SWAZI GOVERNMENT EXPOSED – AGAIN

It looks like the Swaziland Minister of Labour and Social Security has been exposed in the court of public opinion.

Magobetane Mamba went to appear before a committee of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in Geneva, Switzerland, to defend Swaziland’s ‘reputation’ when it came to labour rights.

The Swazi Observer, the newspaper in effect owned by King Mswati III, reported that Mamba was ‘taken aback’ when representatives of Swaziland trade unions said ‘human rights were undermined in Swaziland, to the extent of refusing workers a right to protest’.

Mamba has a very short memory. You only have to think about how police fired teargas and rubber bullets at textile workers who were engaged in a perfectly lawful strike in March 2008 to see that Mamba is simply not telling the truth. (Click here for reports on the textile dispute).

Mamba told the Observer, ‘We made the committee on industrial matters aware that Swaziland allows industrial protest action to take place, but only if workers abide by the law.

‘We told the committee that labour organisation chiefs had never been arrested for labour related issues, but had been taken in for questioning for political statements they had made.

Mamba said most of the allegations by the labour organisations lacked evidence and were exaggerated.

But the ILO wasn’t born yesterday. In its official report of the meeting it ‘noted with concern’ (diplomatic-speak for ‘thoroughly condemns’) the acts of violence ‘carried out by the security forces and the detention of workers for exercising their right to strike’.

The ILO went on to forcefully remind the Swaziland Government of the importance of ‘the full respect of basic civil liberties such as freedom of expression, of assembly and of the press’.

The ILO told the Swaziland Government it was its responsibility ‘to ensure respect for the principle according to which the trade union movement can only develop in a climate free from violence, threat or fear’.

The ILO went n to demand that the Swazi Government release any people in the kingdom who have been detained ‘for having exercised their civil liberties’.

To read more on the ILO response to the Swaziland Government click here.

SWAZI HUMAN RIGHTS LAWYER LATEST

Swaziland human rights lawyer Thulani Maseko, who is charged with sedition, is challenging the Swazi Government for acting unconstitutionally.

Maseko, who is alleged to have made public comments in support of two alleged bombers, has been charged under a 1938 sedition act. However, the 2005 Swazi Constitution guarantees (at least on paper) freedom of speech in the kingdom.

In papers filed at the Swazi High Court, Maseko states that the Constitution makes the 1938 act illegal.

In his statement Maseko said, ‘In a democracy the Sedition and Subversive Activities Act has no place, for it violates the guaranteed freedom of speech as stated in the country's constitution.

‘In terms of section two of the constitution, any law that is inconsistent with the constitution is null and void and of no force and effect and must be struck down.’

According to a report in the Swazi News, Maseko said his arrest and the arrest last November of Mario Masuku, President of the banned People’s United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO) ‘was ‘meant to keep the nation in the bondage of fear’.

SWAZILAND DRAGS SADC AFRICA DOWN

Swaziland could become another Zimbabwe, unless the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) drags the kingdom into line.

Democracy is in jeopardy and the rule of law in Swaziland has broken down.

Sisonke Msimang, the executive director of the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa, writing in the Mail and Guardian, South Africa, calls on SADC to act now to avoid another Zimbabwe.

‘In the past 10 years Swaziland has slid steadily into a political, economic and social morass. The ruling elite has plundered the national coffers to fund all manner of lavish celebrations, the HIV/Aids infection rate has skyrocketed to such an extent that Swaziland now enjoys the dubious distinction of having the highest HIV prevalence in the world, sham elections continue to take place, in which political parties are not allowed to contest, and a series of repressive laws to silence opposition and dissent have been enacted.

‘In the past six months Swaziland has taken a turn for the worse. Critics have become more fearful of voicing their concerns about the state of the nation. The draconian Suppression of Terrorism Act - which defines terrorism in impossibly broad terms - has had a particularly severe chilling effect. Fearing being arrested and charged with inciting terror, many activists have grown silent, refusing to issue even the meekest of criticisms.’

Msimang goes on, ‘At a time when this region is striving to set norms and standards of democratic practice, Swaziland is an outlier -- dragging the reputation and image of Southern Africa down.

