In September King Mswati III flew off to the island along with leaders of the African states Burkina Faso, Gambia, Malawi, and Sao Tome and Principe to discuss how they could help Taiwan in its bid to get elected to the United Nations (UN). In return Taiwan offered the Africans development aid.
Swazi journalists have been feted and as a result articles have appeared all over the newspapers. Last week’s Times Sunday (30 September 2007) had a full page ‘post card’ from the newspaper’s editor who was being hosted in Taiwan. Unsurprisingly, he wrote he was having a marvellous time. Mbongeni Mbingo said, ‘I was overwhelmed by the reception I received from the hosts, from the foreign office to everyone at the amazing hotels I have been booked into.’
High on the Swazi journalists’ agendas has been the claim that Swaziland was supporting Taiwan because it was fighting an undemocratic neighbour (mainland or People’s Republic of China ) to be given a seat at the UN. The irony that Swaziland is not itself a democracy was lost on the Swazi journalists.
It has taken a Taiwanese journalist and a Taiwan newspaper to point this out.
Kim Lee, writing in the Taipei Times says that three heads of state (including Swaziland) who support Taiwan’s UN application have bad human rights records.
This is what he had to say about Swaziland.
‘Swaziland's King Mswati III is neither as cynical nor sinister as his West African counterparts. Still, despite his supporters’ protestations to the contrary, he is an absolute ruler who is not bound by the nation's Constitution, which his father suspended in 1973, banning political parties in the process.
‘As head of state, he gets to decide his (allegedly exorbitant) salary, has an unspecified amount of shares and investments in many of the nation's industries, and splurges US$500,000 on custom-made cars while two-thirds of his subjects languish in abject poverty.
‘The country has the highest HIV prevalence rate in the world (nearly 40 percent), with many deprived of access to life-prolonging anti-retroviral drugs, yet this globulous bon vivant taxes charities and educational organizations because of a budgetary shortfall.
‘Amnesty International has also expressed its concerns about frequent rights abuses in the kingdom, with accusations of assaults.’
Lee advises his readers and the president of Taiwan Chen Shui-bian to be more careful in choosing friends. Critics disparage Taiwan’s African allies (including Swaziland) ‘as irrelevances; diplomatic backwaters that do little for the nation, while scrounging for handouts’.
Lee adds. ‘The question is: Does maintaining ties with these countries hinge on publicly praising their leaders as beacons of democracy and freedom?
‘Chen should keep private his handshakes, obsequious grins and congratulatory phone calls. Otherwise he appears nothing more than a soulless hypocrite.’
So is Swaziland ‘scrounging’ for handouts as Lee suggests? Perhaps, the Times Sunday editor will tell us when he returns from his free holiday.
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