SWAZILAND FAILS HUMAN RIGHTS TEST

Swaziland came 50^th out of 54 African countries for participation and human rights in a survey just published. It has got worse over the past five years.

The Mo Ibrahim Foundation reported its Index of African Governance on Monday (20 November 2017). Swaziland which is ruled by King Mswati III as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, scored a total 48.9 out of 100 in a range of four areas of governance. Swaziland got a score of 24.6 out of 100 in participation and human rights.

The annual report did not detail the kinds of human rights abuses taking place in Swaziland but these have been well documented elsewhere.

The United States State Department in its annual report on human rights in Swaziland published in 2017 stated, ‘The principal human rights concerns are that citizens do not have the ability to choose their government in free and fair periodic elections held by secret ballot; police use of excessive force, including torture, beatings, and unlawful killings; restrictions on freedoms of speech, assembly, and association; and discrimination against and abuse of women and children.’

It added, ‘Other human rights problems included arbitrary killings; arbitrary arrests and lengthy pretrial detention; arbitrary interference with privacy and home; prohibitions on political activity and harassment of political activists; trafficking in persons; societal discrimination against members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex community and persons with albinism; mob violence; harassment of labor leaders; child labor; and restrictions on worker rights.’

Human Rights Watch in its report on events in Swaziland in 2016 stated Swaziland, ‘continued to repress political dissent and disregard human rights and rule of law principles in 2016. Political parties remained banned, as they have been since 1973; the independence of the judiciary is severely compromised, and repressive laws continued to be used to target critics of the government and the king despite the 2005 Swaziland Constitution guaranteeing basic rights.’

In May 2017 the global charity Oxfam named Swaziland as the most unequal country in the world. The report called Starting With People, a human economy approach to inclusive growth in Africa detailed the differences in countries between the top most earners and those at the bottom.

In 2014 the United States withdrew trading privileges from Swaziland under the Africa Growth Opportunity Act (AGOA) because the kingdom had not fulfilled all the requirements of the programme, including respect for human rights.

The US wanted Swaziland to implement the full passage of amendments to the Industrial Relations Act; full passage of amendments to the STA; full passage of amendments to the Public Order Act; full passage of amendments to sections 40 and 97 of the Industrial Relations Act relating to civil and criminal liability to union leaders during protest actions; and establishing a code of conduct for the police during public protests. 

Amnesty International in April 2015 renewed its criticism of Swaziland for the ‘continued persecution of peaceful political opponents and critics’ by the King and his authorities using the Suppression of Terrorism Act and the Sedition and Subversive Activities Act.

It said the Swazi authorities were using the Acts, ‘to intimidate activists, further entrench political exclusion and to restrict the exercise of the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly.’

See also

SWAZILAND QUIZZED ON TERROR LAW

https://swazimedia.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/swaziland-quizzed-on-terror-law.html

 

SWAZI HUMAN RIGHTS RECORD KILLS AGOA

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2014/05/swazi-human-rights-record-kills-agoa.html

 

SWAZI TERROR LAW COURT CHALLENGE

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2016/02/swazi-terror-law-court-challenge.html

 

SWAZI GOVT FAILS ON POVERTY: OXFAM

https://swazimedia.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/swazi-govt-fails-on-poverty-oxfam.html

SWAZILAND BOTTOM FOR PARTICIPATION

Swaziland ranks 47 out of 52 African nations for ‘Participation & Human Rights’ in the Ibrahim Index of African Governance (IIAG) published on Monday (14 October 2013).

And, in the sub-category ‘Participation’ it ranks 50 out of 52.

On a scale of 100, ‘Participation’ in Swaziland, which is ruled by King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, gets a score of 11.9. Meanwhile on ‘National Security’ it scores 90.

The 2013 IIAG provides full details of Swaziland’s performance across four categories of governance: Safety & Rule of Law, Participation & Human Rights, Sustainable Economic Opportunity and Human Development.

Despite improvements since 2000, Swaziland’s governance score remains below the continental average for Africa as well as the regional average for Southern Africa. Swaziland gets 50.8 out of a 100.

The IIAG provides a framework for stakeholders to assess the delivery of public goods and services, and policy outcomes, in every African nation.

Governance is defined by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation as ‘the provision of the political, social and economic public goods and services that a citizen has the right to expect from his or her state, and that a state has the responsibility to deliver to its citizens’.

See also

SWAZILAND IN GOVERNANCE DENIAL

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2007/10/swaziland-in-governance-denial.html

SWAZI RULERS SILENT ON SERVICES

The Swazi Government has been slow to comment on news that Swaziland has scored below average for governance.

The Ibrahim Index of Governance published this week shows Swaziland scored 49.4 points out of a100 and was ranked 29th out of 53 African countries.

Within the Southern African region, Swaziland was ranked tenth. The kingdom scored below the Southern African regional average, which was 58.1 and scored just below the overall African continental average, which was 51.2.

