CENSORSHIP OVER KING’S LATEST BRIDE

Media in Swaziland are once again censoring themselves when reporting about King Mswati III.

The latest case involves his new fiancée, the 18-year-old beauty queen contestant Sindiswa Dlamini.

News broke at a Reed Dance in the southern provincial capital, Nhlangano, in Swaziland last week that the 45-year-old king had chosen her as his new bride from among tens of thousands of bare-breasted ‘virgins’ who paraded before him at annual Reed Dance celebrations.

Media in Swaziland predictably reported the event as if it were quite natural for a middle-aged man to wed a ‘virgin’ who was younger than many of his daughters.

But outside the kingdom, which King Mswati rules as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, the media have been more candid.

They reported Dlamini as the king’s 14th bride, although some counted her as wife number 15. The confusion was excusable since the number of wives the king has is considered a state secret in Swaziland and it is considered ‘un-Swazi’ to talk openly about King Mswati’s polygamy.

Media outside Swaziland are reporting that ‘Naughty Sindi’, as the Sunday Sun newspaper in South Africa describes her, has had affairs with two of King Mswati’s sons, Prince Majaha and Prince Bandzile, who are both in their early twenties.

One unnamed source told the newspaper, ‘Sindi has dated both these boys. She’s a party girl used to having fun.’

Another informant told Sunday Sun, ‘Sindi is no virgin. She drinks and smokes a lot and has tattoos on parts of her body I cannot mention.’

One source told the newspaper, ‘She is only doing it [marrying the king] because she comes from a poor background.’

The media in Swaziland never report about the king without his permission. This means people across the world are better informed than the king’s subjects, the Swazi people.

This is not the first time the media in Swaziland have refused to keep its readers informed about the Swazi Royal Family. In August 2010, the world’s media were excited by the case of Swaziland Justice Minister Ndumiso Mamba and King Mswati’s 12th wife, 22-year-old Inkhosikati Nothando LaDube. This was after pictures appeared of Mamba hiding in a bed before his arrest at Royal Villas, a hotel at Ezulwini just outside Mbabane, where he was said to have had regular adulterous meetings with LaDube.

The City Press in South Africa reported at the time that when police pounced, ‘in a desperate effort not to be found out Mamba cut into the base of the bed and slid in – but police ordered him out and Mamba, dressed in a brown suit, was soon taken ­into custody’. He was later forced to resign from the government and the Senate.

The aftermath of the scandal ran for at least two months: all unreported by media in Swaziland.

Most of the broadcast media in Swaziland that carries news and current affairs reporting are government controlled and are banned directly from adversely reporting about the royal family.

There are two newspaper groups in Swaziland. One, the Swazi Observer is in effect owned by the king, and the other, the Times of Swaziland censors itself heavily when reporting about the monarchy.

In April 2007, King Mswati personally threatened the Times with closure after the Times Sunday published a minor criticism of him sourced from Afrol, an international news agency. The king said he would close the paper down unless people responsible for the publication at the paper were sacked and the newspaper published an abject apology to the king. These things were done.

‘TIMES’ CENSORS ROYAL AIDE REPORT

The Times of Swaziland, the kingdom’s only ‘independent’ daily newspaper, is self-censoring again.

It runs a report today (22 December 2011) that a royal aide has been fined five cattle and banned from royal households for ‘handling a certain matter’ without first consulting traditional prime minister TV Mtetwa first.

The Times doesn’t name the female aide, nor does it say what she is alleged to have done.

But the newspaper says, ‘The Times Investigations Department’ (whatever that is) ‘has been reliably informed that the aide was summoned to Ludzidzini royal residence three times before the beginning of the Little Incwala’.

It says, ‘The case was eventually concluded on Friday, November 18, 2011 when the aide was told of the fine and the ban.’

