SWAZI PM STILL DENIES AWARD IS CON

And still Barnabas Dlamini, the illegally-appointed Prime Minister of Swaziland, refuses to accept he received a medal for his ‘humanitarian’ work from a con man at the head of a sham international organisation.

Dlamini went to the Bahamas earlier this month (October 2010) to get a medal from Rudy King, even though King had been exposed worldwide as a con artist.

Dlamini yesterday (21 October 2010) tried to defend accepting the award by saying King was respected in Swaziland and had been ‘in and out of the country since the century began’.

He told a news conference that the media ‘had sung his praises’ when he wanted to open an office in Swaziland.

Dlamini also said King had previously awarded his medal to other Swazi luminaries. ‘In 2005 he gave an award to a prince (David), gave a medal to Prince Guduza in 2007 and to the prime minister in 2008, so what is the difference now in 2010? His history in Swaziland is rich. This is the fourth medal he has presented to Swazis but now the focus is on 2010.’

I’ll tell Dlamini what the difference is in 2010: somebody took the trouble to make inquiries about Rudy King. I was one of those people (among many others) and I’ll tell Dlamini how we did it.

At the centre of the scandal was an organisation called World Citizen Awards (WCA) headed by King. The Swazi Government had put out a press release saying WCA was to honour Dlamini for the work he was doing for human rights. We knew something was fishy because Dlamini is an enemy of human rights and doesn’t deserve an award.

We went to the Internet and found the website for WCA. On there was a list of trustees who were said to be the backbone of the organisation. Each person listed had a reputation as advocates for human rights and it seemed odd that they would vote to give Dlamini a medal.

We emailed each of the trustees and within hours received a reply from one of them that said he was the victim of a hoax. It turned out that none of the trustees had ever heard of WCA and certainly were not supporters.

The Associated Press (AP) news agency took up the story and realised that the WCA was a sham organisation consisting only of a website and an accommodation address.

Once the AP story hit the Internet, journalists in the Bahamas who knew Rudy King of old ran reports about his background as a con artist.

Dlamini cannot dispute any of these facts. The truth is that Rudy King is a con artist and Dlamini has been taken in. Dlamini was embarrassed by King, but he has humiliated himself by continuing to insist that King and his medal are genuine.

So, in case Dlamini hasn’t quite understood: the reason why 2010 is different. It is because some journalists did their job, which Swazi reporters in previous years did not.

SWAZI PM DLAMINI IS LOSING THE PLOT

I think Swaziland Prime Minister Barnabas Dlamini dost protest too much about the bogus award he received from conman Rudy King.

Dlamini is still trying to convince us that the medal for his ‘humanitarian’ work given by the sham organisation World Citizens Award (WCA) is genuine.

The latest attempt by Dlamini, who was illegally appointed PM of Swaziland by King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, was at the Swazi Senate this week.

He told senators the award was legitimate because people of ‘high stature’ were present with him at the awards ceremony held in the Bahamas earlier this month (October 2010).

He said those in attendance were ‘not just randomly picked from the streets’. And besides, before they had the ceremony they all met together for a service at a Cathedral. And there was a bishop there, so that proves it was legitimate.

Dlamini sounds like a small boy trying to convince his parents that he hasn’t been naughty.

He clearly has a very juvenile mind, because he told senators that among the people of ‘high stature’ at the awards ceremony were Ashford and Simpson.

Ashford and Simpson? No, I wasn’t sure who they were either. It turns out they’re a singer-songwriter duo who last had a hit in the 1980s.

So to Swaziland’s Prime Minister the fact that Ashford and Simpson attended the awards ceremony makes it legitimate.

Dlamini is exposed here. Everyone knows that the WCA is bogus and that people the organisation claims as its trustees say they haven’t even heard of the organisation. Rudy King has been exposed as a crook and a conman. Dlamini’s award is not legitimate. It is a fake medal. It is a bogus honour.

Dlamini is losing the plot. He should stop trying to defend this medal and admit he was conned. He has made a serious error of judgement in accepting the award and he compounds the error by trying to justify it.

SWAZI PM DLAMINI IS CONNED AGAIN

Astonishing! That’s the only word I can think of to describe Barnabas Dlamini’s claim that the award he received in the Bahamas from disgraced conman Rudy King was legitimate.

Dlamini, Swaziland’s illegally-appointed Prime Minister, said this even though it was revealed that King’s World Citizen Awards (WCA) organisation was a sham and the people King said were its trustees (and were the judges for the award) publicly said they had nothing to do with WCA and had never heard of it.

Despite this evidence that Dlamini had been taken for a fool, he still maintains the medal for humanitarian work was valid.

Dlamini spoke to reporters on his return to Swaziland yesterday (14 October 2010). The Times of Swaziland, the only independent daily newspaper in the kingdom, reported him saying, just because Rudy King ‘had a colourful past did not mean he could not have rehabilitated himself’.

Dlamini went on to say the award was legitimate because previous Prime Minister, Absalom Themba Dlamini, the Speaker of the House of Assembly, Prince Guduza, and former Justice and Constitutional Affairs Minister, Prince David, had all been recipients of the award in the past.

