Musa Ndlangamandla, who was sacked this week from his job as editor-in-chief of the Swazi Observer newspaper group (the paper in effect owned by King Mswati III) has responded to my blogpost of yesterday (18 January 2012).
Here is what he wrote:
Prof. Rooney I need not justify my actions or stance to you or anyone for that matter and I am not seeking sympathy nor am I claiming to be a hero. I am independent and do not belong to any group. Some of what you want Sean to show [this is a refernce to comments left on a Facebook site] you can easily be found in my banned columns 'Asikhulume' or ' This Ink Stings' or 'The Pen That Stings' which are archived in the swaziobserver website and can be googled. However, I don't see what any of us stands to benefit from this ' yo-yo' exchange. I have many disagreements with how you portrayed me in your blog but I am not about to justify my actions. One thing though, I know what I stand I took even before I was fired first from speech writing, then a year later from being Chief Editor. Even before I started giving space to the voice of Mario Masuku, Mandla Hlatshwayo, Lucky Lukhele, Bongani Masuku, Sibongile Mazibuko, Vincent Ncongwane, Jan Sithole and others.....I knew that this would get me in trouble with the king, the PM and other powerfuls. But we had to do it because that was the right thing to do. We pushed the land theft Scandal by Barnabas and cabinet colleagues whilst I was still a speech writer for the king and whilst I was still travelling with the king and not after. Thats when barnabas hatched the lie that I was mastermind behind April 12 uprising. This was after he and some in cabinet had had several meetings asking the king to fire me as speech writer and traveler on his trips and as Chief Editor at Observer. Im sorry for such a long post but I thought I should share a glimpse of what happened leading to this. No I am not a hero and yes I will never work for this regime again even if I may be asked to. Id rather eat grass.
1 comment:
I can't decide whether or not Prof. Rooney has been overly harsh with you, but you do owe us an explanation Mr. Ndlangamandla. You did good work by exposing the morally rotten cabinet led by PM Barnabas. I read a lot of your articles and I recall one in particular where you hit directly at the king (something unusual for someone who is or was once close to him) by appropriating blame for the crisis the country is in squarely at him. As a speechwriter you must have willingly participated in the regime's propaganda for a while, and that's what you need to explain. You can continue to help enlighten the masses, and don't feel attacked when Rooney expresses his opinion. He has nothing to gain in all of this, he is not a Swazi. you are a trained scribe, use your writing too. you helped us all when you wrote about the land scandal. It clearly swayed public opinion against the PM. If you didn't expose him, there wasn't going to be a court case and the PM would still be a saint fighting the so called terrorists. you showed him that he is not invincible, only the truth is.
that's my 2cents
-ngangenja
Post a Comment