Last Week the Swaziland media were heaping praise on King Mswati III for the tremendous role he played in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) efforts at mediation in the Zimbabwean elections impasse.
Quite what he is supposed to have accomplished is beyond me since the meeting he chaired in the Swazi capital Mbabane broke up in disarray. They will start again tomorrow (27 October 2008) in Harare.
The Sowetan newspaper in South Africa was equally confused. But unlike its counterparts in Swaziland the Sowetan doesn’t have to pretend that King Mswati is all-knowing and infallible (the worst that the Swazi media will ever say against the king is that he was ‘ill advised’).
The Sowetan (22 October 2008) wondered aloud about the king and the ‘curious idea of having that beacon of feudalism, Swaziland, as the venue where discussions pertaining to returning Zimbabwe to a democracy took place.
‘Even the arch despot, King Mswati III, found a moment from his busy schedule of shopping or finding young brides to lecture the Zimbabweans about how they should go about finding national peace and stability.
‘How rich, coming as it did from a man with a penchant for looking the other way as his own subjects die of hunger and Aids while he and his wives frolic merrily in the shopping capitals of the world.’
The Sowetan misses the point. King Mswati is an obvious choice for these talks which involve one illegitimate leader (King Mswati) finding excuses to allow another illegitimate leader (Robert Mugabe) to cling to power. Sometime in the not too distant future the king of Swaziland will need similar help himself.
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