Swaziland
Newsletter No. 768 – 10 March 2023
News from and about Swaziland, compiled by
Global Aktion, Denmark (www.globalaktion.dk)
in collaboration with Swazi Media Commentary (www.swazimedia.blogspot.com),
and sent to all with an interest in Swaziland - free of charge.
King
appeals for more support from international community
eSwatini
Observer, 6 March 2023
His Majesty King Mswati III has pleaded
for more financial and technical support from the international community
following the massive reduction in development aid assistance.
Speaking at the 5th United Nations Conference for Least Developed Countries
(LDCS) yesterday afternoon, the King stated that Eswatini is among several
middle-income countries that have experienced a substantial reduction in aid,
and therefore urged the world donor community to upscale support.
“This is mainly because of the recent health and socio-economic challenges
experienced across the globe,” he said.
The King noted that the meeting was taking place amidst a plethora of
challenges, such as natural disasters, conflicts, and the COVID-19 pandemic,
and said the meeting provided UN member states with an opportunity to prepare
progress reports on the status of the attainment of the Sustainable Development
Goals for the UN General Assembly.
“However, we note that we still have many challenges in several of these goals,
such as; poverty alleviation, quality education, health, energy, job creation,
industry, innovation and infrastructure to mention a few,” said the King.
His Majesty also expressed concern that some countries who graduated from the LDC
category are not supported to enable them to remain in their elevated status
and cushioned against external shocks.
“We now find ourselves facing daunting challenges in creating an enabling
environment for our people to live in, which is why we appeal to the
international community to give us more financial and technical support in
order for us to achieve these SDGs targets.”
Aid without democracy is
complicity in crimes against humanity
Swaziland Solidarity Network
statement, 9 March 2023
On Monday, King Mswati and his
large entourage of royal hangers-on flew to Doha in his private jet to attend
the Fifth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries.
At the conference, the king
repeated his tired chorus of begging the world to increase funding to the tiny
kingdom. According to the king, development funding to the country has since
dried up for reasons completely unknown to him.
Such speeches by the king are
embarrassing to the nation because it is a well known fact that developed
nations are tired of being used to fund the country's social programmes while
the king and his ever increasing family live an obscenely lavish lifestyle.
To make matters worse, the
country is undemocratic and the king violates human rights with impunity. It is
therefore an insult to expect other nations to collaborate with such a
government as it would implicate them in the heinous Crimes Against Humanity
committed by the ruling royal regime.
The people of Swaziland have
long known of their country's potential to finance all its needs without
external aid. However, the looting of state coffers by the royal elite has
forced the nation to depend on donor funding, leading to the ongoing political
unrest.
The political unrest is an
indication of the people's determination to end the royal family's monopolistic
hold on state power and further put an end to their reliance on foreign aid.
They do not want to be perpetual beggars to the developed world.
Instead of funding this
government, the best course of action by these developed countries is to take a
strong stance against Mswati’s dictatorial rule and call on him to embrace
democracy. They should not turn a blind eye to the atrocities committed by his
government as that perpetuates the suffering of the masses.
As
the Swaziland Solidarity Network we strongly believe that the people of
Swaziland deserve a government that will prioritize their needs and work
towards giving them a better life rather than lining the pockets of the royal
elite. By ending the royal family's stranglehold on power, Swazis can finally
achieve the economic and social progress they deserve.
Issued by the
Swaziland Solidarity Network, Mfanafuthi Tsela, Acting Spokesperson.
King
Mswati lied to the UN, donor funding systematically looted to sustain his
lavish lifestyle.
Opinion.
By Zweli Martin Dlamini, Swaziland News, 7 March, 2023
King Mswati, when addressing the United
Nations Conference on Least Developed Countries, appealed for more funding to
improve the lives of the people and further achieve the Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs).
But the reality on the ground suggests
that despite the billions donated by international organizations including
diplomatic partners, about 70% of the population lives below the poverty line
while King Mswati who was never employed anywhere, emerged as a billionaire.
