Swaziland’s political turmoil was featured in a documentary aired by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in the UK yesterday (Thursday 24 April 2008).
It told a story of police committing murder, child sex abuse – and, of course, HIV AIDS.
All this was seen through the eyes of one consultant from Northern Ireland who is presently working in Swaziland as a civil rights campaigner.
Star of the show is Stephen Donaghy, who works as a ‘volunteer’ for the Swaziland Coalition of Concerned Civic Organisations (SCCCO) in Manzini.
I haven’t had a chance to see the documentary (but I hope a DVD is winging its way to Swaziland and will soon be available in pirate version all over the kingdom), but the Belfast Telegraph (a newspaper in Northern Ireland) carried a long interview with Donaghy, in which he gives one view of Swaziland that is not often seen, either in the kingdom itself, or in the international media.
The Telegraph reported,
‘First impressions of Swaziland were surprising and not exactly what Stephen had expected.
‘“I spent my first night huddled by an electric fire and with my fleece on, as I'd arrived in June, Swaziland's mid-winter,” he says. “That was the first shock. My second impression was how Westernised it was in this part of the capital, with a large Spar shop nearby selling Kerrygold and Heineken beer. It wasn't mud huts.”
‘His work is highly sensitive in a country ruled by King Mswati III, who has “a special place in the hearts of the people and a lot of power which he doesn't use properly”.
‘We had to speak on a South African phone as Stephen’s telephone calls are monitored, like his emails. “So we use heavy encryption.”’
‘He wanted change, and from day one in his job working for the Swaziland Coalition of Concerned Civic Organisations (SCCCO), he got it.
‘A month in, Stephen was involved with the sort of case he would not have encountered at home [in Northern Ireland]
‘“We work on three levels, the highest of which is advocacy of basic human rights," he says.
‘“There was a criminal called Ntokozo Ngozo, who was accused of shooting at police officers. The police then rang his cell phone and said, ‘We don't know where you are but when we find you, we’ll kill you.’
‘“He was naturally scared and rang a journalist on The Times of Swaziland, thinking that if they ran the story, it would save him. But while the presses were rolling, the police shot him. He’d stripped to his waist and come out with his hands up when he heard them coming, but they questioned him, left him to bleed for four hours and he was dead on arrival in hospital.”
‘SCCCO paid for an independent pathologist who established that, contrary to the official story, which claimed the man was armed and had fired at the police, he had been shot at a distance of 35 centimetres. Also, the holes on his clothes didn't match the bullet holes, so evidence had been tampered with.
‘To top it all, there was never an official investigation. Stephen says: “Another aspect of our work is civic education with various groups. In 1973, the king took away all civil political rights, so there was no free speech, no right of assembly. You could be locked up without trial, just on the say-so of the executive.”
‘He adds that people in Swaziland think they'll be in the same situation as Zimbabwe in a few years’ time.’
According to the Telegraph, Donaghy, who featured in BBC Northern Ireland’s 'Distant Horizons' programme, had reached the age of 41, was in a comfortable job as a management consultant with an equally comfortable lifestyle when he decided he needed, as he puts it, ‘to find out that life doesn't stop at the border’ [of Northern Ireland]. So he signed up for two years via Skill Share International.
Donaghy has the perfect background for the work with a law degree from Newcastle on Tyne and a CV charting a career in management, primarily in the public sector.
I have gotten into trouble in the past for commenting on this blog about the way in which foreign media report on Swaziland. (There are people in the US who are still praying for my soul after my Derek Goes to Africa posts.) I know Donaghy is a reader of this blog, so maybe I can invite him to tell us whether he thought the BBC documentary gave a fair picture of Swaziland in general and of his work in particular.
See also
‘SUNDAY’ PROBES POLICE KILLING
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