Condom negotiation would be even more difficult after MMC, given its current challenges, the women reported.

One woman told the researchers, ‘We were asked to use condoms and now circumcision. We are confused. Men are refusing to use condoms and we are not in the position to defend or negotiate for safe sex.’

WHiPT recommended, ‘Swaziland’s HIV/AIDS policy makers along with implementers and civil society advocates must address gender implications of MMC in the current policy by identifying, messaging and monitoring for potentially harmful outcomes of promoting MMC, such as increased behavior risks and sexual violence against women.’

The WHiPT report surveys women in five African nations, including Swaziland. To read the full report, click here

DEPRESSING TRUTH ABOUT SWAZILAND

This is the latest article about Swaziland from the IRIN News Agency, which is distributed worldwide. It gives an accurate, but very pessimistic picture, of conditions in the kingdom ruled by King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch.

And what a depressing picture it is: subsistence farmers are unable to plough their field because the government cannot afford to buy the fuel to run the tractors, unemployment is 40 percent, HIV infection is the highest in the world, but the government is cutting the amount of money spent on HIV budgets. Meanwhile, the Swazi Government awards itself huge salary increases and wastes money on unnecessary vanity projects while up to 10,000 civil servants are to lose their jobs and the chronically poor number seven in ten of the Swazi population.

SOURCE

SWAZILAND: A poorer government means more poor people

Mbabane, 7 December 2010 (IRIN) - Swaziland's declining revenue and a refusal to shelve prestige projects in the face of growing unemployment is exerting pressure on public health services and food production.



The government recently conceded that unemployment was running at 40 percent, despite doggedly maintaining for many years that it was 26 percent, but economists expect this to rise, pushing up already high poverty levels - about two-thirds of Swazis live in chronic poverty.



Subsistence farmers on communal Swazi Nation Land, where about 80 percent of the country's one million population reside, use government tractors for ploughing, but government fuel depots have run dry and the machines are standing idle.



"This is planting season. It is December now, and for six weeks we have not been able to get seeds in the ground," Joshua Mnisi, a farmer in the central Manzini region, told IRIN.



Renting a government tractor costs about US$19 an hour, but private contractors charge twice as much. The extent of the impact on food production will only be known once a food assessment survey is undertaken in 2011.



Swaziland has the world's highest HIV prevalence rate - 26.1 percent – so one in four Swazis between the ages of 15 and 49 is living with the virus, and about half of those infected, or 110 000, are on antiretroviral (ARV) drugs, which can prolong a person’s life.



Prime Minister Sibusiso Dlamini told the National Emergency Response Committee (NERCHA) that the budget for HIV/AIDS would be cut by 10 percent in 2011, just as efforts to intensify the roll-out of ARVs gets underway.



"The ARV rollout is a big budget expense, and the focus of our efforts. What happens now that government has less money to spend on life-saving measures?" said AIDS activist Vusi Kunene.



Public worker retrenchments



A spate of company closures from timber plantations to garment factories resulted in widespread retrenchments in 2010. The government is the country's largest employer, but a drop in revenue from sources such as the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) of about 70 percent compared to 2009, led Prime Minister Sibusiso Dlamini to warn that the financial squeeze could lead to public workers’ salaries not being paid.



SACU - the world's oldest customs union, comprising Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland - applies a common set of tariffs and disproportionately distributes the revenue to member states and has provided an economic lifeline to both Swaziland and Lesotho.



The International Monetary Fund (IMF) recommended that the government cut its workforce by a third, or 10,000 employees, because the number of workers on the payroll was disproportionate to the country's size. Political opposition groups have blamed patronage and nepotism for the inflated payrolls.



Government has announced a reduction of 7,000 public service jobs in 2011.

The lay-off of public workers is expected to be cushioned by retirement packages, but the impact of such a substantial number of people being retrenched will have a ripple effect throughout the economy.



"This will result in the consumption rate of our goods and services falling due to less demand, and we will be affected one way or the other," said Fikile Nkosi, managing director of a major bank.



According to the government's Central Statistics Office, one employed person supports, on average, 10 others.



"The customary method of integrating former civil servants into private life is for them to use their government retirement pensions to open small businesses," said Amos Ndwandwe, an economist at a bank in the capital, Mbabane. "It takes years to make a successful business and many fail under normal circumstances, but it is complicated now because higher unemployment means fewer customers."



Numbers of poor increasing



However, government spending on non-essential programmes has not been cut. A recent request by the finance minister for an additional $50 million towards the building of an international airport was approved by parliament and the airport's final cost is expected to be in the region of $1 billion.