‘The regional bloc would be wise to call for Swazi leaders to respect democratic principles and human rights, before the situation further deteriorates. The SADC is unlikely to do so. Swaziland is a small country with little in the way of economic power or natural resources and it is of little strategic importance - either to its neighbours or to Western powers.

‘Swaziland is well aware that it is flagrantly able to ignore the standards set by the SADC because it isn’t considered important enough to bother about.’

Msimang concludes, ‘The reality is that, without intervention, the plight of the one million inhabitants of the country will worsen as poverty deepens, restrictions on freedoms tighten, HIV soars and corruption explodes. Surely this is a crisis that the SADC can avert.’

To read the full article, click here.

THOUGHT CONTROL SWAZILAND STYLE

Only in Swaziland. News comes this week that the Swazi Government which likes to control every aspect of life in Swaziland is to interfere in the work of deejays.

Deejays (that’s people who play music in clubs and such like) are to be ‘regulated’ by the government.

Vusi Nkambule, acting chief executive of the National Council of Arts and Culture, said it was necessary to ‘supervise and regulate’ deejays because they are ‘too individualistic’.

LABOUR REPORT ATTACKS SWAZILAND

The Swazi Government came under fierce criticism from International Labour over the lack of human rights in the kingdom.

The International Labour Organisation called (yet again) for the 1973 Royal Decree that, among other things, banned political parties in Swaziland and restricted civil liberties. It criticised the lack of rights in Swaziland to organize prison staff and domestic workers, the right of workers’ organizations to elect their officers freely and the right to organize their activities and programmes of action.

The ILO criticised the Swazi Government for ‘acts of violence carried out by the security forces and the detention of workers for exercising their right to strike’.

The ILO told the Swazi Government that it was obliged in international law to respect ‘basic civil liberties such as freedom of expression, of assembly and of the press’.

It also said that there should be respect for trade unions and they should be allowed to ‘develop in a climate free from violence, threat or fear’.

It called for all people jailed in Swaziland for exercising their civil liberties to be released.

The ILO criticised the Swazi Government for not making efforts to improve human rights in the kingdom and for ignoring ILO interventions in the past.

It called on the Swazi Government to repeal the 1973 Decree, to amend the 1963 Public Order Act, as well as the Industrial Relations Act, and hoped that the Swazi Constitution could be reviewed to progress human rights and civil liberties in the kingdom.

To see the full report click here.

CANADA SUPPORTS SWAZI FREEDOM

The Swazi regime continues to intensify its oppression in the nation. While it wants to fire any civil servant with political opinions, imprison all who criticize or oppose the elite ruling class, and ignores the needs of the nation, the draconian fist continues to pound.

The health crisis, education crisis, and economic crisis all stem from the fundamental political crisis in the country. Nothing can or will be resolved as the king behaves like a cornered rat who viciously attacks his ‘subjects’. Negotiations with the people can be the only viable path. And Canada, as a member of the Commonwealth (like SD) should be saying so.

This is from the Swaziland Solidarity Network Canada June Newsletter. To read more click here.

SWAZI KING SEES NO ZIMBABWE CRISIS

King Mswati III of Swaziland is in hot water for claiming at a news conference that in Zimbabwe ‘things are going well so far’.

He told incredulous reporters that he had heard no reports that things were bad in Zimbabwe.

King Mswati, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, was speaking at the end of an extraordinary summit of the Southern African Development Community in Sandton, South Africa on Saturday (20 June 2009).

The President of South Africa Jacob Zuma had been asked by two leaders of Zimbabwe’s Movement for Democratic Change party to get the SADC to intervene in their dispute with President Robert Mugabe over many issues that have arisen since Mugabe stole power after last year’s election.

According to a report in the Star, Johannesburg, when a journalist asked how King Mswati could say that things were well in Zimbabwe when there were daily reports of people being abducted and jailed, the Swazi king said ‘nothing official’ had been brought to the SADC’s attention about such things.

If the SADC were informed officially, it would take up these issues, he said.

King Mswati was saved from a pounding by journalists by Zuma who stopped them asking further questions.