Dlamini said, ‘Dr King firstly explained his history to us and said he was not proud of his past, but just because he had a bad history did not mean one could not rehabilitate himself.’

He said King further told them, in actual fact, few people were proud of their past and he was a changed man which is why he had established the foundation.

But Mr Prime Minister, he would say that wouldn’t he? - because he is a conman.

As I say, Astonishing. Dlamini has made a complete fool of himself and he has done it in the glare of international publicity. He is supposed to be a leader of a nation but how could anyone inside Swaziland or on the world stage trust his judgement ever again?

It’s time for Dlamini to go before he does any more damage to Swaziland.

EX-SWAZI PM'S NEW LINK TO CONMAN

The Swazi Government was so taken in by con man Rudy King it offered him the chance to open an office in Swaziland.

King is the man behind the bogus ‘humanitarian’ award given to Barnabas Dlamini, Swaziland’s illegally appointed Prime Minister.

As I reported on 4 October 2010, Barnabas Dlamini wasn’t the only Swazi Prime Minister who fell for King’s con. The previous Prime Minister Themba Dlamini was taken-in as well.

Following up on my report, the Times of Swaziland discovered in its files that in 2007 Themba Dlamini was quoted as saying members of King’s foundation would be visiting Swaziland to finalise the setting up of an office. King had claimed his organisation funded education by giving grants to primary and high schools, colleges and universities around the world.

Of course, nothing came of this offer and as far as I known Themba Dlamini never talked about it publicly again.

Themba Dlamini was well and truly bamboozled by King, who is a well-known con artist in the Bahamas and the United States.

Themba Dlamini told the media upon his return to Swaziland after receiving his medal, ‘I am humbled for being identified as one of the people to deserve the award and I am dedicating it to the Swazi nation as my efforts would not have been recognised had I not been serving the Swazi nation.’

He was embroiled in a controversy after his return when it was discovered that he had taken his wife and his ‘spiritual advisor’, Pastor Phila Mathunjwa, with him to the Bahamas to collect his award. Mathunjwa flew business class, which cost E39 000 (nearly 6,000 US dollars).

When independent newspapers in Swaziland tried to get the government to come clean over the cost they were told to mind their own business and because there is no freedom of information law in the kingdom, ruled by King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, there was nothing much they could do about it.

WHICH MAN IS THE CON ARTIST?

Which one of these two men is the con man?

One is Barnabas Dlamini, who is the illegally-appointed Prime Minister of Swaziland. Dlamini says he is a friend of democracy, but wants to torture people who campaign against his government. He also calls himself ‘doctor’ when he has no such qualification. If he applied for a job at a university and claimed to be a doctor he would be committing a crime.

The other man is Rudy King. He goes one better and calls himself ‘His Excellency’. He has a track record of crime and fraud in the Bahamas, most recently concerning the World Citizen Awards, a scam organisation that awarded Dlamini with a bogus medal for his human rights work.

The picture was taken at the World Citizen Awards last weekend when Dlamini received his medal.

The picture was published in the Tribune, Bahamas, on Monday 4 October 2010.

SWAZI PM ACCEPTS CON MAN’S MEDAL

Barnabas Dlamini, Swaziland’s illegally-appointed Prime Minister, accepted his human rights medal this weekend even though the organisation awarding it had been exposed as a scam and the man leading it is a well-known con man.

Dlamini was in the Bahamas to accept the medal from the World Citizen Awards, which had been exposed on Friday (1 October 2010) by the Associated Press (AP) news agency as ‘little more than a Florida phone number and website’.

AP also revealed that World Citizen Awards had lied about the identity of its supporters and about other aspects of the award.

The media in the Bahamas then exposed the background of Rudy King, a well-known con man who has a history of illegal activity.

Despite this Dlamini felt able to accept the medal, which the Swazi Government had said in an official statement, was made because Dlamini is a ‘highly respected global figure, whose role in history has been significant’.

This award was in recognition of his ‘pre-eminent role in the shaping of the global community and continued influence on the world stage’, it said.

When cornered by the Tribune newspaper in the Bahamas, Rudy King changed his tune about why the medal had been awarded.

He told the Tribune that the award was not actually for the Prime Minister of Swaziland Barnabas Dlamini but rather the Kingdom of Swaziland for its efforts in combating the scourge of the AIDS virus.

‘Swaziland was chosen, not the prime minister. The Kingdom of Swaziland was chosen for their strides to combat AIDS in their country. The honour was placed on him because he is the present Prime Minister,’ King told the Tribune.

Back in Swaziland there remain unanswered questions. Why did the Swazi Government approve of the award without first checking on the background of the organisation giving it? How much has it cost the Swazi taxpayer to send Dlamini and his entourage to the Bahamas and did they have to pay any money to the World Citizen Awards organisation to subsidise the cost of the ceremony?

And lastly: Why did Dlamini go ahead and accept the award after the world knew that it was being given by a scam organisation and a con artist?