It says the Prince, aged 60, has admittedhe is the father of a four-year-old child to a woman who is now only aged 18. That means she must have been 13 or 14 when he had sex with her.
The SDC says that means at the time Prince Logcogco had sex with her she was ‘a minor’ (that is under 16 – the age of consent).
In a statement the SDC says, ‘the girl in question is said to be currently in her teens and the child at the centre of the custody battle between the chief and the teenager is currently four years of age.
‘The SDC wonders if at the time of the casual sex encounter the girl was not a minor who was in no position to legally consent to sex with a man old enough to be her grandfather in which case the chief committed statutory rape.’
The mother of the child also alleged in a newspaper interviewthat Prince Logcogco had abused the four-year-old child.
The SDC now calls on the Royal Swaziland Police and the media in the kingdom ‘to thoroughly investigate both the alleged sexual abuse (child) claims and the statutory rape (teenage mother) so that it is established if a crime or crimes were committed and those responsible are brought to book’.
sub-Saharan Africa's last absolute monarch, says the problem of HIV in Swaziland is exaggerated and there is an international conspiracy by drug companies to make sure a cure is never found.
The remarks by Prince Logcogco (also known as Prince Logcogco Mangaliso) were made in an interview with the Times of Swaziland, the only independent newspaper in the kingdom, ruled by King Mswati, Logcogco’s cousin.
Prince Logcogco boasted of his many sexual conquests. He said he did not live his life wondering how he would die but rather lived each day as it came, avoiding being reckless though.
‘I am not scared of HIV,’ he said.
Prince Logcogco is in the news this week because of a row he is having over custody of a child he fathered with a teenage girl. As I reported yesterday (17 August 2010) it seems he had sex with the teenager when she was under the age of consent and as such he has broken the law in Swaziland and, according to the Girls’ and Women’s Protection Act could face 24 lashes and a jail term. Media in Swaziland have so far ignored this aspect of his custody dispute.
He told the newspaper, as long as one had a body with all the senses and hormones, it was difficult to be pure and not have casual sex.
He said he would never encourage people to have one sexual partner or not to have concurrent sexual partners because that would be devoid of the reality on the ground.
He said the reality was that Swazis were having sexual intercourse with different people amid the ‘exaggerated’ threats of HIV.
He said the pharmaceutical industry was using the scourge of HIV to amass wealth.
‘This industry is making a lot of money and if there was no HIV there would be a lot of people who would lose business. What is now happening is that they are making so much exaggeration about HIV/AIDS so that they can keep their businesses afloat.’
In ordinary circumstances, one wouldn’t take much notice of someone as ignorant of the reality of HIV as Prince Logcogco, but his social status in the kingdom, as a ‘senior’ prince and also as chair of Liqoqo, gives him enormous influence in Swaziland.
As is the case of so many commentators who use the Swazi media to peddle their prejudices, Prince Logcogco chooses to ignore the facts if they allow him to justify his own despicable behaviour.
Here are the statistics on AIDS in Swaziland, courtesy of James Hall, ‘The Guinness Book of the Decade, covering 2000 to 2010, lists Swaziland with the highest death rate in world, 22,1 deaths per 1000 people per annum, for the period 2005 to 2010.
‘The popular reference work also cites Swaziland has having the highest rate of death from AIDS: 145 5 persons per 100 000 annually.
‘At an event to mark World Population Day last week, Khanya Mabuza, Deputy Director of NERCHA, said the estimated figures on the rate of deaths related to AIDS might be even higher than officially reported. NERCHA estimates 7 862 deaths in 2008 out of a population of around one million, and 7123 deaths in 2009.’
The media in Swaziland are far too critical of the kingdom’s royal family.
Who says so? The royal family, of course.
I had another of those Laugh Out Loud moments when I read this in the Swazi Observer,the newspaper in effect owned by King Mswati III,sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch.
Prince Masitsela, the king’s brother, told a so-called SMART partnership meeting that there was a growing trend where the media would carry sensational stories about Royalty. He said many of these were ill-conceived and anti-Swazi culture.
