AUDIT THE SWAZI ROYAL FAMILY

The Swaziland Government wants to know just how poor people are in the kingdom.

We already know that seven in ten people in Swaziland earn less than one US dollar a day, but that hasn’t stopped the government embarking on the Swaziland Household Income and Expenditure Survey which will ask a selected number of families to record where their money comes from and how they spend it.

The families will be expected to declare how much money they earn and how much they spend on food, clothes and other items. They will also be expected to declare any gifts they receive from any source – and quantify them in monetary terms.

When there is so much poverty in the kingdom this does seem to be a bit of a waste of time ... and money.

However, I can see the survey having some value, as long as one particular family takes part: the one headed by King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch.

We already know the king has wealth estimated at 200 million US dollars (E2 billion), but what we don’t know is where that money comes from. He doesn’t have a proper job and the E130 million he is getting this year from the Swazi taxpayer is only a drop in the ocean.

It would also be handy to know how much he spends on palaces and his wives dresses. Last month (April 2009) he was reported to be buying up to 20 armoured cars for himself and his many wives but he got a bit shirty when the media estimated the cost to be about 2.5 million US dollars. A bit of transparency over the king’s spending would be most welcome.

Also in the realms of spending, it seems I’m not the only one worried about the way the king and his government spend money. It was revealed this week that a group of international donors with 40 million dollars to give to Swaziland are to meet with the king to ensure that he and his government don’t get their hands on the money. The donors want the money to go into a trust fund to be administered from South Africa with cash released directly to specific projects which satisfy the donors’ requirements.

And who can blame them when according to the Swazi Government itself E40 million a month is lost in Swaziland through corruption?

‘TIMES’ DROPS SWAZILAND DISSIDENT

Swazi dissident Mfomfo Nkhambule has had his controversial column dropped by the Times of Swaziland newspaper.

Nkhambule, who wrote each Monday for Swaziland’s only independent daily newspaper, has been in much trouble for his outspoken views on Swaziland’s ruling elites and in particular King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch.

Nkhambule received international attention when 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.

Now, the Times has dropped the column without notice. The Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) reports that Nkhambule, a former Cabinet Minister in the Swaziland Government and present chair of the Inhalva Forum political formation, confirmed that the ban came into effect last week and his columns will not appear again. MISA reports that he believes the newspaper was pressured to stop his articles.

Times’ Managing Editor, Martin Dlamini denies any pressure, saying Nkhambule’s column has simply been affected by the routine changes the newspaper was making with regards to content.

Nkhambule told MISA that he personally took his article to the Times last week for publication but was told of the ban without reasons being given.

‘I then received information from other quarters that authorities have ordered the Times to stop publishing my articles. Whatever threat they received might have been very serious as they simply told me that my articles will no longer be published with no reasons being given,’ he said.

The ban on Nkhambule came in the same week that the Times was forced to make an abject apology to King Mswati after publishing an essentially correct report that he had purchased up to 20 armoured cars for the use of himself and his wives.

This is not the first time the Times has folded to pressure from King Mswati. 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.

The banning of Nkhambule will hit the reputation of the Times hard. Nkhambule had received international attention for his courage in standing up against King Mswati and Barnabas Dlamini, his illegally-appointed prime minister, especially after the Swazi Government introduced its Suppression of Terrorism Act last year which has been used to curtail freedom of speech and association in Swaziland.

Some people had seen the Times as a true supporter of democratic change in Swaziland: the banning of Nkhambule will put an end to that.

SWAZILAND KING’S CARS CENSORSHIP

King Mswati III of Swaziland, sub-Saharan Africa's last absolute monarch, is clearly rattled that news about his purchase of up to 20 state-of-the-art armoured Mercedes-Benz cars for himself and his (many) wives has become public knowledge.

It was reported that the Mercedes Benz S600 Pullman Guard cars that can resist an attack with small arms projectiles, a grenade or other explosive and include high-end audio, an intercom, 19-inch flat screen display, DVD player, refrigerator and wood trim as standard, cost E25 million (250,000 US dollars) each.

The Times Sunday reported this news that has also been all over the Internet.

Now, the Times of Swaziland, the kingdom’s only independent newspaper group, has been forced to make a front page apology. It seems Times’ publisher Paul Loffler was summoned to see the king and as a result the following appeared on the front page of the Times.