Some donated monies for national projects
are systematically looted through tenders awarded to royal linked companies and
therefore, King Mswati was literally lying when he appealed to the UN for
funding to improve the lives of the people.
Mswati and or his eSwatini Government
signed Gazettes allowing companies to pay workers as little as one thousand one
hundred Rands(R1,100).
This means poverty is gazetted in this
country and supported by the current regime.
In light of the aforementioned, it is
therefore important to bring to the attention of the United Nations(UN) and
other international partners pumping money in this country that the lives of
the masses will never be improved with Mswati on the Throne.
It should be noted that Mswati owns
watches worth more than R20 million each, a single watch can pay scholarships
for University students, elderly and disability grants.
I am just making an example without
mentioning the fleet of Rolls Royce, private jets and other assets worth
billions which he accumulated through stealing and or looting public funds.
Mswati was begging the UN and other
international organizations to pump more money to eSwatini so that he can loot
for his own benefit, this has nothing to do with improving the lives of the
people.
Thulani Maseko assassination — allegations of SA ‘mercenary
involvement’, and a witness details suspicious police activities
Daily Maverick (South Africa), 3 March 2023
Although there is still no independent investigation
into the assassination of Swaziland human rights activist Thulani Maseko, and
the Eswatini government seems to see no need to prioritise its own
investigation, there are plenty of clues. Although denying Maseko was on it, an
Eswatini registered security company, owned by a South African, admits it has a
hit list of ‘terrorists’.
 |
| Thulani Maseko |
However, colleagues of Maseko fear that, while there are leads that could be pursued in an investigation, there is a danger that the trail can go cold or that evidence and witnesses may be tampered with. To prevent this, lawyers and activists have started gathering and preserving some of the evidence surrounding the assassination.
For example, Maverick Citizen has a
copy of a damning sworn affidavit signed by one of Maseko’s relatives,
detailing what he witnessed when he arrived at the Maseko homestead within
minutes of the shooting.
The affidavit, by a person whose name we are
withholding for their protection, details how late at night, after witnessing
the murder scene, the relative set off on a motorbike to try to alert the
police. He claims that within minutes he came upon a suspicious black BMW
(whose number plate he partially recalls) parked on the dirt road leading to
Maseko’s house, and soon after that two police vehicles, one of them marked,
parked on the side of the main road.
“The Police Officers wore full police uniform, and
they were carrying semi-automated [sic] rifles,” says the affidavit.
Although the two police vehicles then accompanied him
to the scene of the murder (one of them apparently knowing where to locate the
house), they turned down his request to go in pursuit of the BMW.
“Upon arrival at Thulani’s place, I approached the
Police Officers and informed them of my suspicions of the BMW car. I asked if
it is possible to go after the BMW car. They informed me that they cannot go;
when I insisted they told me to take pictures of the licence plate of the car
and that they will be right behind me. I felt defeated and decided to go alone.”
The witness was unable to find the BMW so returned to
the house where he says he found more police as well as forensics
officers.
“After the police and forensics had left, the group of
us who remained there started cleaning the place. This entailed, among other
things, sweeping and mopping the blood and cleaning his brains off the couch
and floor.”
Finally, the person details how he fled Swaziland the
next morning, “after one Maseko neighbour told me to leave the area immediately
as I had seen too much, which I interpreted to mean my life would be in
danger”.
The South African connection
In the days immediately after the killing, the Swaziland
News, an independent online newspaper edited
by Zweli Martin Dlamini, who
has been declared a “terrorist” by the Swazi government and is exiled in
SA, named a South African security specialist, Arnold Jacobus Pienaar, as
being directly linked to the killing.