By categories, Swaziland scored above the continental average in the categories of Safety and Rule of Law and Sustainable Economic Opportunity, but below the continental average in the categories of Participation and Human Rights and Human Development.

The Ibrahim Index is Africa’s leading assessment of governance, established to inform and empower the continent’s citizens. It measures the delivery of public goods and services to citizens by government and non-state actors across 84 indicators of governance.

In the past the publication of the Ibrahim Index has caused outrage within the Swaziland Government.

In 2007, Swaziland Government Press Secretary Percy Simelane tore into the Mo Ibrahim Foundation when it published its report showing the poor state of governance in the kingdom ruled by King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch.

Simelane said Mo Ibrahim was dishonest for publishing the report, when he said, they had never made an investigation of Swaziland. I proved at the time that Simelane was talking through his hat and that it used dozens of sources of information to reach its conclusion.

Simelane was quoted saying that the analysis was done ‘by boys’ and ‘not men of honour’. The Times of Swaziland reported him saying that the ‘so-called experts’ were ignorant of what was happening in Swaziland.

Simelane said at the time that the Swaziland Government would do its own study to prove Mo Ibrahim wrong. Of course, it was all a distraction. The study was never done (or if it was done the results must have been so damning that it was never published).

The level of governance in Swaziland is atrocious. In January 2009 a report showing Swaziland’s position on governance from the US-based Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) looked at whether nations are ‘ruling justly’, ‘investing in people’ and on ‘economic freedom.’

Here are some of the scores that Swaziland received (marks are out of 100).

Political rights (3)
Civil liberties (10)
Government effectiveness (17)
Rule of law (17)
Voice and accountability (17)

True to form, the Swaziland Deputy Prime Minister Themba Masuku challenged the findings of the MCC.

With the latest Mo Ibrahim report, it seems the Swazi Government has decided to keep silent.

According to the Swazi Observer, the newspaper in effect owned by King Mswati, when called for comment the phones of government ministers were left unanswered.

SWAZILAND GOVERNANCE APPALLING

The Swaziland Government is once again denying that the kingdom has an atrocious human rights record and an appalling scorecard on governance.

The latest report showing Swaziland’s position on governance is from the US-based Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), which looked at whether nations are ‘ruling justly’, ‘investing in people’ and on ‘economic freedom.’

Here are some of the scores that Swaziland received (marks are out of 100).

Ruling Justly

Political rights (3)

Civil liberties (10)

Government effectiveness (17)

Rule of law (17)

Voice and accountability (17)

Economic freedom

Regulatory quality (23)

Land rights and access (9)

Business start up (14)

Trade policy (32)

According to the Swazi Observer yesterday (5 January 2009), the Swaziland Deputy Prime Minister Themba Masuku has challenged the findings of the MCC.

This is the standard response of the Swazi Government when faced with the truth about its appalling record.

In October 2007, I wrote at some length about how the government denied the findings of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, which used about 50 sources of information in a report showing up Swaziland’s poor record. The Swazi Government tried to make it out that Mo Ibrahim was a ‘fly by night’ organisation and promised a detailed rebuttal of the report.

As far as I know such a rebuttal was never published.

So it is with the latest MCC report, the Swazi Government can deny all it wants, but the truth is out there for all to see.

(To read what I wrote last time click here).

SWAZILAND IN GOVERNANCE DENIAL

Why is the Swaziland Government Press Secretary Percy Simelane in denial about the Mo Ibrahim Foundation and its recent report that Swaziland falls below Zimbabwe in an analysis of good governance in sub-Saharan Africa?

And why is the Times of Swaziland allowing him to get away with claiming that Mo Ibrahim is some kind of fly by night organisation that doesn’t do its homework.

For those new to this story, Simelane was reported in the Times yesterday (18 October 2007) saying the Mo Ibrahim Foundation ‘never conducted a study of the country’.

The Times goes on to report, ‘Simelane said their investigations had revealed that the foundation had never conducted a single study on the country but merely depended upon information supplied to it by various individuals.’

Then, in what I can only describe as a racial slur, the Times reports the Press Secretary saying, ‘We also discovered that the person behind the organisation (Mo Ibrahim) is a Sudanese national.’

These are the facts that the Times wants to ignore. Mo Ibrahim is a world respected foundation whose supporters include Nelson Mandela; Kofi Annan, former United Nations Secretary-General; President Bill Clinton, former US President and José Barroso, president, European Commission among others.

So, I’m afraid Simelane has got it horribly wrong. It would have taken the Times of Swaziland five minutes to check to see whether he was telling the truth about how Mo Ibrahim did its research (that’s how long it took me).

Mo Ibrahim breaks down its research into countries into five categories. They are Safety and Security; Rule of Law, Transparency and Corruption; Participation and Human Rights; Sustainable Economic Development and Human Development.

To give you an example of how thorough the foundation is, Mo Ibrahim then breaks down the ‘human development’ category into three sub-sections: national poverty results, health outcomes, and educational opportunity.