APOLOGY

The TImes Group of Newspapers wishes to bring to the attention of its readers and the public at large that an article published in the April 19, 2009 edition of the Times SUNDAY entitled 'E25m cars at Ludzidzini' was not entirely correct and could have misled the public into believing that his was an amount actually spent on the cars. It has been brought to our attention that the cars referred to in the article were not purchased at a cost of E25 million but at a highly reduced figure due to them being ordered directly from the manufacturers in Germany. We therefore would like to unreservedly apologize to His Majesty the King and all affected parties for the misleading information. We wish to state that the Times Group of Newspapers remains committed in its endeavour to provide information accurate and balanced content in a respectful and unbiased manner and that it shares a common vision for peace and development of this country with the people of Swaziland.

By the publisher on behalf of the Times Group of Newspapers.

Keen readers will note that King Mswati is not denying that he bought the cars, but only that they didn’t cost as much as E25 million, because he got a discount. As I said in my blogpost on Thursday (30 April 2009), when reporting the king’s denial in the Swazi Observer, the newspaper in effect owned by the king, nobody has actually said how much the cars did cost.

If King Mswati doesn’t feel the cost of the cars is any big deal, let him tell us how much he paid for them and where he got the money from.

There are sinister overtones to the Times’ apology. King Mswati has form when it comes to bullying the media in Swaziland. In March 2007 the Times Sunday published a report from the international news agency Afro (click here to read it) that criticised King Mswati and included a reference to the king’s spending, ‘Swaziland is increasingly paralysed by poor governance, corruption and the private spending of authoritarian King Mswati III and his large royal family.’

The article went on to say, ‘The growing social crisis in the country and the lessening interest of donors to support King Mswati’s regime has also created escalating needs for social services beyond the scale of national budgets.’

King Mswati threatened to close down the Times group unless an unreserved apology was printed. It was, and the newspapers survived.

The news about the king’s new cars will not go away. I suspect he may have scored an own goal by forcing an apology from the Times over a report that was essentially true. Expect to see more international attention focused on the king who is said to have a wealth of 200 million US dollars (E2 billion) when 70 percent of his subjects live in abject poverty earning less than one US dollar a day, Swaziland has the highest rate of HIV AIDS and tuberculosis in the world and last year six in ten people needed some form of international food aid to avoid hunger.

SWAZILAND MEDIA FREEDOM WOES

Sunday 3 May is World Press Freedom Day, a Unesco supported annual event to draw attention to the role of news media in democratic societies.

The day is also used as an opportunity to highlight media freedom violations across the world. There will be a number of events in Africa to mark the day.

In Swaziland it is an opportunity to reflect on how media freedom has been under attack during the past year. Here are some of the major low lights in Swaziland since May 2008. You might like to get a hot drink before you read on: it’s a very long list. Click on the links for more details.

Swazi senators get select committee to charge newspapers with contempt of parliament after reports appear of a fight in public between two senators. Link

Barnabas Dlamini, Swaziland’s illegally-appointed prime minister, told the Swazi House of Assembly that his government supports free speech, ‘But where such speech corrupts or incites violence or civil disorder, our government will act to stop it.’ Link

Former Swazi cabinet minister Mfomfo Nkhambule, who writes a weekly column for the Times of Swaziland, the kingdom’s only independent daily newspaper, is threatened by police, and expelled from his local regiment for writing articles deemed by the ruling elite to be critical of King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarchy. Link

The Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Swaziland chapter reports that Swaziland’s media freedom is under attack like never before. It issued 15 ‘alerts’ about violations of media freedom in the first two months of this year (2009). Usually, MISA doesn’t expect to issue 15 alerts in a whole year. The violations were mainly around harassment of journalists, censorship, intimidation and assault of media persons. Link

The US State Department in its annual Country Report on Swaziland reported that during the past year the Swaziland attorney general and the prime minister warned journalists and diplomats against making statements that could be interpreted as seditious. It noted that journalists were threatened, harassed, assaulted, and detained during the year. Link

Reporters Without Borders (RWB) places Swaziland in 147^th place in the world when it comes to freedom of the press. Swaziland Government spokesperson Macanjana Motsa tries to rubbish the report in the same week that the illegally-appointed prime minister Barnabas Dlamini told journalists that if they criticise King Mswati III’s recent speech to parliament they will face sedition charges. Link

A journalist was harassed and barred from reporting the speech of King Mswati III at the opening of the Swaziland Parliament because she is a woman. Link 1 Link 2

