The government hand-picked by the King has allocated nearly E2.7 billion (US$216 million) for the kingdom’s security forces that comprise the Umbutfo Swaziland Defence Force (USDF), Royal Swaziland Police Service (RSPS) and His Majesty’s Correctional Services (HMCS).
This is
more than the E2.2bn allocated to health in the coming financial year and E585
million more than allocated to security in 2016-2017.
Security
will take up 12.4 percent of Swaziland’s total budget of E21.7bn ($US1.66 bn),
up 11 percent last year.
Martin
Dlamini, Minister of Finance, told the Swazi Parliament on 24 February 2017,
‘An additional budget has been allocated to the Royal Swaziland Police to
enhance the delivery of services in rural and periurban areas and improve emergency
response and crowd management
services.’
Swaziland has a poor human rights record and police and security forces
routinely break-up labour and political demonstrations. Only three days after
the budget announcement, police halted
a march by the Trade Union Congress of Swaziland (TUCOSWA) that wanted to
deliver a petition to the Ministry of Labour and Social Security.
According
to the government book of estimates for the 2017-2018 financial year, a total
of E1,191,650,000 ($US91 million) has been allocated to the Ministry of
Defence, E995,695,000 to the police and E505,896,000 to the Correctional
Services.
Swaziland’s
spending on military and security has been growing over the past few years.
Meanwhile, seven in ten of the 1.3 million population live in abject poverty
with incomes less than US$2 per day.
Swaziland
spent US$259.8 million on its military in the years 2011 to 2014. In 2014
military spending amounted to 5.9 percent of all government spending in
Swaziland, according to the Stockholm
International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) in its Military Expenditure
Database for
2015.
The military spending amounted to
2.2 percent of Swaziland’s entire gross domestic product (GDP).
In the calendar year 2014,
Swaziland’s military spending was estimated to be US$80.6 million; about the
equivalent of US$62 for every person in the kingdom.
In 2011, the Swazi Government set
aside more than US$100 million for spending on the army and police force and
the then Finance Minister Majozi Sithole admitted that the army
was prepared for an uprising by the population in Swaziland.
This followed a series of
prodemocracy uprisings in North Africa, leading to what became known as the
‘Arab Spring’. King Mswati was fearful something similar could happen in his
kingdom. A Facebook group calling itself
the April 12 Uprising had already called for an overthrow of the King.
In February 2011, Sithole told an
open stakeholder dialogue on the 2011-2012 budget and Fiscal Adjustment
Roadmap, ‘Yes, we are spending a lot on the army but we are not anticipating
what is happening in North Africa to come here,’ he said.
He added, ‘However, the army is
there to avoid such situations.’
In 2009, the Swazi Government was
revealed to be engaged in arms
dealing by the
United States. A diplomatic cable written by Maurice Parker, the then US
Ambassador to Swaziland, and later published by WikiLeaks revealed that the UK
Government had blocked an arms deal between a UK company Unionlet and the
Swaziland Government because it feared their ‘possible use for internal
repression’.
The Swazi Government wanted to
buy equipment worth US$60 million.
Among items listed for purchase
were, ‘3 Bell Model UH-1H helicopters, FN Herstal 7.6251mm Minimi light machine
guns, blank and tracer ammunition, armored personnel carriers, command and
control vehicles including one fitted with a 12.7x99mm M2 Browning heavy
machine gun and others fitted with the FN Herstal light machine guns, military
ambulances, armored repair and recovery vehicles, weapon sights, military image
intensifier equipment, optical target surveillance equipment, 620 Heckler &
Koch G36E assault rifles, 240 Heckler & Koch G36K assault rifles, 65
Heckler & Koch G36E rifles, 75 Heckler & Koch UMP submachine guns
9x19mm, and 35 Heckler & Koch USP semi-automatic pistols’.
The Swaziland Government said it
wanted the items to fulfil its United Nations ‘peacekeeping’ obligations in
Africa.
The UK Government did not believe
it and thought either the weapons would be used against the Swazi civilian
population, or they were being bought in order to sell on to another country,
possibly Iran. The UK Government blocked the deal.
In his diplomatic cable, Parker
said, ‘The array of weapons requested would not be needed for the first phases
of peacekeeping, although it is possible someone tried to convince the Swazi
government they were required. The GKOS [Government of the Kingdom of
Swaziland] may have been attempting to build up domestic capability to deal
with unrest, or was possibly acting as an intermediary for a third party such
as Zimbabwe or a Middle Eastern country that had cash, diamonds or goods to
trade.’
Once the cable became public in
2011, John Kunene, Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Defence, who signed the original deal in 2008, said
the kingdom had never given up trying to buy the weapons.
The Swazi News, an
independent newspaper in Swaziland, reported (26 February 2011) that Kunene was
still trying to broker
a deal.
In March 2011 Kunene was sacked from his job after a disclosure that the army
had run out of food to feed its soldiers.
See also
SWAZI MPs
REJECT NATIONAL BUDGET
SWAZI
SECRET ARMS DEAL FOR IRAN
SWAZILAND
AND SECRET ARMS DEAL
http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2013/03/swaziland-and-secret-arms-deal.html
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