I hear that Wikileaks is to include 89 cables about Swaziland sent out by the American Embassy in Mbabane.
When you consider that’s 89 out of a total 251,287 diplomatic and not-so-diplomatic messages sent by US embassies across the world to the State Department in Washington it certainly puts Swaziland in its place.
As you know by now, Wikileaks has received confidential and secret communications from US embassies across the world and many of them reveal for the first time publicly what the Americans really think about their friends and foes alike in the international community.
I don’t suppose the cables will reveal much we don’t already know about what the US thinks about Swaziland: you could sum it up as ‘not that bothered, the kingdom just isn’t important to us’.
If the contents of some of the cables about other nations is anything to go by we might see some indiscreet remarks about ‘leaders’ in Swaziland.
What do the Americans really think about Lutfo Dlamini, Swaziland Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, and the man he sees as chosen by God, King Mswati III?
We should find out eventually. Wikileaks is publishing its stash of cables gradually on the Internet and if ‘newsworthiness’ is a criterion for how quickly a cable goes up on the web, we can expect to wait a very long time for the first one from Mbabane.
The Americans are backing a plan to mutilate 152,000 adolescent and adult Swazi men – 80 percent of the total population of this age range.
The plan is an experiment to see whether circumcisioncan prevent HIV infection spreading.
The Swaziland Ministry of Health has teamed up with the United States Government in what is being called the ‘Male Circumcision (MC) saturation initiative.’
According to the MC Co-ordinator, Ayanda Nqeketo, circumcising at least 80 percent of Swazi males will have a drastic decline on the HIV/AIDS rate in Swaziland.
A ‘drastic decline?’ Where’s the evidence? The only figures publicly available on whether circumcision has any effect on HIV spread in Swaziland shows it probably makes no difference at all.
The Swaziland Demographic and Health Survey (SDHS) of 2007 saysthe infection rate for circumcised males is 22 percent while for those uncircumcised it is 20 percent. So, on these figures circumcision is LESS likely to prevent HIV spreading – but allowing for statistical error, it is fair to say the figures probably show there is no difference one way or the other.
Circumcision could also be dangerous as there is evidence that men who have the snip do not practice ‘safe sex’ afterwards – some believing they no longer need to wear condoms.
But all of that hasn’t stopped the Americans using Swaziland as a test ground – and to get the data for their research, men in Swaziland must be mutilated.
Nqeketo is reported saying that the effectiveness of the Male Circumcision campaign will be evaluated and results will inform MC programs in 13 other countries in Southern and Eastern Africa.
Let’s just look at that again: the ‘campaign will be evaluated’ – that means they don’t know what the results will be, but the programme is being sold on the ‘fact’ that it will lead to a ‘drastic decline’ in HIV infection.
Nqeketo is reported in the Times of Swaziland,the kingdom’s only independent daily newspaper, saying that the programme will take a year and will use already existing Swaziland health staff.
‘At full capacity, he said, they anticipate requiring approximately 35 physicians and 245 nurses daily,’ the Times reported him saying.
So not only do we have a mad experiment of mutilation, it will take healthcare staff away from doing proper medical work for Swazi people who are sick.
The Swaziland Government has signed up for circumcision in a big way over the past three years. According to the government just about every male should get the snip and even newly born babies, who have no say in the matter, are expected to be cut.
They have been badly misled by crackpots who for whatever reason have an agenda to spread the lie that it is proven that circumcision will stop HIV.
If you think it is true that circumcision stops HIV ask yourself these questions: Why is it that no ‘first world’ country follows a policy of circumcision to prevent HIV? Why is the experiment taking place on African males and not back in the United States on men over there?
I hear that Barnabas Dlamini, Swaziland’s illegally-appointed Prime Minister, wants to meet with the US Ambassador to Swaziland Earl Irvine to ‘discuss’ a human rights report published last month (March 2010).
They’ll have a lot to discuss, since the comprehensive report on Swaziland from the US State Department tells it like it is.
