IGNORANCE ON SWAZI DEMOCRACY

I am astonished at the ignorance about the lack of democracy in Swaziland shown by some members of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) who are meeting in the kingdom this week.

According to the Times Sunday, an independent newspaper in Swaziland, Ernest Britto, Minister for the Environment and Tourism in Gibraltar and Vice Chairperson of the CPA Executive Committee, Kathleen Casey, believe ‘democracy is good’ in the kingdom ruled by King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch.

Britto even went so far as to say Commonwealth countries are accepting Swaziland as a democratic country.

The two made their comments in the very week that Sipho Jele was arrested for wearing a PUDEMO T-shirt and ended up dead in jail in very suspicious circumstances.

This week also saw a clampdown on civil liberties and freedom of association at the Workers' Day celebrations last Monday (1 May 2010).

Two months ago the United States State Department issued a 11,200-word report that detailed the human rights violations in Swaziland.

Members of the CPA really ought to do their homework before making such ignorant public statements that Swaziland is a democracy.

It is beyond my comprehension why the 35 member executive of the CPA are meeting in Swaziland for three days starting today (10 May 2010) to follow ‘an extensive programme to support the advancement of parliamentary democracy’ through the 54-nation Commonwealth.

Swaziland has no parliamentary democracy. The prime minister Barnabas Dlamini was unconstitutionally selected to his office by the king who also appointed most of the people who sit in Swaziland’s government.

The violations of human rights and democratic freedoms in Swaziland are too numerous to mention here (just about every post in this blog is about the lack of freedom in the kingdom).

There is a campaign at the moment to protest to the CPA about their visit to Swaziland and to try to educate members on the realities of life in Swaziland. To find out more go to the Swaziland Solidarity Network (SSN) Forum here or the SSN Facebook site here.

EXPOSE THE LIES ABOUT SWAZILAND

The following is a press release issued by the Swaziland Democracy Campaign.

SDC calls for Commonwealth parliamentarians to expose tinkhundla MPs

Press Release 30 April 2010

The Swaziland Democracy Campaign notes that the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) branches of National Parliament, KZN, Gauteng and Limpopo together with the Swaziland branch are holding a session in South Africa to deliberate on matters related to the governance systems in these countries, particularly in the branches listed herein.

We take this opportunity to reiterate our demands for the fundamental rejection of tinkhundla model of governance, which is based on exclusive and monopolistic exercise of power by the ruling royal regime and its cohorts in Swaziland. The system denies the people and their representative organs their rights and access to public policy participation, democratic election of leaders of their choice as public representatives and banning of all legitimate political and social activism. In summary, the people have no right to speak, organise and associate on the basis of shared interests and opinions related to matters of national interest and governance.

We call upon MPs from South Africa and the rest of the democratic world to expose these opportunists and isolate them for misrepresenting the facts on how the tinkhundla system has thrown the country into a state of permanent crisis.

In the same way that the Foreign Affairs Minister of Swaziland Lutfo Dlamini told lies about Swaziland in London recently, we do expect that such misinformation will continue and call upon all democracy-loving peoples of the world to refuse to be misinformed, but challenge and reject any attempt to fool them.

The unbanning of political parties, freedom of speech, rights to organise and associate freely, and unconditional return of all exiles remain our key demands and do assure the world that no change will happen unless these conditions are met.