PAPER WRONG ON ‘REVOLUTION’ SNUB

The Times Sunday newspaper is under attack again for its reporting of the April 12 Uprising group – this time from the researcher it quoted saying that trying to unseat the Swazi monarchy could be misguided because the king was popular with the masses.

Judy Smith-Hohn said she was misrepresented by the Times Sunday and she is demanding a correction from the newspaper.

The Swaziland Solidarity Network (SSN) publicly criticised Smith-Hohn in a statement yesterday (28 March 2011) that received international attention.

Now, Smith-Hohn has contacted SSN to say she was misrepresented and in fact she supports the SSN view.

In an email to SSN, Smith-Hohn says, ‘The efforts by organisations such as yours towards advancing the democratic agenda in Swaziland are truly commendable, and I regret that the statements attributed to me in the newspaper (without my knowledge or permission) were taken out of context to portray a view that contradicts the message that was conveyed during the course of the interview.’

The Times Sunday had not interviewed Smith-Hohn, Senior Researcher at the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria, but had quoted remarks she made to the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC).

In her email to SSN, Smith-Hohn said, ‘The view that I sought to express is that pro-democracy actors in Swaziland do indeed face a number of unique challenges as they strive towards a more democratic and representative political system:

‘1) Royalists have created a so-called constitutional monarchy that in effect gives absolute power to an unelected king who remains staunchly opposed to positive change despite mounting calls for multiparty democracy.

‘2) While Swaziland has attracted increasing criticism from regional bodies, the repressive tendencies of the regime have not attracted as much attention as in the case of Zimbabwe, for example.

‘3) Parliament cannot set national policy nor can it write legislation. This remains the privilege of the king, who appoints cabinet ministers that implement policy, effectively reducing parliament to a rubber stamp institution.

4) Despite a deteriorating economy, corruption remains a problem and the ruling elite continues to spend lavishly – not only costing the government heavily, but also exacerbating socioeconomic decline.

She added, ‘I have sent a letter clarifying my position to the editors at the Sunday Times of Swaziland, requesting that this be posted on their website.’

See also

ANGER AT SWAZI ‘REVOLUTION’ SNUB

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/03/anger-at-swazi-revolution-snub.html

ANGER AT SWAZI ‘REVOLUTION’ SNUB

The following is a statement issued today (28 March 2011) in response to a report published yesterday in the Times Sunday, an independent newspaper in Swaziland.

It is from the Swaziland Solidarity Network (SSN) and criticises the newspaper’s reporting of the proposed ‘uprising’ on 12 April 2011. In particular, it takes issue with comments attributed to Dr Judy Smith Hohn of the Institute for Security Studies, in South Africa.

Hohn reportedly said that a revolution in Swaziland was impossible.

SOURCE

SUNDAY TIMES IGNORES PRO-DEMOCRACY INTERVIEWS, PUBLISHES SCARY ISS EXPERT VIEWS

28th March 2011

The Sunday Times of Swaziland’s project to undermine the Swazi people’s revolutionary April 12 uprising took a turn this Sunday as the newspaper desperately attempted to hoodwink the nation into believing that a revolution in the country was impossible.

In a week that saw Swaziland Solidarity Network (SSN) leader, Solly Mapaila, making numerous interviews with South African media on the subject, “Why Swazis should rise against their government,” the pro-government tabloid ignored all those interviews and only published one that fitted its agenda.

They chose to publish the myopic, racist and blatantly cliché views of a so-called “expert” from the Institute for Security Studies a Pretoria based NGO whose vision is ironically, “A stable and peaceful Africa, characterised by human rights, the rule of law, democracy and collaborative security.”

Swaziland is notorious for its disregard for all the above and has no democracy. Interestingly, Dr Hohn chose not to mention any of that and apologetically stated that, “the monarchy sometimes attracts global criticism for some bad decisions”, as if its very existence is not a bad decision to begin with.

This so-called “expert”, Dr Judy Smith Hohn, was quoted while speaking on a programme broadcast by the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC). Throwing around clichés like, “Swaziland is different from other African countries.” “The country is a traditionally-oriented society,” the senior researcher sounded more like a kindergarten aged child regurgitating the conversations of her parents than a seasoned and original thinker.

As the days leading up to Swaziland’s historic rendezvous with its ultimate destiny of democracy, The Swaziland Solidarity Network would like to assure all courageous and democracy loving Swazis that their future lies in their hearts and minds, not in the jaundiced narrow perceptions of people who do not even know the difference between a Swazi and a Swati.

Swazi people are not the ignorant skin-clad tribes people that the international media would like the world to believe. As Mr Mapaila correctly observed in one interview, the majority of Swatis live in South Africa and only a thin fence separates the nation tribe. If one half can live in a Democratic Republic, how can the other half fail to conceive and actualise one themselves?

This so-called expert’s views echo Apartheid era propaganda which attempted to portray Black South African people as being tribal and traditional with no grasp of the concept of democracy and were used as an excuse to maintain white privilege and economic domination over them for years as democracy was the preserve of Europeans. If these are the views of the Institute of Security Studies then they are indeed unnerving.

Issued by the Swaziland Solidarity Network [SSN]