Dlamini, who was appointed by King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, and his cronies like to put it about that Swaziland is a country of peace and harmony, where everyone is happy and the only ‘problems’ in the kingdom are in the imagination of the foreign media.
Here are the first two paragraphs of the report that stretches to more than 11,200 words. It gives you a flavour of the situation. Dlamini will have a lot of explaining to do when he meets up with the ambassador.
Swaziland is an absolute monarchy, and King Mswati III has ultimate authority over the cabinet, legislature, and judiciary. The population was approximately 1.02 million, according to the 2007 census. There was a prime minister and a partially elected parliament, but political power remained largely with the king and his traditional advisors, the most influential of whom remained the queen mother. International observers concluded that parliamentary elections held in September 2008 did not meet international standards. The 2008 Suppression of Terrorism Act to silence dissent and ban certain political organizations remained in effect. While civilian authorities generally maintained effective control of the security forces, there were some instances in which elements of the security forces committed abuses
Human rights problems included inability of citizens to change their government; extrajudicial killings by security forces; mob killings; police use of torture, beatings, and excessive force on detainees; police impunity; arbitrary arrests and lengthy pretrial detention; arbitrary interference with privacy and home; restrictions on freedoms of speech and press and harassment of journalists; restrictions on freedoms of assembly, association, and movement; prohibitions on political activity and harassment of political activists; discrimination and violence against women; child abuse; trafficking in persons; societal discrimination against members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transsexual community; discrimination against mixed-race and white citizens; harassment of labor leaders; restrictions on worker rights; and child labor.
My report yesterday (19 August 2009) that some of the wives of Swaziland’s King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, have undertaken a round the world shopping spree spending as much as six million US dollars is attracting international attention.
Swaziland’s king sends wives on shopping spree while subjects go hungry
King Mswati III of Swaziland, Africa’s last absolute monarch and ruler of some of the poorest people in the world, has sent his favourite wives on a multimillion-pound shopping jaunt through Europe, the Middle East and Asia, provoking fierce criticism of his profligacy.
Britain has been drawn into the row because of the millions of pounds in aid reportedly given to the kingdom, with campaigners accusing Whitehall of double standards. “They shout about Zimbabwe, but keep quiet about what is happening in Swaziland, even though they are one of its biggest aid donors. They are wasting British taxpayers’ money on this tyrant,” Lucky Lukhele, of the Swaziland Solidarity Network (SSN), told The Times.
The landlocked kingdom of Swaziland is home to about 1.2 million people, more than two thirds of whom live in abject poverty on less than 50 pence a day. More than a quarter of the adult population has HIV — the highest ratio in the world.
The king enjoys a personal fortune of about £145 million, as the beneficiary of two funds created by his father, Sobhuza II, in trust for the nation. He also receives money from the national budget for his family’s upkeep. Last year this totalled £12 million — more than was set aside for education.
Reports from the kingdom said that the king had dispatched at least five of his 13 wives and dozens of retainers to France, Italy, Dubai and Taiwan on a secret tour last week, using £4 million from the state budget. In Swaziland it is a criminal offence to criticise the king’s private life. The Government declined to comment.
Swaziland is heavily dependent on handouts from the international community. According to SSN, Britain pays the lion’s share of an estimated £65 million in annual European Union aid, the second-highest amount after the US, which donates about $200 million (£142 million) a year.
Two years ago, Foreign and Commonwealth Office cuts led to the closure of the UK’s Embassy in Mbabane, the capital, and the country is now monitored from neighbouring South Africa. A British diplomatic source said that the Government had made clear its concern over “governance issues” in Swaziland and no longer gave bilateral support.
King Mswati, who was educated at the English public school at Sherborne, Dorset, is no stranger to controversy. In May he bought 20 armoured Mercedes Benz cars at a cost of £150,000 each; last year he held a sumptuous “40/40” party to celebrate the twin events of his 40th birthday and the 40th anniversary of his country’s independence.
He owns several private palaces where he houses his many wives, some of whom have run away and sought refuge in South Africa.