‘If we start discussing Zimbabwe now, we will end up with headlines tomorrow as though this was what the summit was about,’ he said.

King Mswati must be the only person in the world who hasn’t heard about the state of Zimbabwe. Even as the SADC was meeting at the weekend, Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai was being heckled off the stage in London, UK, by disgruntled Zimbabwean expatriates he had urged to return home to help rebuild their country. They were unhappy about his decision to share power with Mugabe and heckled Tsvangirai so much he was forced to cut short his speech.

Things are so bad in Zimbabwe that Tsvangirai, who let me remind you is prime minister of Zimbabwe, may be prosecuted because he went overseas on an unauthorised trip.

Earlier this month King Mswati was feted by Mugabe in Zimbabwe. At a banquet Mugabe praised the (undemocratic) system of government in Swaziland, where political parties are banned.

Meanwhile in Swaziland, the Swazi Observer newspaper, which is in effect owned by King Mswati, had the headline KING SHINES AT SADC SUMMIT in its edition today (22 Juner 2009) but made no mention of Zimbabwe.

The Observer quoted Barnabas Dlamini, who was illegally appointed Prime Minister of Swaziland by King Mswati, who praised the king’s ‘able leadership, vision, wisdom and guidance’.

SWAZILAND DISSIDENT ATTACKS KING

Swaziland dissident Mfomfo Nkhambule, who says he is facing arrest for sedition, has raised the stakes in his fight with the Swazi state.

Writing on his blogsite today (22 June 2009), Nkhambule makes what many in the Swazi ruling elite will see as a direct attack on King Mswati III’s ability to lead Swaziland.

Nkhambule criticises King Mswati’s Government for not sticking to its constitutional obligation to provide free primary school education.

In an open letter to the king, sub- Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, Nkhambule says, ‘I fail to be convinced how my King could reverse a pledge that would have brought hope to so many children of his loyal subjects.’

He goes on to criticise King Mswati for ignoring the voice of the Swazi people listening only to those people he appoints to government.

‘The notion that, only those appointed by you are wise and have to do the thinking for the majority, is the biggest hurdle we are facing as a nation. It does not build this nation. It does not instil confidence and seeds of hope to your people about tomorrow and the day after. The burden of leading this country is too much for you alone and we are paying a heavy price for it with our lives.’

To read the full blogpost click here.

SWAZI KING SUPPORTS IRAN LEADER

As hundreds of thousands of people take to the street in Iran to protest at the recent stolen election, one man was quick to offer his support to the contested president.

Step forward Mswati III, the king of Swaziland.

King Mswati sent his congratulations to Iran President Mahmound Ahmadinejad, rejoicing in ‘this happy occasion’.

According to the Swazi Observer, the newspaper in effect owned by King Mswati, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, King Mswati told Ahmadinejad, ‘I would like to express my firm belief that cordial relations which have always existed between our two countries will continue to be enhanced and strengthened in the years to come for the mutual benefit of our nations and peoples.’

Of course, no one is surprised that King Mswati was quick to offer his congratulations to someone who stole an election. For a long time he has been buddying up to Robert Mugabe, the despot who stole the elections in Zimbabwe last year and recently he was feted by Mugabe.

King Mswati also knows a thing or two about dodgy elections. He held his own in Swaziland last year but banned political parties from taking part. The European Union refused to send a team to ‘monitor’ the elections because it couldn’t see the point since the elections were obviously not free.

The Commonwealth Expert Team did send a delegation and called for a multi-party system to be introduced to save Swaziland.

The Pan-African Parliament also criticised the Swazi elections as unfair because parties were banned.

So Mswati knows who his friends are. He is lucky; the only difference really between Swaziland and Iran is that the people of Iran have the courage to fight back.

SWAZI STATE SPIES ON 'CABINET'

State spies are infiltrating meetings held by Swaziland’s ‘shadow cabinet’.

Swazi dissident Mfomfo Nkhambule reports that when his Inhlava Forum political party meets state agents come to the meetings and ‘take notes to give to their masters’.

In March 2009 Inhlava set up a ‘shadow cabinet’ to monitor the Swazi Government and to create alternative polices so that once democracy comes to Swaziland it would be ready to serve.

