Swazi culture is a prime cause of disparity and misery for Swazi women - a culture where woman are legally seen as minors.
Peter Kenworty’s Stiff Kitten blog reports that the Swaziland Single Mothers Organisation’s (SWASMO) Christmas meeting heard about the importance of women coming together to tackle their own problems.
For a full report, click here.
Even though Swaziland ratified the UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 2004 and the kingdom’s constitution promises equal treatment for both sexes, women face an uphill struggle for equality in King Mswati III’s Swaziland, according to Peter Kenworthy in his latest article on his stiffkitten blog.
Men and women still do not have equal status in Swaziland, as Swazi women are legally subordinate to men in, for example, both civil and traditional marriages. And even though the new constitution might have theoretically done away with laws that meant that Swazi women could not get a bank loan or own property without the written consent of their husbands, and thereby promoting them from the status of minors, these laws have not yet been revoked.
To read the full article click here.
Where does the Swaziland United Democratic Front (SUDF) go from here?
That’s the subject of Peter Kenworthy’s recent ‘stiffkitten’ blog.
He looks at the history of the SUDF and some of the challenges it faces today (lack of clear political vision, issues of leadership, personal ambition and lack of communication, a lack of discipline and decent behaviour within the democratic movement).
But there are also reasons to be positive for the future, since the SUDF is one of the few organisations that seriously and consistently advocates democracy in the kingdom.
Kenworthy interviewed the following people between 30 August and 5 September 2010 for his article: Mario Masuku, PUDEMO president; Wandile Dludlu, SWAYOCO president; Jan Sithole, former SFTU secretary-general; Bheki Makhubu, The Nation editor; Morten Nielsen, Africa Contact; Mduduzi Gina, SFTU secretary-general; Vincent Ncongwane, SUDF and SFL secretary-general; and a Street Vendors conference on 1 September.
Swaziland’s government is under attack from the United Kingdom over the way it treated a UK national during last week’s protest action in the kingdom.
Swazi police rounded up foreigners who attended a meeting in support of democratic change in the kingdom ruled by King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, and after assaulting and harassing them expelled them from Swaziland.
Now a representative of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has said it will be ‘making representations’ towards the Swazi regime over the ‘mistreatment’ of a UK foreign national during the Global Week of Action in Swaziland.
Peter Kenworthy, who writes the stiffkitten blog, reports today (17 September 2010). ‘The Foreign and Commonwealth Office takes all allegations of mistreatment against British nationals very seriously and will raise the allegations with the relevant authority in the country concerned,’ the representative wrote on 16 September in a reply to an email sent to them raising the issues of the mistreatment of a British citizen on 7 September in Manzini.
A delegation from Danish organisation Africa Contact, including two Danish citizens and one British, Peter Kenworthy, were detained by police, beaten, threatened, and denied any legal representation, food, drink, or visits to the toilet during a five hour ordeal at Manzini Regional Police Headquarters.
The representative also stated that they would ask ‘our High Commission in Pretoria to raise the allegations with the Swaziland authorities’, and insisted that they would ‘ask for an investigation to be conducted and the perpetrator(s) brought to justice’.
Lutfo Dlamini, the Swaziland Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, has denied that three Danish men were beaten up by Swazi police and claims their story only received attention because they are white.
Last Monday (6 September 2010), police raided a meeting to plan for a protest march for democracy in Swaziland and detained activists, with a number of foreigners, including three Danish nationals.
Later Peter Kenworthy of Africa Contact, Denmark, gave details of his ill treatment at the hands of the police. He said he was detained by Swazi police, assaulted and told he would ‘never return to your country. You will die here’.
Now Dlamini, who was not present when the assaults took place, claims Kenworthy made up the claims for ‘cheap propaganda.’
Of course, Dlamini, takes us for idiots. It is well documented that police routinely assault suspects. For examples of three recent cases click here, here, and here.
Instead of tackling the main issue that the Swazi police force is out of control and has no respect for the rule of law, Dlamini is trying to deflect attention away from the central issue.
Speaking to the Swazi News, an independent newspaper in Swaziland, Dlamini said the Danish nationals ‘were out to discredit the image of the country in pursuit of making the country look bad in the eyes of the international community’.
‘Why are you interested in their issue? Is it because they are white?’
It then emerged that Dlamini hadn’t even read the details of the complaints, but he none-the-less felt qualified to dismiss them out of hand.
He is talking through his hat. The world’s attention has been on Swaziland for some time now. Massive human rights and civil liberties violations are being reported in the global media and pro-democracy groups have condemned Swaziland, which is ruled with an iron fist by King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch.
None of the reports or the advocacy groups has made any concession to victims who are white. You only need to look at the worldwide outrage over the death in custody of Sipho Jele to know that the democrats do not discriminate on the colour of a person’s skin.
The fact is that Dlamini has no connection with the truth. As I pointed out last month (August 2010), he is incapable of telling the truth when it comes to the true situation in Swaziland.
