HOTEL PROTEST ALERT FOR SWAZI KING

Independent, UK

26 April 2011

SOURCE

Dorchester on high alert as divisive Swazi king checks in

London's Dorchester hotel is preparing to receive a much noisier crowd than is normal this evening (Tuesday 26 April 2011): human rights protesters objecting to Swaziland's king arriving in London.

The five-star hotel, known for its afternoon tea and £450-a-night double rooms, is erecting metal fences around the front courtyard to corral 100 protesters who condemn the decision to invite King Mswati III of Swaziland to Friday's Royal Wedding.

The head of state and his 50-strong entourage are reportedly staying at the Dorchester, according to South Africa's Mail & Guardian newspaper. He is one of 40 foreign royals invited to the nuptials. The Crown Prince of Bahrain withdrew on Sunday following anger about the shooting of democracy protesters in his kingdom, and a wider crackdown which has included the detention of medical staff who treated injured and dying demonstrators.

Tonight's protest is organised by London-based Swaziland vigil groups and will be piggy-backed by Zimbabwean expatriates joining them in solidarity, angered by the decision to invite Zimbabwe's ambassador to take a seat in the front rows at Westminster Abbey.

The demonstrators want to draw attention to the polygamous autocrat's human rights abuses and corruption. Swaziland is crippled by poverty and has the world's highest prevalence of Aids – one in four adults has HIV/Aids.

Extra hotel security will be bought in to control tonight's protests, expected to start at 6pm, according to the general manager at the Dorchester, Roland Fasel. Adjoining streets may be blocked off if large crowds join the protest, and there will be a police presence. Guests at the hotel may have to show room cards to gain entrance.

"If the protest takes place, we will shield off the hotel in a structured approach," Mr Fasel said. "We will protect the periphery of the hotel with Met police and we will bring in additional security.

"We have heard this will be a peaceful political demonstration and we don't want it to take attention away from all the good things happening this week or the fantastic event that is happening on Friday."

Fungayi Mabhunu, a Zimbabwean who is co-ordinating tonight's protest, said: "Swaziland is one of the poorest countries and the king, Mswati III, is the last absolute monarch in Africa who has been abusing people for the past two decades.

"People in the country are dying of starvation and diseases, but they are paying for a man who has 13 wives and an enormous entourage to attend this wedding and stay at this hotel. This is not right."

Yesterday, guests at the Dorchester welcomed the prospect of a gauntlet of demonstrators outside, although some showed confusion about the subject of the protests. One American tourist, who preferred not to be named, said he thought Swaziland was "the name of a drink", while a Jordanian businessman, Mohamed Aldaoud, was initially convinced that the autocrat in question was in fact the leader of Switzerland.

Further protests are expected this week at the Zimbabwean Embassy, against the invitation to Gabriel Machinga, Zimbabwe's Ambassador to Britain.

Despite the Crown Prince of Bahrain's sudden absence for Kate and William's big day – his seat will not be filled – protests against the brutal suppression of political reformists in the kingdom are still expected to go ahead around the wedding festivities, because of the presence of Saudi Arabia's Prince Mohamed bin Nawaf bin Abdulaziz. Saudi Arabia has sponsored the crackdown on democracy protesters in Bahrain.

The Metropolitan Police said 5,000 officers would be on duty on Friday. It said it had rejected an application by Muslims Against Crusades to stage a demonstration outside Westminster Abbey, but that static protests could take place outside the designated zone.

Sixty people who had been arrested at previous demonstrations were banned from entering the City of Westminster and would be arrested if seen in the area on the day, the Met said.

HOW THE WORLD SEES SWAZILAND

It is an unfortunate coincidence of timing that the Weekend Observer newspaper in Swaziland published an article this past weekend called How the world sees our Kingdom.

As befitting the Weekend Observer, a newspaper in effect owned by King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, it concentrated on all the good things that journalists are, it claims, saying about Swaziland.

The article appeared on the very day that news houses all over the world, but not in Swaziland, reported on how five of King Mswati’s wives (he is said to have 13 but nobody knows for sure since this is information that his Swazi subjects are not allowed to have) are on a worldwide shopping spree costing at least six million US dollars.