Pienaar is a director of Bastion Security, a
company registered in Eswatini, whose militaristic website,
patterned like the barrel of a gun, says its head office is at the Old Country
Club premises in Mhlambanyatsi (just outside Mbabane). In South Africa, Pienaar
is listed by the Companies
and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) as the
director of Armator Security, a company which does not have a website and is
not registered with the Private Security Industry Regulatory
Authority.
The allegation that Pienaar may be part of the murder
plot has been repeated in other media, including the Times of Swaziland which,
the day after the murder, carried a front-page report headlined: “Govt hires
military expert for Special Missions”. It named Bastion Security and Pienaar as
“formally training a counter-terrorism unit of the State security
agencies”.
The best picture we have of Pienaar comes from a
January 2023 article in SA
Forestry online which says he was recruited by Montigny Investments,
a timber company founded by Swaziland’s current minister of finance, Neal
Rijkenberg, and that before that he had worked for a
security company in Iraq purely for his “military expertise”.
In the UK, The Times, following up on
allegations made in the Eswatini media, interviewed Pienaar, and says he
“vigorously denied” being responsible for Maseko’s murder, while still
admitting that Bastion Security is working for King Mswati III and has a “list
of terrorists”.
According to the article
by Jane Flanagan, the Times’ Africa correspondent:
“Bastion Security, founded by Arno Pienaar who served in the SA army during
apartheid and later worked in Iraq, confirmed that his firm had signed a
security agreement with the King last year…
To read more of this report, click here
This is an ongoing investigation. Any
person with relevant information can contact the Daily Maverick at investigations@dailymaverick.co.za
Disrupt elections, face the law - EBC warns
By Nhlanganiso Mkhonta, Times
of eSwatini, 9 March 2023
MBABANE: EBC Chairperson Prince Mhlabuhlangene Dlamini
has warned those who intend to disrupt the upcoming elections to be ready to
face the consequences and be better legally covered.
The Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC)
chairperson was speaking during the official unveiling of the 2023 General
Elections logo and slogan. The unveiling was held at SibaneSami Hotel
yesterday. Dlamini stated that the election processes were legal. He said
it was fundamentally important to underscore that every aspect of pre to
post-elections was legally binding. He stated that all processes and
interruptions were also legally binding in the legal enforcement. The prince
said when one spoke of a political right, that same person was also speaking
about a duty. In light of this, he said there was no right that did not go
without responsibility or duty.
“Every right as a matter of legal principle has a
corresponding obligation, so it becomes unfortunate when people propose to
exercise an incomplete right,” he said. He said people proposed to
practise a certain right but failed to execute a duty corresponding to that
right. The prince said people should respect other people’s rights as a
matter of principle. He said when one infringed on other people’s rights, there
were legal consequences. The chairperson said the legal consequences were not
declared by either EBC or the government, but by the Constitution and the legal
system of the country. “For every action that is legal, there is a
consequence that follows,” he said.
Dlamini said he was mentioning this in order for
everyone who intended to exercise any political right, to ask themselves if, by
doing so, they were honouring the corresponding duty owed to another person who
possessed the same political right. He said what they were all about as
EBC and the nation was strictly a constitutional legal process. He said,
therefore, all the protections were attached to the enforcement of these
constitutional rights, which included political rights and rights to elect and
to participate in the elections. Dlamini said the right to participate in
elections should not be trampled upon by anyone unless there was a
constitutional excuse, not a personal one.
The prince said it was universal that for every legal
right, there was law enforcement that conferred effects to that legal right. He
said, therefore, it should not be any wonder that when there was any violation
of a political or constitutional right, it would go without saying that the law
enforcement mechanism that supported those rights should be effected. He
said such was not peculiar to Eswatini because it was common cause that the
purpose of law was to maintain law and order in society. The prince warned
stakeholders, be it domestic and international community, who intended to
interact in the upcoming elections, to take heed, to avoid self-fulfilling
prophecy. He explained that a self-fulfilling prophecy was when one
declared something and went behind the scenes to make that particular
declaration come to light. Speaking about the country’s political system,
the Tinkhundla System in particular, he said every person had a right to
constructively criticise the system. He said unconstructive criticism was more
or less related to self-fulfilling prophecy.