So the Times leaves its readers in a fog. But some Swazis are asking, could this be the same story that the truly-independent Swazi Mirror ran about Inkhosikati laDube, the 12th wife of King Mswati III, who was last month (November 2011) chucked out of the royal palace by Mtetwa and his henchmen?

The Mirror reported that laDube sent an aide to the Ministry of Home Affairs to change her name to Nonthando Moosa.

LaDube came to international media attention (but the news was censored in Swaziland) in August 2010 when she was discovered in a sexual affair with Ndumiso Mamba, the then Justice Minister.

Meanwhile, the Times report unwittingly gives an insight into what it’s really like for women in Swaziland. They have no standing on their own and are the subjects of their male relatives.

The Times reports the female royal aide was told she had to attend at police headquarters.

The newspaper quotes her saying, ‘When I got there he told me that he had been sent by TV Mtetwa to take me to Ludzidzini. When we got there I found Mtetwa and Bheki Dlamini who told me the reason I had been summoned. They asked for my relatives and I told them my brother was Chief Mvimbi. I was told to come with him the following day.’

She said on the next day her brother told Mtetwa and Dlamini that she was now a married person and therefore her matter had to be tackled by her husband.

The aide said, ‘We were then told to come on the following day again, with my husband this time. Indeed, I came with my husband, brother and other relatives. That was when Mtetwa told us of the fine and that I was not to be seen within royal households anymore. This was done without affording any of us a chance to give our side of the story.’

See also

KING’S WIFE THROWN OUT OF PALACE

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/11/kings-wife-thrown-out-of-palace.html

‘TIMES SIDES WITH TV AGAINST QUEEN’

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/11/times-sides-with-tv-against-queen.html

CNN REPORT ON KING’S EVICTED WIFE

News of the eviction of Inkhosikati LaDube, the 12th wife of Swaziland’s King Mswati III, from the royal palace has gone truly global.

CNN ran this report in its Morning Passport slot this week and it is now uploaded to the Internet. In this item Nadia Bilchik gives the lowdown on the eviction and the affair LaDube had last year with the then Minister of Justice Ndumiso Mamba. A lot of this will be news to the people of Swaziland because media in the kingdom have been banned from reporting about the affair.

Click here to see the CNN report.

See also

‘TIMES SIDES WITH TV AGAINST QUEEN’

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/11/times-sides-with-tv-against-queen.html

KING’S WIFE THROWN OUT OF PALACE

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/11/kings-wife-thrown-out-of-palace.html

NO FOOD OR BEDDING FOR KING’S WIFE

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/11/no-food-or-bedding-for-kings-wife.html

KING’S WIFE THROWN OUT OF PALACE

Inkhosikati LaDube, the 12th wife of Swaziland’s King Mswati III, who last year was involved in a love affair with a cabinet minister, has been kicked out of the royal palace following a fight with a security guard. She said she pepper-sprayed him in the eyes to protect herself.

The Sunday Times newspaper in South Africa reports today (20 November 2011), ‘Inkhosikati LaDube [also known as Nothando Dube] was ordered to “immediately leave the palace” by royal governor Timothy Mthethwa, who was accompanied by other senior members of the royal family.’

The news will not be published by the media in Swaziland because they have a long-standing agreement not to report on King Mswati without his permission.

The Sunday Times says LaDube, aged 23, told the newspaper she had had an argument with a security guard who refused to let her out of the palace last Saturday.

She wanted to take the youngest of her three children, aged two, to hospital after she had injured herself while playing - but the guard said she was not allowed to leave.

‘[He] threatened to hit me, saying I am not going anywhere with my child, who was bleeding from a deep wound,’ she told the newspaper.

LaDube says an altercation ensued and she was ‘physically prevented’ from leaving the palace. ‘I had to protect myself so I [pepper]-sprayed him in the eyes.’

The matter was reported to the Queen Mother, who, the Sunday Times reports, apparently decided that LaDube had been disrespectful and had to be kicked out.