Nkhambule says on his blog today (19 June 2009) that members of the shadow cabinet are being harassed. The shadow minister of housing has been taken in by authorities for ‘a grilling’ after a letter he wrote in the Times of Swaziland, the kingdom’s only independent daily newspaper, in which he advised King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, to meet with Nkhambule.

According to Nkhambule, ‘He told me he got a call from the illegal Prime Minister (appointed by the King in complete violation of the country’s constitution) to report to the Palace on a Saturday without fail.

‘Present in the grilling session were the illegal Prime Minister, Dr Sibusiso B Dlamini, the Chairman of Liqoqo (King’s advisory council) and two other gentlemen whom he could not identify. He was given stern warning not to associate himself with the party or similar statements again.

‘He was threatened with eviction from his village. I saw tears rolling down his face as he narrated his ordeal before the terrible four. Why would these four gentlemen pounce on a Swazi national who is trying so hard to help his fellow Swazis help themselves? What else are they capable of doing?’

To read the full blogpost, click here.

SWAZI UNCLES AND CHILD SEX ABUSE

In the week that the Swazi Government was put on notice that it would face sanctions unless it clamped down on child sex trafficking in Swaziland here’s news that children face sexual abuse from their uncles.

A meeting to mark the Day of the African Child at Makhosini High School on Monday (15 June 2009) was told that children ‘had nowhere to run to because the people bestowed with their trust, had betrayed them. They said most of their uncles had turned rapists instead of heroes, and they did not get the love they deserved.’

The Times of Swaziland, the kingdom’s only independent newspaper, said that according to the children, their uncles took full advantage of their situation and subjected them to sexual abuse. Children at the meeting also said schoolteachers who used them as sex toys.

On Wednesday (17 June 2009), I reported that the US State Department had put Swaziland on notice of sanctions because it did not take seriously the problem of women and children who are sold for sex.

The problem of uncles who rape is only the tip of an iceberg when it comes to child sexual abuse in Swaziland.

As I reported in March 2009, Swazi men believe it is all right to rape children if their wives withhold sex from them. In Swaziland it is estimated that one in three girls suffer sexual abuse, but it is thought that fewer than half of sexual assaults and other abusive crimes are reported to the authorities.

SWAZI REPRESSION IS BASED ON FEAR

The following is extracted from Union View No 13, May 2009, published by the International Trade Union Confederation.

Swaziland’s royal-appointed political leadership is cautious. Rather than employing the heavy hand of violent oppression which has earned the [Robert] Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe international condemnation and isolation, the ruling clique prefers more subtle measures to silence the voices of political opposition.

Activists are hauled in and held in detention for days then released without charge, meetings are banned or broken up by the police with beatings rather than shootings, government critics complain they are denied promotions, their children refused scholarships, passports are withheld and families are threatened with eviction from their ancestral land.

The coercion is rarely of a level to attract international headlines, but the persistent harassment risks sapping the spirit of the beleaguered pro-democracy movement.

Swaziland had boasted it had no political prisoners. That changed when Mario Masuku, leader of the banned People’s United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO), was jailed in November under the Suppression of Terrorism Act introduced by the government last year following an explosion at a road bridge near the king’s palace that killed two alleged bombers.

Political parties are banned in Swaziland. Although elections were held in September [2008], candidates could only run as individuals. Ten members of the 65-seat National Assembly, Anglicans, Lutherans and other denominations, had planned a rally in Manzini on March 14 [2009] to demand free schooling, but police banned it at the last minute.

Many Swazis are deeply frustrated that their country’s plight gets so little international attention.

They feel the royal authorities have succeeded in presenting the country as a ‘quaint’ anomaly where ancient practices – symbolised by the Umhlanga festival [Reed Dance] where tens of thousands of bare-breasted maidens dance before the king – co-exist peacefully with an indigenous version of democracy.

But unless pressure is brought to bear to bring about a real change, many fear the situation will could get much worse.

In October [2008] the king appointed hard-line royalist Barnabas Sibusiso Dlamini as prime minister. Reformists who remembered Dlamini’s strong-arm tactics during a previous stint in power were dismayed.