Prince Masitsela said there was a marked lack of respect in some media houses in Swaziland. ‘This was never heard of in our time. What you are doing is destroying the country and you must go back to the drawing board. We are not saying do not criticise, but when you do so, do so with responsibility, truthfulness and respect for your country.’
Another member of the royal family Prince Logcogco Mangaliso told the same meeting that in the past children were encouraged to read newspapers to get fresh information and to enrich themselves with knowledge. ‘I wonder if we can encourage them to do the same today,’ he said.
King Mswati himself said the media ‘should be professional at all times and adhere to the spirit of respect, nation building and the promotion of peace’.
Of course it’s all nonsense. The media in Swaziland are not disrespectful of the king and the royal family, or of power in general.
As I revealed in July 2008 in my research for the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) the opposite is the case.
The research concluded fear of monarchy and the power it has over the kingdom and media houses within it is by far the main cause of media censorship in Swaziland. This is both censorship imposed by King Mswati III and self-censorship. The king has threatened to close down titles that offend him and in recent history has done exactly that. There are also high levels of self-censorship around the king and the Queen Mother, since editors, aware of threats made in the past by the king, do not want to get themselves into trouble.
Since my report was published King Mswati has been personally involved in intimidating the media.In May 2009 he forced the Times of Swaziland to drop Mfomfo Nkhambuleas a columnist in the newspaper because of his outspoken views on the power structure in Swaziland. The king was also angered by reports in the media (also covered by the international press) that he had spent 2.5 million US dollars (about E25 million) on top of the range Mercedes cars for his wives.
Times publisher Paul Loffler was hauled before the king and told to produce invoices to back up his story about the cars and then he was forced to apologise when he couldn’t. These apologies appeared in both the Times and the Times Sunday.
King Mswati has intimidated the Times group before. In 2007 it was forced to make an apology or face immediate closure after it repeated a news agency report that was critical of the king.
Nkhambule gained international attention for his articles that appeared each Monday in the Times and were largely critical of Swaziland’s ruling elite, including the king. He was hauled in by Swaziland’s state police and threatened with torture if he continued to criticise the king. He was later dropped from his traditional regiment, threatened with banishment from his homeland, and his family was threatened because he refused to be silenced.
To read my full report on media censorship in Swaziland, click here.
Swazi people are not mature enough to be trusted with running the kingdom.
And that’s why Swaziland doesn’t need political parties and why it is important to have the king in charge.
These were the words of Prince Logcogco Mangaliso, the newly-appointed chair of Swazi National Council Standing Committee (SNCSC), otherwise known as Liqoqo
Liqoqo is the board that ‘advises’ and it is claimed influences the thinking and attitude of King Mswati III.
Keen readers will note that the chair is a member of the Swazi Royal Family and therefore implacably opposed to democracy.
In a lengthy interview in the Swazi Observer(1 November 2008), the newspaper that is in effect owned by the king, Prince Logcogco Mangaliso said that the new Swazi constitution did not curtail the powers of the monarchy. According to the Weekend Observer he said, ‘every facet of running the country involves or touches upon the institution of the Monarch’.
‘“It is the same even in Republics, where powers are vested in the President.
‘“At anytime, there is one person who has to have authority,” he said.
‘The chairman rules the country using his own prerogative.
‘“Our people are not mature to be entrusted with the running of the country.”’
The Weekend Observer added, ‘Prince Logcogco Mangaliso said anyone who says the King’s powers have been curtailed does not understand the Constitution.’
On the subject of political parties which have been banned in Swaziland since 1973, the prince said Swazi people didn’t want them. This is a statement that is often repeated by enemies of democracy in Swaziland but there is no proof. Put simply: nobody has ever asked the people.
In his interview, Prince Logcogco Mangaliso said, ‘We discovered that a majority of Swazis didn’t have sufficient knowledge on political parties.’ This is hardly surprising since nearly all avenues of political debate are controlled by the state and the state is vehemently opposed to political parties because they in effect threaten the power of the ruling elites.
It is noteworthy that this interview was published in the same week that the Commonwealth Expert Team that observed Swaziland’s September 2008 elections called for a rewrite of the Swazi constitution, and urged that civic society and political parties be part of the process.
Nobody outside of Swaziland buys the view that Swazis cannot make up their own minds on how they want to be governed.
