SWAZILAND HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES

There was a lovely picture of the Swaziland Prime Minister A T Dlamini getting on to a plane on the front page of the Times of Swaziland yesterday (22 November 2007).

He’s off to represent King Mwsati III at the Commonwealth Summit in Kampala, Uganda.

The king can’t make it because he is in ‘seclusion’. Each year at about this time King Mswati III goes out of the public eye. No one is quite sure what he gets up to in seclusion because it’s a ‘traditional’ matter and to ask questions about it is considered to be ‘unSwazi’.

It’s a pity he won’t be at the Commonwealth Summit because he’ll miss the latest condemnation of human rights abuses in Swaziland.

And I suspect the rest of us in Swaziland will miss it too, because this isn’t the sort of report that the Swazi media like to make available to the king’s subjects in Swaziland

Even before the summit has properly started Swaziland has been criticised for the way the government controlled by King Mswati III permits the police to commit acts of brutality.

Human Rights Watch, in a media statement said, ‘the government of King Mswati III of Swaziland continued to permit the national police force to commit brutal acts with impunity, including detention, torture and extra-judicial killing of anti-monarchists and opposition members.’

Human Rights watch said that the human rights records of Commonwealth countries such as Swaziland were also at odds with the summit's theme of ‘political, economic and human development.’

Reed Brody, counsel with Human Rights Watch, said, ‘Any serious discussion at the Commonwealth summit should recognize that human rights violations are inimical to sustainable development.

Brody added, ‘Commonwealth members need to hold leaders accountable if their abusive human rights policies thwart the development of their own countries.’

Human Rights Watch is a United States-based international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights.

It produces research reports on violations of international human rights norms as set out by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other internationally-accepted human rights norms.

See also
POLICE ‘MURDER’ – NEW EVIDENCE