In the face of the government clampdown, progressive forces come together to resist. Trade unions, political parties and churches formed the Swaziland United Democratic Front, modelled on the United Democratic Front (UDF), which spearheaded the fight against apartheid in South Africa. An even wider selection of civil society makes up the Coalition of Concerned Civil Organizations set up after the government evicted two chiefs and hundreds of their subjects in order to give their land to one of the king’s brothers. The eviction was carried out despite a ruling against it from the Supreme Court.

Although the pro-democracy movement enjoys broad-based support, many Swazis believe they need more outside help to force the royal establishment to accept reform. The Congress of South African Trade Union’s (COSATU) has taken a lead by occasional blockades of the border crossings on which the Swazi economy depends, but Swazis complain their little country is ignored by the wider international community.

To see the full article and the publication it is from click here.

SWAZI DISSIDENT ON ROYAL SPENDING

Swazi dissident Mfomfo Nkhambule continues to criticise King Mswati III and the ruling elite, despite fears that he is about to be arrested for sedition.

In his latest writing he says that the king has recently doled out 6,000 US dollars (about E60,000) to each of the surviving 20 sons and daughters of the late King Sobhuza III – which apparently is an annual ritual.

Unsurprisingly, Nkhambule questions whether this is the right way for the king to spend the money which he supposedly holds in trust for the ‘Swazi nation’.

But, Nkhambule says, really King Mswati just holds it in trust for the royal household.

Nkhambule writes on his website, ‘As far as I can recall the King is supposed to be without properties and assets as well as private funds because whatever he has he is holding it in trust for the Swazi nation. But again in Swaziland the majority of the Swazi people do not make up the Swazi nation. The Swazi nation is made up of princes and princesses together with chiefs and members of the royal household, everybody else is a subject with no fundamental human rights unless the King makes a pronouncement from the throne.

‘Being a subject means you do not exist in the “official books” of the Kingdom. This is why there is no unemployment benefit, money to pay for the children’s education and young persons’ education and training. This is why there is no food that is affordable to the majority of the people of Swaziland.

‘There is no shelter and health service for His Majesty’s subjects because they are not in the “official books” of the people of Swaziland. The society that has been set-up by the existing political set-up is not good for the survival of the majority and their children. The time to change the political set-up is long over due.’

To read the full article click here.

US EXPOSES SWAZI CHILD SEX TRADE

Women and children in Swaziland are bought and sold for sex, domestic servitude and forced labour, and the Swazi Government is doing nothing about it, according to an international report just published.

The cities of Mbabane and Manzini are the centres of trafficking of girls, particularly orphans, for sex.

Swazi boys are trafficked for forced labour in commercial agriculture and market vending. Some Swazi women are forced into prostitution in South Africa and Mozambique after voluntarily travelling to these countries in search of work.

The report from the US State Department also says Chinese organized crime units get victims in Swaziland and traffic them to Johannesburg, South Africa, where they ‘distribute’ victims locally or send them on to be exploited overseas.

Mozambican boys travel to Swaziland for work washing cars, herding livestock, and portering; some of these boys subsequently become victims of trafficking.

According to the US State Department, ‘The government of Swaziland does not comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and is not making significant efforts to do so.

‘The government believes that trafficking probably does occur, but does not know the extent of the problem.

‘Its limited resources were directed towards other issues because the government does not judge trafficking to be an “important” problem, a judgment which significantly limited the government’s current efforts to eliminate human trafficking, or to plan anti-trafficking activities or initiatives for the future.’

The report goes on, ‘The government made no effort to investigate or prosecute trafficking offenses during the year. While Swaziland has no law specifically prohibiting trafficking, existing statutes prohibiting acts such as kidnapping, forced and compulsory labor, confiscation of passports, aiding and abetting “prohibited immigrants” to enter the country, brothel keeping, procurement for prostitution, sex or solicitation of sex with an underage girl, and employing children under the age of 15 could be used to prosecute trafficking offenses, but were not.’

The report adds, ‘There were no government programs which provided services specifically to victims of trafficking, and the government continued to depend on NGOs to provide shelter, referral, counseling, and other care for victims.’

