WHO NEEDS FRIENDS LIKE THESE?

I see Swaziland’s Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Minister Lutfo Dlamini is off on his travels again.

Last month (October 2009) he was with King Mswati III, in the Middle East – remember that very embarrassing poem he wrote saying Mswati was sent from God.

I didn’t mention it at the time but I wasn’t the only one struck by the fact that the king and his hangers-on only seem to visit places with appalling human rights records.

This time Dlamini is in Cuba at the invitation of that country’s government. Anyone who follows any of the Swaziland media will know Dlamini is being hailed as a respected friend in Cuba.

The reason is simple: Swaziland supports Cuba at the United Nations so that makes King Mswati, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, a pretty good fellow in their eyes.

By a coincidence of timing days before Dlamini landed in Cuba, the New York-based Human Rights Watch reported that Cuban president, Raúl Castro, has crushed dissent and continued repression in the country since taking over from his brother Fidel in July 2006.

The government has even introduced a new law that allows the state to punish people before they commit a crime on suspicion they may do so.

Since coming to power Raúl has kept up repression and kept scores of political prisoners locked up, Human Rights Watch said.

He tightened repression with greater use of a provision in the criminal code which allows people to be convicted for ‘dangerousness’, defined as behaviour which contradicts socialist norms.

It documented more than 40 cases in which individuals were jailed for ‘dangerousness’, including such things as handing out copies of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, staging rallies, writing articles critical of the government, and trying to organise independent unions.

The report said fear permeated the lives of dissidents in Cuba. ‘Some stop voicing their opinions and abandon their activities altogether; others continue to exercise their rights, but live in constant dread of being punished.’

So Dlamini must feel right at home with the Cubans. Dlamini can teach them a thing or two about how he and the government he serves treats the Swazis.