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Friday, 4 October 2024

Swaziland Newsletter No. 847 – 4 October 2024

 

Swaziland Newsletter No. 847 – 4 October 2024

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.

 

[South Africa] High court dismisses defamation case involving King Mswati

By Tshwarelo Mogakane, Sunday World (South Africa), 1 October 2024

SOURCE 

The Mpumalanga High Court has dismissed a court battle linked to Eswatini King Mswati III.

The Mbombela division of the Mpumalanga High Court has dismissed a significant part of a defamation case brought on behalf of King Mswati III.

Themba Masuku, a former acting prime minister of eSwatini, filed a lawsuit against Zweli Martin Dlamini, the editor of the South African-based online publication Swaziland News.

Masuku sought a mandatory interdict that would have forced Swaziland News to provide the eSwatini government with at least seven days’ notice before publishing any future articles critical of the monarchy, alleging defamation in their reporting.

This would have given the government the opportunity to stall news reporting, effectively imposing prior restraint on the media outlet.

The articles in question, published between August 2020 and December 2022, accused the king, Masuku, and other officials of corruption, fraud, and unethical behaviour.

They included a claim that Masuku’s wife looted R200 000 during an international trip.

While the court acknowledged that the articles were defamatory, it ruled that Masuku did not have the legal standing to bring the case on behalf of his wife or King Mswati.

Judge Johannes Roelofse made it clear that the individuals directly affected should have pursued the matter themselves.

“The minister was not defamed. Perhaps his spouse was. None of the minister’s personal rights were infringed,” Roelofse said in his ruling.

“Therefore, the minister has not established an infringement of his personal rights and is not entitled to interdictory relief.”

Similarly, the court ruled that King Mswati III should have brought the case himself. Roelofse noted that Masuku could not represent the king in a South African court.

Initially, the court had granted an interim order in favour of the Swaziland government, which required Swaziland News to provide 72 hours’ notice before publishing any content critical of the monarchy.

This temporary relief was granted while the court considered the merits of the final judgment.

However, Masuku’s request for a permanent seven-day notice period was ultimately rejected.

“I granted an interim order in favour of the minister … as the balance of convenience favoured the Eswatini government while I was considering what final relief [if any] to grant,” explained Roelofse.

Separation of powers

However, the court rejected the Eswatini government’s attempt to declare Swaziland News’s actions as terrorism, with Roelofse ruling that such a declaration would breach the principle of separation of powers and amount to a conviction without trial.

“To declare that the respondents have committed acts of terrorism … would not only offend the principle of separation of powers but also convict the respondents without a fair trial,” he said.

The case underscored the balance between media freedom and defamation, with Swaziland News editor Dlamini maintaining that his outlet was exercising its right to report critically on the government.

Roelofse concluded by reaffirming the need for the publication to comply with the press code.

He also rejected the majority of Masuku’s requests for relief, including the one for a seven-day notice period.

 

We are a broken people

By Melusi Matsenjwa, Times of eSwatini, 30 September 2024

SOURCE 

THE ever-rising statistics of gender-based violence, even after numerous campaigns and the much-celebrated enactment of the Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Act, are a serious cause for concern.

he latter development was seen as the perfect panacea to the worrying trends of GBV; many were convinced that the tough ramifications that came with this piece of legislation would arrest the situation through the double-edged sword effect of deterrence and punishment.

Six years later, our girls and women are still being raped, beaten and killed while many boys and men suffer in silence. Of course, it will not take six years to rectify social ills of generations but we can be forgiven to have high expectations of a major behavioural change in our people after all the interventions that have been made.

This, in my view, points to deeper underlying issues in society that need the attention of everyone, especially our leaders. It is becoming increasingly clear that we are an angry, disillusioned society. Both our men and women are struggling in many areas of their lives and are failing to deal with issues. We are not at all a happy people and our mental health issues are manifesting in destructive behaviours.

In this country, as it is right now, it takes an extremely optimistic person to see any light at the end of the tunnel. With the economy performing as badly as it is right now, with the huge inequality and poverty; the only light many are seeing is that of an oncoming train. What further compounds that is the glaring lack of vision and a sense of duty within our leadership. We only see career leaders, hell-bent on keeping their jobs and so detached from the suffering of the people. Our leaders have demonstrated a confused, reactionary leadership that has a strong aversion to consultation.

If this state of affairs persists, our problems as a country will spiral out of control. Our leadership needs to think creatively about how we can foster social cohesion going forward. We need to see how we build our country, starting from the primary source of socialisation; the family. The nation can benefit hugely from a ‘Social Cohesion Indaba’ that will begin analysing our society from that basic unit of society; the family, to see where we are losing it as a nation.