The US has now placed Swaziland on a ‘watchlist’ and the kingdom might face sanctions unless its record improves.

To read the full report click here.

SWAZILAND POLICE KILL PUDEMO MAN

,The PUDEMO News website that supports the People’s United Democratic Movement, a political party banned in Swaziland, reports the following today (16 June 2009).

PUDEMO member killed by police

We are very sorry to inform readers of the news that a PUDEMO member* has been killed by the police.

When the police came to raid him on Saturday last week, he ran out of the building.

The police then shot him and claimed that they had found some dagga in the house.

There is a protest march planned for tomorrow in Big Bend to protest the killing.

On this 16th day of June, 33 years after the youth of Soweto defiantly challenged the ruling apartheid regime, we are saddened over another tragedy in Swaziland. Yet we are certain victory is for the people and our martyrs will not be forgotten.


*[Name will be released after family has been fully notified.]

MORE DOUBTS ON SWAZI $40m DEAL

More doubts are emerging about the Swaziland Government’s claim that it has secured up to E400 million (40 million US dollars) for development projects in the kingdom.

Finance Minister Majozi Sithole had claimed the money was a refund on a deposit for an aborted illegal attempt to buy a private jet for King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch.

Sithole claimed that he had secured a refund of the deposit (believed to be E28 million) plus interest on the money, plus extra money from unnamed donors. A total of E400 million was said to be available for ‘social upliftment’ projects.

Part of the deal was that the Swazi Government would not be allowed to touch the money (by the government’s own admission about E40m a month is lost to corruption in Swaziland), but instead funds would be made available through a trust fund administered by Prof Frans Whelpton, of the University of South Africa.

I and others cast doubts on the whole project and wanted to know where the money was coming from. It was widely reported that a company called DAFIN Asset Finance Limited had a large role to play in setting up the project.

Now, the Times of Swaziland, the kingdom’s only independent daily newspaper, reports that Whelpton and DAFIN were involved in a project in 2001 that claimed it would raise E40 million for Swaziland by a combination of advertising Swaziland as a tourist destination and a deal ‘to market the constitution’.

The Times has letters written by Prince Logcogco, the chairman of King Mswati’s advisory board, Liqoqo, and Whelpton that discussed aspects of the project.

But nothing has been delivered since. To read the Times report, click here.

Meanwhile, the Times’ companion newspaper, Times Sunday, has cast doubts on whether Sithole was telling the truth when he told the Swazi Parliament that money is available for social projects.

Mbongeni Mbingo, the Times Sunday editor, wrote there ‘was something fishy’ about Sithole’s announcement. Sithole is now trying to pass the buck by saying it is nothing to do with him.

Mbingo, went on to say Swaziland may ‘have been duped in this saga’.

The whole business of the E400m gets murkier. No one can even be sure that E400m is the sum involved: some reports put it at E300m and Sithole himself said it at one point it was E100m.

The Swazi Observer, the newspaper in effect owned by King Mswati, reported earlier this month (1 June 2009) that Whelpton was to fly to German for talks with ‘the executive committee of a Foundation’ that would fund the project (described as worth E300m). True to form the foundation was not named.

Whelpton told the media that he was travelling to Germany on behalf of the King’s Office. As I have written before the King’s Office has a tendency to by-pass parliament and make deals in secret. Transparency is a word unknown to King Mswati (see for example, the controversy over the supposed 5 billion dollar power plant deal).

So just what is going on? If anyone has more information, please let me know (in strictest confidence).

SWAZI UNION LEADER ON DEMOCRACY

Jan Sithole was twice arrested last year as the Swazi authorities continue their clampdown on the pro-democracy movement in a country where power is concentrated in the hands of the king and his hand-picked government. Despite the attempts at intimidation, Sithole and the Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions (SFTU) remain in the forefront of the efforts to defend workers’ rights and bring about political change in a country suffering from dire poverty and the world’s worst AIDS epidemic.

These are the opening lines of an interview with Sithole, Secretary General of the SFTU published by Spotlight.

It covers some of the issues confronting the labour movement and other pro-democracy forces in Swaziland. Sithole talks about the poverty of ordinary Swazis while the rich are getting richer.