He said as such, if the narrative would be that the
Tinkhundla System under which the elections were conducted would be a flop by
whatever reason, it should not be then that people would participate in
fulfilling that prophecy. He said people should not participate in the
self-fulfilling prophecy when criticising the Tinkhundla System. Dlamini
said it should not be denied that when one spoke of the concept of democratic
government that was not a concept native to emaSwati. He said democratic
government was not a concept that came from emaSwati’s inheritance. He said it
should be learnt and the principles that governed it were fixed, stating that
it needed to be learnt, unlike things that were native to emaSwati.
PUDEMO maintains stance
MBABANE – PUDEMO does not want Tinkhundla elections in
2023 or any other time in Eswatini, going forward.
This was stated by the People’s United Democratic
Movement Secretary General (SG) Penuel Malinga during the political party’s
10th General Congress held between February 24 to 26, 2023 in Driekoppies,
Mpumalanga Province, in a statement released yesterday. Malinga called upon
emaSwati to prepare for a defiance campaign to stop any possibility of
Tinkhundla elections until negotiations and drafting of a democratic and all
inclusive Constitution was in place. “We wish to be unequivocal in calling
for a genuine multiparty democratic electoral framework as the basis for the
election of any government of the country,” said Malinga.
The PUDEMO SG said they were committed to continuing
leading and catalysing the mass rebellion of the people across the entire
country and to turn their mass power into a coherent irreversible force that
was emblematic of a conscious movement for democracy and social justice. “Our
people’s anger against landlessness will be collectively mobilised to become
the seedbed for the total liberation of Eswatini. We are unequivocal that the
land belongs to the people and we declared that,” said the
SG. Meanwhile, Malinga said they affirmed that the struggle was not a
spontaneous occurrence of unexpected incidents, but a conscious process towards
the building of society, based on respect for fundamental human rights and
dignity.
Furthermore, Malinga said the congress delegated all structures of PUDEMO to
embark on a massive recruitment drive so that this movement of the people could
exist in all villages, townships, cities, factories, educational institutions
and its members must actively lead popular people’s struggles for freedom.
To read more of this report, click here
http://www.times.co.sz/news/139256-disrupt-elections-face-the-law-ebc-warns.html
Set
minimum qualifications for MPs - residents
By
Wonderboy Dlamini, eSwatini Observer, 8 March 2023
While most communities have called for
underperforming Members of Parliament to be recalled, residents of Makhewu want
minimum qualifications to be set for one to qualify to be a
parliamentarian.
The residents were concerned that as the
world advanced technologically, a number of parliamentarians found themselves
being ineffective in carrying out their core mandate as they were unable to
understand most pieces of legislation.
They said it was thus essential to view
the role of empowering aspiring MPs in the broader context of parliamentary
development.
The residents said setting minimum
qualifications standards would strengthen the role that Parliament could play
in the many governance issues.
The residents made their submissions
during the civic voter education exercise carried out by the Elections and
Boundaries Commission (EBC) in preparation for the elections this
year.
This was at Makhewu under the Lugongolweni
Inkhundla in the Lubombo region.
One of the residents who spoke
passionately about this when making his submissions, Moses Gamedze, first
acknowledged that some individuals were naturally born leaders who would bring
development to a community when given a chance.
Gamedze, however, said government needed
legislators who would not just act as development officers but be makers of
sound laws that would sustain the country.
He noted that while some legislators
actively participated in debates and other Parliament business, some appeared
to be ‘quiet’ mostly because they did not know what to say in terms of making
laws.
This he said was because they did not have
an understanding of what would be happening.
Gamedze asked the EBC if it was still
proper to vote for legislators who had no academic qualification, considering
that technology also required a certain level of understanding.