The Weekend Observer interviewed Bongani Dlamini, Marketing Manager of the Swaziland Tourism Authority, who talked about how his organisation brings travel writers from all over the world to visit the kingdom. He said the journalists are brought to Swaziland ‘to experience, against the numerous negative hearsays, what the country has to offer’.

He said once in Swaziland, ‘the journalists are allowed to use their journalistic judgements on the nature of stories to publish, in line with the editorial policies of the media houses they work for. The journalists would most likely take news angles that would be of interest to their target readership, and are not influenced by the interests of their hosts.’

Journalists writing what they want to about Swaziland? Not a luxury that the state affords to its own journalists working in the kingdom. If a Swazi media house tells the truth about the king’s wives, it will be closed down by the king.

In its article the Weekend Observer reproduced some of the good things it said that international newspapers have published after their freebie travel trips to Swaziland.

But, again, no surprise here, the Weekend Observer is far from honest. Here’s one example: it quotes the Independent from London, UK, ‘Swaziland may be tiny and landlocked, but - like the Tardis - everything looks bigger from the inside’.

As ‘praise’ goes that’s not very high: indeed Swaziland is a tiny kingdom, but Swaziland has no control over that. What the Weekend Observer failed to tell its readers was what else the Independent had to say about Swaziland.

As I revealed in February 2009,the Independent’s travel writer Mike Unwin went on to say this,

‘Certainly the current monarchy could do with its defenders. While democracy has taken root across the rest of southern Africa, political parties remain outlawed in Swaziland. Indeed, a new constitution approved in 2005 enshrined the king’s powers to appoint the prime minister, the cabinet and judiciary. It is claimed that seven out of 10 people live below the poverty line.

‘Meanwhile Mswati has not been the agent of social change that some had hoped for, continuing to snap up wives from among his subjects (13 and counting), and displaying an appetite for cars and palaces that suggests he does not share his late father's ascetic tendencies.

‘Small wonder then that the extravagant 40/40 celebrations held last September to celebrate the nation's simultaneous 40th anniversary of independence and the king's 40th birthday did not go down well in more progressive quarters.

‘Rumblings about the royal wives’ shopping trip to Dubai and a new fleet of Mercedes cars bought for the occasion culminated in protest marches through the capital. Some saw the spectacular pageantry, in which thousands of royal subjects donned ceremonial leopard skins and turaco feathers to hail their monarch, as mere orchestrated jubilation: the manipulation of culture for political gain.’

Now, that’s really how the world sees our kingdom.

‘SWAZILAND KING PUTS OFF VISITORS’

Swaziland Tourism Authority says fewer people are visiting the kingdom from abroad than it had forecast.

I wonder if this is because the truth about what life is really like in Swaziland has spread into the international community.

Could it be that King Mswati III is putting off people from visiting?

Even travel writers - people whose job it is to recommend to readers of newspapers and magazines where to go on holiday - find they cannot ignore the repressive regime of the king.

The Independent - a major daily newspaper in the United Kingdom – published a two-page travel spread on Swaziland earlier this month (February 2009). After writing about the wild animals and the cultural village, the writer turned to the monarchy.

‘Certainly the current monarchy could do with its defenders. While democracy has taken root across the rest of southern Africa, political parties remain outlawed in Swaziland. Indeed, a new constitution approved in 2005 enshrined the king’s powers to appoint the prime minister, the cabinet and judiciary. It is claimed that seven out of 10 people live below the poverty line.

‘Meanwhile Mswati has not been the agent of social change that some had hoped for, continuing to snap up wives from among his subjects (13 and counting), and displaying an appetite for cars and palaces that suggests he does not share his late father's ascetic tendencies.

‘Small wonder then that the extravagant 40/40 celebrations held last September to celebrate the nation's simultaneous 40th anniversary of independence and the king's 40th birthday did not go down well in more progressive quarters.

‘Rumblings about the royal wives’ shopping trip to Dubai and a new fleet of Mercedes cars bought for the occasion culminated in protest marches through the capital. Some saw the spectacular pageantry, in which thousands of royal subjects donned ceremonial leopard skins and turaco feathers to hail their monarch, as mere orchestrated jubilation: the manipulation of culture for political gain.’

Who would want to visit a place like this?

The writer travelled to the kingdom as a guest of the Swaziland Tourist Authority – bet it’s kicking itself now.

See also

NIGHTMARE HOLIDAY IN SWAZILAND