‘I couldn't even take all my stuff, because they just said “you have to pack and leave now”,’ she said. Her children remain at the palace.

The Sunday Times is usually on sale in Swaziland so we shall have to see if copies are pulled from the shelves today.

After LaDube’s love affair with the then Justice Minister Ndumiso Mamba was revealed in August 2010 by the City Press, another South African newspaper usually available in Swaziland, security forces were reportedly dispatched around the kingdom to buy up all copies.

SCRUTINY ON ROYAL FAMILY WEALTH

Mail and Guardian, South Africa

9 September 2011

SOURCE

SA loan to Swaziland in the balance

As protests intensify against the rule of King Mswati III, the Swazi government's spending plans are attracting increased scrutiny of his secretive business empire.

The Mail & Guardian reported last week that Majozi Sithole, the Swazi finance minister, had disclosed that R1-billion of the country's planned R2.4-billion loan from South Africa would be spent on construction projects, including those linked to the controversial new Sikhuphe airport.

A key beneficiary of the planned spending will be Inyatsi Construction, a Swazi-based company that is widely rumoured to be co-owned by Swazi royal interests, though this has been denied.

Differing accounts of share transactions involving the company have deepened suspicion.

Until October 2010, Ndumiso Mamba, the former chief executive of the royal investment trust, Tibiyo takaNgwane, was the chairperson of Inyatsi, with a shareholding of roughly one-third.

Mamba, suspected of holding the shares as a proxy, gave up his holdings unexpectedly after he was caught hiding under the bed of one of Mswati's wives, Nothando Dube, in July last year.

Mamba, who had been serving as justice minister, made his first public appearance two months after the scandal broke to announce he had sold his shares.

He did not explain why he had done so in a year in which the company nearly doubled its turnover, mainly due to government contracts.

To read the full Mail and Guardian report, click here.

SWAZI KING’S WIFE ‘BEGS FOR RESCUE’

Mail and Guardian, South Africa

15 July 2011

SOURCE

Royal wife begs rescue from abuse

The 12th wife of Swaziland's King Mswati III is pleading with the South African government to help her to escape house arrest in her royal residence, citing a litany of abuse at the hands of the royal household's security detail.

Nothando Dube, who claims South African citizenship through her father, was restricted to her royal residence in July last year [2010] after a South African newspaper alleged that she had been caught in bed with former justice minister Ndumiso Mamba at Royal Villas Hotel outside Mbabane.

She told the Mail & Guardian that she has not seen or spoken to the king since and that none of the members of the royal family had confronted her about the allegations, which she denies.

Inkhosikati LaDube said the royal security guards told her she was not allowed to see or interact with her family and friends.

"My side of the story was not heard. Ever since that scandal happened, we haven't been talking with this man that I married. Things have been bad and now they are worse. I really, really want out and I can't, he is just not letting me go. It's like I am in prison; I am under 24-hour surveillance," she said.

"My friends and family have been banned from seeing me and I really feel like I don't want to be here any more because I feel like I am in jail. This is not healthy and I can't live like this forever and I see no point of sticking around."

She claims she has endured abusive treatment at the hands of security guards.

"Every time I want to go somewhere the security guards become aggressive with me. It happens about once a week, when I try to go somewhere. They literally hit me, they kick and they punch me. I am not allowed to go anywhere or see anyone. I can't even see a doctor. If I am sick or anything, they have to come to me. My family is not allowed to speak to the king. I am also not allowed to see him. How am I not allowed to see the man that I married?"

To read the full Mail and Guardian report click here.

On Tuesday (12 July 2011) the Swazi Shado blog published a report that seems to contradict LaDube’s account. It said that she has been seen in public for the first time in about a year and gave an interview on fashion tips to the Times Sunday, an independent newspaper in Swaziland.

Swazi Shado reports that LaDube was spotted at a fashion show two weeks ago and both Swaziland’s daily newspapers published a photo of her in a pale blue sari.

To read Swazi Shado click here.