The Communist Party of Swaziland calls for a boycott of the Jadakiss concert being held for the Swazi Royal Family tonight (23 April 2011) and all other royal celebrations.
Communist Party of Swaziland (CPS)
Press Release
22 April 2011
Expose Mswati’s vile waste and greed – boycott his jubilee celebrations!
The Communist Party of Swaziland (CPS) condemns the waste and extravagance of the Mswati monarchy on its attendance of the wedding being celebrated this week by the British royal family. It also completely opposes any use of public money – included that budgeted as pocket money for Mswati – to celebrate the royal jubilee.
The CPS calls for a boycott of all celebrations marking the anniversary of Mswati’s despotic rule. We call on all invited guests and performers to stay away from Swaziland and have nothing to do with Mswati’s celebration of his ruinous rule. We call on the people to send a clear message to Mswati that they will no longer tolerate his squandering of vast amounts of the people’s wealth and resources.
These celebrations, including the trip to the UK by Mswati and an entourage of 50 wives and lackeys, is a direct insult to the Swazi people, 70% of whom live in poverty, and 40% of whose have never had enough food to eat. The people of Swaziland are learning that Mswati, together with his puppet government, despises them and laughs at their misery. Why would he have the nerve to display his opulent waster and greed in the faces of the suffering majority of Swazi people?
Mswati’s arrogant self-indulgence nevertheless exists on borrowed time. He is desperate to force his useless ministers to squeeze whatever wealth they can from the dying economy. Swaziland’s economy is unsustainable. It has lost 60% of revenue from the slashing of African Customs Union income, and its import-export portfolios are withering. The regime is unable to pay for itself and is resorting to cutting wages and reneging on pay owed to public workers, including civil servants, teachers and nurses.
At the same time, Mswati’s ministers are falling over themselves to try to show their obtuse royal leader that they are making headway in the economy. Mswati has put massive pressure on the government to push ahead with completing the pointless international airport at Sikhuphe at a cost of R2.1 billion. We already have a perfectly good airport at Matsapha that can handle our international air traffic – all of which comes via OR Tambo at Johannesburg. Sikhuphe is designed to handle large long-haul aircraft and airbuses of the kind that are unlikely to visit Swaziland unless its tourism becomes bigger than that of South Africa.
Mswati is convinced his new airport is the solution to Swaziland’s economic crisis. He is merely blinded by his own arrogance. There is no demand for an airport of Sikhuphe’s size and passenger capacity (300,000 a year whereas we only ever get about 70,000 passengers using Matsapha airport). This is shown by the inability of the government to market the new airport to secure long haul routes and by its having to offer Sikhuphe for use by low budget small carriers from South Africa.
The hopeless incompetence of the Mswati regime in dealing with Swaziland’s finances and economic development is directly responsible for the terrible plight of our people and for the poverty, disease and degradation they suffer.
The CPS calls on all progressive forces in Swaziland to further expose the greed and mismanagement of the regime. It calls on all our people and on our comrades in solidarity to boycott the regime and Mswati’s insulting jubilee celebrations.
See also
THREAT TO DISRUPT ROYAL CONCERT
http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/04/threat-to-disrupt-royal-concert.html
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