He also talks about the lack of democracy in Swaziland, despite the new Swazi Constitution of 2005. Political parties remain banned and all power remains in the hands of the monarchy. King Mswati III is sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch.

He outlines how trade unions and others are working to promote democratic change and fight for justice and against corruption.

To read the full interview click here.

Read also Union View briefing: Swaziland: the repressive side of an absolute monarchy here.

NNLC’S NEW SWAZILAND WEBSITE

Swaziland’s Ngwane National Liberatory Congress (NNLC) has a new website devoted to human rights and civil liberties in the kingdom.

NNLC believes ‘in the diligent observance, protection and promotion of the fundamental human rights of free assembly, association and expression’ and ‘in the equal rights of men a women to determine individually and collectively, their social and political progress’.

The website has information about the historical background of NNLC and its current polices. It also has a section on news about human rights activities in Swaziland.

To find the website click here.

SWAZI KING ‘KIDNAPS’ TEENAGE GIRL

Here’s a report on how King Mswati III of Swaziland ‘kidnaps’ teenage girls to make them become his wives.

In one cases a girl is literally bundled into a car while going home from school and driven away.

I don’t know much about the report, except that it appears to have been made in about 2003 by an English journalist. I don’t recognise him, but he must have some clout, because he manages to get a face-to-face interview with the king.

If anyone knows anything more about the clip, I’d like to know.

I found it on a blogsite called Dear Kitty, Some blog

SWAZI LAWYER AND THE SEDITION LAW

When Thulani Maseko, Swaziland’s prominent human rights lawyer, appeared in court in leg-irons to apply for bail on a sedition charge, he said he wanted to go to trial because the charge was meant to ‘intimidate and silence me for advocating and promoting basic and fundamental human rights for citizens of Swaziland’.

He never spoke a truer word.

Maseko is accused of breaking the Sedition and Subversive Activities Act, 1938 (SSAA). According to the Swazi state, Maseko spoke about a failed attempt to blow up a bridge near one of the palaces of King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, in which two alleged bombers died.

Maseko is alleged to have said, ‘MJ Dlamini and Jack Govender died for the liberation of this country. One day the Lozitha Bridge will be called MJ and Govender Bridge.’

Apparently it is this statement that the Swazi state says is sedition.

I think most objective people would dispute that it is sedition. A good working definition of ‘sedition’ is that it is an ‘illegal action inciting resistance to lawful authority and tending to cause the disruption or overthrow of the government’.

Whatever you might think about Maseko’s statement it is hard to see it as an incitement to ‘overthrow the government’.

The problem for Maseko is that Swaziland’s SSAA has a much broader definition of sedition. It is not really about legislating against sedition; its intention is to silence all dissenting voices.

Konrad Adenauer Stiftung in its handbook for media practitioners called the act ‘a draconian piece of legislation, the primary purpose of which is to provide for the suppression and punishment of sedition, that is criticism of the King and the Swaziland government’.

Here’s how section 3 of the SSAA defines a ‘seditious intention’. It is an intention to:

- bring the King into hatred or contempt, or to excite disaffection against the King, his heirs, his successors and the government of Swaziland;

- excite the citizens and inhabitants of Swaziland to ‘procure the alteration, otherwise than by lawful means, of any matter in Swaziland as by law established’;

- bring the Swaziland justice administration system into hatred, contempt or disaffection;

- raise discontent amongst the citizens and inhabitants of Swaziland; or

- promote ‘feelings of ill-will and hostility between different classes of the population of Swaziland’.

Under that section just about any dissenting comment can be sedition if it raises ‘discontent amongst the citizens and inhabitants of Swaziland’.

It would seem that Maseko is guilty as charged under the act.

I’m no lawyer but I suspect that Maseko’s defence would be that the new Swaziland Constitution allows for freedom of speech (S24) and the constitution also states ‘if any law is inconsistent with this constitution that other law shall, to the extent of the inconsistency, be void’ (S2).

Or put another way. The constitution overrules the SSAA – Maseko has no case to answer.

AFRICA BACKS SWAZILAND DEMOCRATS