Cabinet officials have also awarded themselves substantial pay rises, and have extended retirement benefits to former government officials, contrary to IMF recommendations that public sector wage raises be curtailed. Swaziland is ruled by sub-Saharan Africa's last absolute monarch, King Mswati III.



"For decades government has paid lip service to poverty eradication while concentrating on investment in capital projects. The result is that while a Swazi middle class has expanded, this is just inertia brought on by population growth, because the number of poor has expanded also,” Ndwandwe said.



"In terms of proportion, the numbers are the same as what the UNDP [UN Development Programme] reported in the 1990s - about two-thirds of the people live on one dollar a day - there has not been a dent really in those who live in chronic poverty,” he noted



"All indications are that the percentage is going to change - as more business shut and public sector workers are laid off, it is inevitable that more people will join the ranks of the poor."

SWAZI GOVERNMENT FAILS HIV TEST

This is a statement issued on World AIDS Day (1 December 2010) by the Swaziland National Union of Students (SNUS).

SOURCE

SNUS STATEMENT ON WORLD AIDS DAY



We join the whole world in commemorating the world AIDS day. This is a day where we humbly ourselves and commemorate the patriots of this wonderful world who had consciously or unconsciously fallen victims of this viciousness diseases. We commemorate this day completely aware that AIDS claims more lives than the total sum of victims of wars we had fought in the past.

We, as the progressive students of Swaziland are aware that our beloved country, Swaziland has the highest HIV-AIDS prevalence rate in the whole world. It is totally embarrassing and unbelievable that in a small country likes Swaziland, where there is a population of about a million people, 26% of them are HIV positive. However, as the students of Swaziland, we are not surprised as this a direct consequence of the arrogant and undemocratic government that we have in the country. We are aware that the government has plunged the country into the socio-economic and political quagmire we are in now.

Our government has immensely failed to come up with a clear participatory campaign to combat the spread of HIV and AIDS. The government led by the illegally appointed prime minister has over the years failed to come up with strategies and policies to fight the spread of HIV and AIDS. Our government has allowed an inhuman and degrading environment which has become a fertile ground for the spread of HIV and AIDS.

Two thirds of the Swazi population lives below poverty line, a number of young people in the country are unemployed and do not have formal education. The continual exploitation of our brothers and sisters by foreigners in Matsapha industrial site has contributed immensely in the spread of HIV and AIDS.

Our sister and brothers work long hours and are paid very little. This has led to the youth to resort into unhealthy means in finding a living. We acknowledge the work done by the government of distributing ARVs, but what can ARVs do to a hungry person in Msunduza with no food, job and proper medication. What can ARVs do to a person who goes to a hospital and finds no medication for the diseases that you become prone to when infected with HIV and aids?

Our government hospitals have been turned into half way station where sick people wait for their cruel and inhuman death. Government has over the years failed to provide up-to-standard healthy facilities which will come in handy in fighting the spread of HIV and AIDS. Our government hospitals lack well motivated and rewarded personnel to take care of the sick people. They work in terrible conditions where there are no proper equipment and medication for doing their work properly.

After all, what can we expect from a bunch of clowns masquerading as legislators? What can you expect from a minister who is suppose to be a role model, who publicly say when she says ‘no’, she actually means ‘yes’? What can you expect from this government where you have a senior prince and a chairman of Liqoqo (king’s advisory body) who impregnates young girls and openly deny the existence of HIV and AIDS. What can you expect from a government where a legislator publicly says all those with HIV and aids must be marked, labelled and branded?

On this historic day, we unapologetically call for accessible, affordable and relevant education system that will be informed by the socio economic demands of the country. This is because, not only is education a right and entitlement, but it is also crucial for tackling global poverty, improving health, halting the spread of HIV and AIDS and enabling people to play a full and active role in their communities.

We also call upon all the young people of Swaziland to take charge of their own lives and future. We call upon them to abstain from sex and to always have protected sex if they cannot abstain. We also encourage all Swazi people to be faithfully to their partners and stick to one partner.

In conclusion, we are aware that our countryside is littered with graves of young people. It is littered with graves of our beloved sisters and brothers, patriots of this country and future doctors and engineers of our beloved motherland who had fallen victims of this deadly disease. Therefore, there is no time to rest; we need to combat HIV and AIDS. We need to restore human dignity and call for a democratic government that will allow popular participation of the people of Swaziland and seek to empower and develop its citizens. HIV- AIDS and Tinkhundla must be swept away.