Let me illustrate how one part of ‘human development’, the analysis of health outcomes, is done. Eleven sources of information are used, as follows:

1. Life expectancy at birth, expressed in years, collected by the WDI, based on various sources, including census reports and data from national statistical offices and the UN Population Division’s World Population Prospects.

2. Infant mortality per 1000 live births, based on WDI estimates of data from the World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and World Bank sources.

3. Maternal mortality per 100,000 live births. Data are from the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Indicators, which draws on data from WHO and UNICEF.

4. Undernourishment (percentage of the population whose food intake is below the minimum dietary energy requirements), as determined by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and compiled in the WDI.

5. Percentage of children (aged 12-23 months) immunized against measles, according to the WHO and UNICEF, as reported in the WDI.

6. Percentage of children (aged 12-23 months) immunized against diptheria, pertussis (whooping cough), and tetanus (DPT), according to the WHO and UNICEF, as reported in the WDI.

7. Percentage of people (aged 15-49 years) living with HIV, from the MDG Indicators.

8. Estimated number of new TB cases (incidence) per 100,000 people, from the WHO’s Global Tuberculosis Control Report, as reported in the WDI.

9. Access to qualified physicians: density of physicians per 1000 people, from the WHO.

10. Access to trained nurses: density of nurses per 1000 people, from the WHO.

11. Percentage of the population with access to potable water, from the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Program for Water Supply and Sanitation.

Remember that these 11 sources of information make up one third of one fifth of the overall analysis of Swaziland. It is difficult to see how more thorough the foundation could be in collecting its information.

Simelane and the Times can rubbish the Mo Ibrahim Foundation all they want. But suggesting the foundation is dishonest simply won’t wash. Simelane and the Times are the dishonest ones.

Governance in Swaziland is appalling. It’s a fact and unless we all recognise this and mobilise to fight it nothing will change.

The Times reports Simelane saying that ‘the government was still going to issue a comprehensive statement in response to the “findings” attributed to the organisation.’

Let’s hope that next time this ‘comprehensive’ statement contains some truth. The statement from Simelane as published in the Times does not.

ABUSE HURLED AT PRESS SECRETARY

The Swaziland press secretary Percy Simelane got a dose of his own medicine this week when an MP branded him a ‘herdboy’.

Simelane was roasted in the House of Assembly for the way he had responded to an international survey which had said that Swaziland came behind Zimbabwe when it came to good governance.

The Times of Swaziland on Friday (28 September 2007) reported that MPs thought that Simelane was not qualified to comment on the survey.

The row erupted after Simelane was quoted in the Times the previous day (Thursday 27 September 2007). He was reacting to a survey published by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation that ranked the quality of governance in sub-Saharan African countries according to these broad areas: safety and security, rule of law, transparency and corruption, participation and human rights, sustainable economic opportunity and human development.

In Thursday’s Times Simelane was quoted saying that the analysis was done ‘by boys’ and ‘not men of honour’. The Times reported him saying that the ‘so-called experts’ were ignorant of what was happening in Swaziland.

Friday’s Times reported on a session in the House of Assembly in which MPs said Simelane was ‘not suitable’ to answer questions on the matter. One MP said Simelane’s statement was ‘irresponsible’. Another said Simelane was ‘unqualified’ to speak.

Another MP was quoted saying that it would have been more suitable if a cabinet minister had responded to the survey rather than a ‘herdboy’ [Simelane].

The prime minister said the government would issue a formal statement once it had gathered more information about the study.

The row may be seen as good knock-about fun but it exposes some very important issues about the way information is handled in Swaziland.

The first and most obvious shortcoming is the level of debate. The press secretary hurled abuse at the survey’s writers and in turn he got a mouthful of abuse from the House of Assembly. Neither side comes out smelling of roses in this. But the exchange is entirely typical of the level of political debate in the kingdom.

The Mo Ibrahim Foundation report is a serious survey that should provoke a serious response, but politicians in Swaziland (and a lot of the media too) are incapable of holding an intelligent, rational, discussion on anything.

The state of governance and the level of corruption in Swaziland should be issues of huge concern to people in Swaziland and parliament and the media should be facilitating a debate, but they are not.

Simelane’s response to the survey also highlights the sense of denial that takes place in Swaziland. By coincidence in the same week that the Mo Ibrahim survey was published, Transparency International published a report that said that governance in Swaziland had improved slightly in the past year, but that there was still a very long journey ahead before the kingdom would reach a satisfactory state of governance.

So, there clearly is a need for a continuing debate on governance to be staged in Swaziland. But the Government Press Secretary decided to deny that there was a problem and instead decided to shoot the messenger.

Another point we need to consider about the row over Simelane is more general. Surely, the whole point of having press secretaries is that they speak on behalf of government. In criticising Simelane’s qualification to speak on the issue of governance and instead demanding that a cabinet minister comments, the MPs seem to be saying either that press secretaries don’t speak on behalf of government (in which case what are they for?) or that Percy Simelane himself isn’t up to the job.

Perhaps, some MP would enlighten us.