To read more of this, click here

http://www.times.co.sz/feature/147322-we-are-a-broken-people.html

 

 LGBTQ advocates struggle for visibility in eSwatini

By Nokukhanya Musi, Voice of America, 27 September 2024

SOURCE 

FILE - People take part in Eswatini's first gay pride demonstration in Mbabane, June 30, 2018. Human rights lawyer Sibusiso Nhlabatsi says the harsh legal environment for LGBTQ people in the kingdom causes significant problems for them.

MBABANE: Eswatini Sexual and Gender Minorities, an LGBTQ advocacy group, was denied registration by authorities in 2019, and even after seeking relief from the Supreme Court, which had ruled the group must be registered, its efforts have been unsuccessful.

Human rights lawyer Sibusiso Nhlabatsi said the harsh legal environment for LGBTQ individuals in the southern African kingdom causes significant problems.

“There is denial that they exist, so they do not have any form of protection as a group,” Nhlabatsi said. “They only rely on protection from the law or enjoyment of any rights from the law as human beings under Chapter 3 of our Bill of Rights of our Constitution. So I can say it’s quite challenging, because there’s no instrument that seeks to protect them. There’s no instrument that seeks to recognize them as a group of people that exist. I don’t think there’s any progress that has been made.”

Besides the lack of legal recognition, LGBTQ individuals in Eswatini often face discrimination in gaining access to services, high rates of intimate partner violence, and exclusion from public discussions.

Sisanda Mavimbela, executive director of Eswatini Sexual and Gender Minorities, said the idea of LGBTQ rights is considered contradictory to traditional African values and religious beliefs, perpetuating a climate of exclusion and marginalization.

“The community cannot equally enjoy rights like all Swazis do, as per their birthright," Mavimbela said. ESGM has been denied "a right to associate, which is a right to all Swazis as per the Constitution.”

Eswatini is also known by its former official name, Swaziland.

In the LGBTQ community, “justice comes hard and sometimes is not reached at all,” for what are usually quoted as "non-African, unreligious or cultural” reasons, Mavimbela said.

To read more of this, click here

https://www.voanews.com/a/lgbtq-advocates-struggle-for-visibility-in-eswatini/7802336.html

 

Threats of more deaths, witchcraft at Mananga

By Bongumusa Simelane, eSwatini Observer, 28 September 2024

SOURCE 

Residents of Nhlanguyavuka and surrounding areas have declared war on those who are stealing and further robbing them of their dagga.

This comes after the residents this week apprehended four people who were accused of robbing some dagga farmers of their dagga where there was a dramatic chase.

This resulted in two people  being dead due to the injuries they sustained after the assault. Some of the dagga farmers said residents had already declared that they were sick and tired of people who would come to them and pretend as if they were customers and later rob them of their dagga.

One of the dagga farmers said they would continue to be vicious against anyone who tried to rob them because as dagga farmers, they were not stealing from anyone, but were just trying to earn a living as there are no jobs. He mentioned that as dagga farmers, they would ensure that whoever tried the same stunt will be dealt with.

“We are working hard in the dagga fields and then there are people who will just come and rob us. That is why we say we will never let our hard work easily vanish due to thieves,” said one of the farmers.

What also angered some farmers is that they allegedly got wind that some relatives of one of the deceased had threatened everyone who had a hand in the death of their family members, that they would make sure that through witchcraft they also die.

This, the farmers said, will not end well because they were the ones who were provoked. One dagga farmer even stated that if it calls for them to die for their hard work, then let it be, but they will never easily surrender their dagga to thieves.

They said the problem was that they have been robbed a number of times by thieves and some of them were able to get away with it.

The farmers said they had taken the decision to ensure that they dealt with the criminals who steal their dagga. One even acknowledged that dagga-growing was illegal, but maintained that as long as they were not stealing from anyone or causing any social problem in the community, they would be left with no choice, but to grow it to be able to feed their families.

It could be noted that the area is one of the well-known dagga growing areas in the Northern Hhohho region, and most farmers enjoy the fact that they are closer to the border, where their valuable market is found.

The residents also highlighted the plight of unemployment and said people had no other alternative means of earning a living, hence they then ventured into dagga growing. They stated that most people ended up in the dagga trade despite the challenges they face, including that of being robbed.