Responding, EBC facilitator, Siboniso Nhleko, said the election laws allowed any citizen born in the country to stand for the elections, as long as he or she had not breached any of the laws.
Nhleko said for now, the level of
education was not considered as an entry requirement but stated this could be
something that Parliament would have to work on in the future.
Meanwhile, Nonhlanhla Mazibuko expressed a
concern about candidates who would only surface during the elections time and
attempt to ‘buy’ votes.
She noted that some residents spent most
of their time at their various workplaces in the urban areas and only visit
home on holidays.
Mazibuko said these individuals also
rarely attended any community meetings. “I would like to advise my fellow
residents against voting for people who only come home during the elections and
brandish money to buy votes,” she said. Kaizer Mathonsi shared similar
sentiments with Mazibuko, urging residents to make it a norm to attend
community meetings at the umphakatsi.
Mathonsi said they were usually surprised
to see people who did not partake in community issues contesting in the
elections.
“Sometimes we see some people for the
first time when they come to campaign at the umphakatsi during the guided
campaign process,” he said.
On another note, the residents also asked
for clarity from the EBC about the boundaries of Lugongolweni Inkhundla and
Matsanjeni North Inkhundla.
To read more of this report, click
here
http://new.observer.org.sz/details.php?id=20038
“Follow
the law if you want to stage a protest here”, Limkokwing Director Tfobile
Gumede tells lecturers.
By
Zweli Martin Dlamini, Swaziland News, 8 March, 2023
MBABANE: Tfobile Dlamini-Gumede, the
Director at Limkokwing University of Creative Technology (LUCT) has advised
Lecturers who were intending to stage a protest within the premises of the
institution of higher learning to follow the law.
Lecturers and other members of the
National Workers Union in Swaziland Higher Institutions (NAWUSHI) wrote to
Dlamini on Tuesday notifying her that they intended to protest and deliver a
petition on Wednesday.
But in a letter dated 07 March 2023, the
Limkokwing University Executive Director advised the Lecturers to adhere to the
provisions of the Industrial Relations Act of 2000.
“You letter dated 7th March 2023 where you
were informing the University of your decision to hold a picket and deliver a
petition to my office tomorrow (Wednesday) the 8th March 2023 is well received.
However, kindly note that your intended action is contravening Section 107 of
the Industrial Relations Act 1/2000 which explicitly provides that any peaceful
lawful picketing must be in furtherance of a strike which is in compliance with
this Act”,reads the letter dated 07 March 2023 addressed to the National
Workers Union in Swaziland Higher Institutions.
It has been disclosed that the Lecturers
are demanding among others, the reinstatement of law Lecturer and NAWUSHI
Branch Chairperson Gabsile Xolile Mnisi who was suspended by the Limkokwing
Director.
The law Lecturer who normally represents
persecuted workers within institutions of higher learning in her capacity as a
unionist, was subsequently charged for alleged misconduct by the Limkokwing
Executive Director.
“The union herein is aggrieved by the
Management’s unlawful acts of victimizing union members and members of staff
who have dissenting views. This has been carried out through contract
non-renewals, reduced duration of contracts and frivolous and malicious
charges, these acts together constitute a violation of article 3 of the Recognition
agreement between the University and the union,” read the grievances in part.
Efforts to reach Limkokwing Director
Tfobile Gumede proved unsuccessful at the time of compiling this report.
On another note, the union of Lecturers
further warned the Limkokwing University Management to desist from victimizing
the union members with immediate effect.
The union further demanded that the issue
of contracts be addressed as a matter of urgency.
It is alleged that the Limkokwing Director
is exploiting Lecturers, at times these Lecturers are forced to sign one year
renewable contracts.
“Management is further warned to stop
union bashing and intimidation of union leaders and members. Issue progressive
contracts as per the University Policy, members on five years’ contracts be
employed on a permanent and pensionable basis . Drop the malicious and
frivolous charges against the LUCT Branch Chairperson,” read the grievances in
part.
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