DEMOCRACY CALL RATTLES SWAZI P.M.

At last the Swazi Government has responded to the launch of the Swaziland Democracy Campaign (SDC).

Barnabas Dlamini , the illegally-appointed Prime Minister of Swaziland, told a media gathering that the SDC had no mandate from the people.

Hang on, mandate from the people? Dlamini knows nothing about mandates. He was not elected prime minister by the people. He wasn’t even elected to the parliament by the people. He was selected to the job by King Mswati III, who is himself sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch.

Dlamini told the media that the only reason why people went to the SDC meeting which was held in South Africa was because of the ‘luxuries and freebies that come with the trips’.

I think he is confusing the SDC with himself and his cronies in the Swaziland Government. They and King Mswati are the ones who fly all over the world at the expense of the Swazi people - 70 per cent of them live in abject poverty earning less than one US dollar a day. Only last year (2009) a gaggle of King Mswati’s wives went on a worldwide shopping trip, costing the Swazis six million dollars.

The reason why the SDC launch had to be in South Africa was because the oppressive regime in Swaziland would not allow such a meeting to be held in Swaziland. Only last week police stopped a meeting of young people going ahead and all they wanted to talk about was life skills.

Dlamini also said that the SDC did not support the views of ordinary Swazis who ‘love’ the existing political system in Swaziland.

We’ve been here before; there is no evidence that the Swazis want the present undemocratic system, because they have never been asked their views. King Sobhuza II tore up the constitution in 1973 and the kingdom has lurched from crisis to crisis ever since.

Dlamini is obviously rattled by the SDC. He told the meeting he was going to strengthen the government’s press office because there was a lot of ‘misinformation’ about Swaziland going to the international community.

What he meant, of course, is that the truth about Swaziland is getting out and he needs to put a lid on it.

Dlamini needs to learn he can bully and control the media in Swaziland but he can’t silence people outside the kingdom.