Barnabas Dlamini, Swaziland’s illegally-appointed prime minister tells Swazi journalists they have nothing to fear from him and they will enjoy media freedom while he is PM. But, as Newswatch India noted, ‘in the same breath, the prime minister banned the media from writing about political parties which the government does not recognise. These parties include the Peoples United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO) whose leader, Mario Masuku, is currently in jail for allegedly supporting terrorism.’ Link

Two new magazines published in Swaziland are threatened with closure because they have not been registered by the government. Link

Swaziland’s illegally-appointed prime minister Barnabas Dlamini has said it was all right for Swazi police to haul in dissident Mfomfo Nkhambule and make him stop writing newspaper articles that criticised King Mswati III. Link

The Swazi Government wants to extend its censorship of the media to the Internet. Already newspapers and broadcast media are subject to censorship (and self-censorship) by government and other organs of the ruling elite. Now the Swaziland Attorney General Majahenkhaba Dlamini is looking to get a website from the People’s United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO) closed down. Link

The Times of Swaziland, the kingdom’s only independent daily newspaper, in an editorial comment says, ‘Constitution or no constitution, the days of the little freedom of speech we have left in this country are numbered,’ after its columnist Mfomfo Nkhambule was told to watch his mouth. Police say his writing is now bordering on Subversive acts. In short, he has been warned against expressing his opinion on how this country ought to be governed. Link

A Swazi journalist was attacked and cut with a knife by a man who was angry about something that had been written about him in a newspaper. Link

Swaziland police are accused of torturing and detaining two television reporters. The journalists, who work for Swaziland’s only independent television station Channel S, say they were arrested by police while they were following a story about a crime syndicate. Link

Journalists covering a traditional ceremony in Swaziland were harassed, banned and had their equipment confiscated by the police while trying to cover the event. Link

Swazi state police storm a workshop organised for media personnel by the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) and threatened to disrupt it if they were not allowed to monitor it. Link

Freedom advocates ARTICLE 19 report serious concerns about the way the Swazi Government is restricting freedom of expression in Swaziland following the introduction of the Suppression of Terrorism Act. It says Swazi journalists, political activists and human rights defenders have apparently become persona non-grata, battered and/or arrested. Link

People in Swaziland are banned from talking about King Mswati III and the war he has declared against his own people. Jim Gama, who is known as the ‘traditional’ prime minister and has more influence over Swaziland than the real PM, issued an edict to say that the king’s subjects must not refer to the king’s speech ever again. The speech in question was made when King Mswati III illegally-appointed Barnabas Dlamini as prime minister. Introducing Dlamini to his subjects, the king told Dlamini to get the terrorists and all who support them. Link

Reporters Without Borders condemns the Swazi attorney general’s ‘threatening remarks to journalists on 17 November 2008. He said journalists who criticise the government could be arrested under a new anti-terrorism law that has just been used to crack down on opposition groups.’ Link

Swaziland’s attorney general, Majahenkhaba Dlamini, tells journalists, ‘If you appear to be supporting terrorists in your reporting, woe unto you.’ He says journalists who are critical of the government ‘would be viewed as supporting “terrorists” and arrested’. Link

Swazi government officials heavily censored journalists as they prepared to interview King Mswati III on his return from a trip abroad. Journalists were told what to ask and that each journalist would be allowed only one question. This came amid anticipation that the king was going to be asked about government's extravagant spending on the country's 40/40 celebrations held in September 2008. Link 1 Link 2 Link 3

More than 90 percent of people in the kingdom say they want the state-controlled monopoly of radio in Swaziland abolished. They want to have radio stations that are independent of government, but under the control of ordinary people. They also want radio to present impartial news and not concentrate on news about the Swazi Government or King Mswati III. Link

Research published by the Media Institute of Southern Africa into censorship and self-censorship of the media in Swaziland concludes that according to journalists and editors the biggest problem with censorship in Swaziland was the position taken by King Mswati III. Journalists are afraid to upset him for fear of retribution. Link 1 Link 2

Journalists in Swaziland were illegally stopped from reporting on the kingdom’s national election. News emerged of widespread intimidation and harassment of reporters as they tried to cover the election registration process that ended in July 2008. Link

Swaziland’s traditional prime minister Jim Gama calls for a Swazi journalist to face serious punishment or even death for writing an article that was ‘disrespectful’ to King Mswati III. He said the report about the financial cost to the kingdom of holding a three-day ‘people’s parliament’ had been ‘very disrespectful to royalty and the king’. Link