KING HAS ‘DECLARED WAR’ ON SWAZIS

Another Swazi newspaper has called King Mswati III’s illegal appointment of Barnabas Dlamini as Prime Minister as a declaration of ‘war’.

The Swazi News today (18 October 2008) said the new appointment would ‘change the face of the country forever’.

Thulani Thwala, the editor of the Swazi News, writing in his own newspaper, said the king was ‘spitting fire’ when he made the announcement last Thursday.

‘It was extremely unfortunate for people of Swaziland to see their king spitting fire at the same time declaring war.’

He added, ‘I don’t think that I need to remind [the king] that everything that lives in Swaziland be it a fool, intellectual, loyalists, bootlickers, clowns, terrorists [... that] in general belongs to him’.

In his speech on Thursday, the king attacked people in Swaziland who wanted to see democracy, calling them ‘terrorists’.

Thwala said it was ‘An obvious fact as alluded to by the king is that we have a problem in the country but clearly I disagree that we need to sharpen our swords to address it.

‘Since the individuals behind the unrest are known, it should have been simple to deal with them than to alarm the whole country.’

Thwala added, ‘My duty now is to call for ceasefire from all concerned and come around a table for discussions on the problems.

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See also
SWAZILAND ‘CIVIL WAR’ FEAR
BARNABAS DLAMINI