To read more of this, click here

http://new.observer.org.sz/details.php?id=22690

See also

Dagga thieves brutally assaulted, paraded naked, 1 shot dead

http://www.times.co.sz/news/147275-dagga-thieves-brutally-assaulted-paraded-naked-1-shot-dead.html

 

Get a Load of This Saga of Corruption and Intrigue in Eswatini

Kudos to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists for exposing the country’s role in the underground money-shuffling industry.

By Charles P. Pierce, Esquire Magazine, 28 September 2024

SOURCE 

In 1968, the British High Commission territory of Swaziland became an independent monarchy called Eswatini—at which point it pretty much disappeared into a thousand crossword puzzles. However, in recent years, the international money power has discovered Eswatini as a place where it can do its mischief. The good people at the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists covered the waterfront in that small place and found something that was half Joseph Conrad and half Goldman Sachs. The ICIJ reporters were working through a massive leak of 890,000 documents that outlined Eswatini’s role in the worldwide underground money-shuffling industry, and the steps the monarchy has taken to make sure democracy doesn’t break out there and screw up the whole business.

There is little that sets apart the All Nations Christian Church in Zion from the countless other churches that have mushroomed across the country in recent years. Outside the main church hall—a building resembling an industrial warehouse—we met the “archbishop,” Bheki Lukhele. Lukhele is a stocky, affable man with a disarmingly gappy smile. But his overly protective bodyguards were odd for someone who’s supposedly just a middling man of God. Perhaps, I thought at the time, they were a sign of someone who wanted to keep scrutiny of his earthly activities at bay.

Inside the cavernous hall, churchgoers swayed in song or spoke in tongues as one particularly irritable bodyguard tried to swat away ICIJ’s photographer. Presumably, the congregants had no clue that the humble church and its leader were conduits for millions of dollars. That’s why we were there—to see firsthand the scene that Swazi authorities had flagged as a key node in complex transactions involving politically connected figures in Eswatini and across the border in South Africa. The authorities determined that the transactions were suspicious and potentially unlawful.

Then there are the banks.

“We had come to Bulembu to find a new bank that, bizarrely, had opened in a town with an almost non-existent economy. Again, what we saw was unremarkable: a modest, freshly painted building. Inside were brand-new steel waiting room benches and counters. It looked like any other bank, but the story behind it was full of intrigue. The bank existed in limbo amid an ongoing tussle between its shadowy Canadian founders and Swazi authorities who were concerned about the lack of transparency around the bank’s ownership and were demanding answers about the source of its funding. Our Swazi Secrets investigation revealed the political interests behind the bank, questionable money flows, and the opaque role of a controversial and highly litigious Canadian property developer”—John Asfar.

The ICIJ has been publishing on Eswatini since at least April. For example, there is the “special economic zone,” which seems to exist only as the spin cycle for gold.

The “brainchild” of Eswatini’s king, Mswati III, and his “insatiable desire to help stimulate economic growth,” as one press release put it, the SEZ was meant to be an oasis for new business. Instead, grass and weeds are slowly reclaiming vacant plots. Wide, empty boulevards go nowhere, lined with streetlights that aren’t in operation. One lone building—a multistory government office complex—stands in a surreal ghost land of nearly 400 acres. There are no remnants of the vibrant community where Motsa once lived. And there’s nothing pointing to the businesses that, on paper at least, are based here: mysterious gold refineries channeling millions of dollars to Dubai.

Ostensibly, the SEZ is home to two gold refineries: Mint of Eswatini Pty. Ltd. and RME Bullion Pty. Ltd. Neither of these refineries existed, however.

Mint of Eswatini was a shell through which millions of dollars in suspicious transactions flowed, and RME was suspected of being a link in an illicit gold trading operation. Leaked documents reveal that Eswatini’s authorities were concerned that the gold refining companies were exploiting the SEZ’s loopholes to evade taxes, illegally move money abroad, or potentially move illicit money through the kingdom.

Rather than drawing in productive investment and spurring economic growth, the SEZ may have turned the country into a hub for money laundering, the central bank and EFIU feared. The activities of two figures close to the king concerned the EFIU: Swazi jeweler Keenin Schofield, one of King Mswati III’s sons-in-law, who was once found guilty of and fined for diamond smuggling, and Alistair Mathias, a secretive and politically connected Canadian businessman involved in gold trading and construction.

It is a sprawling saga of corruption and intrigue. Crooks marrying into the royal family. Former rugby internationals who later got into smuggling and carried the nickname “Mr. Gold.” And Dubai in the middle of the whole thing—which is the least surprising thing of all.

 

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