TODAY’S SWAZILAND PROTEST ILLEGAL

The Swazi Government has not given permission for the march in Mbabane today (18 March 2011) to protest against the lack of democracy and the economic meltdown in the kingdom.

Macanjana Motsa, Swazi Government spokesperson, is reported in local media saying the demonstrators need the government’s approval to march.

‘As to why the Swazi people would bother to seek permission from a government that they are removing from power is something which requires explaining from the government spokesperson,’ the Swaziland Solidarity Network (SSN) said in a statement.

Labour unions and students will try to march on the office of the prime minister today to deliver a petition. There are fears that the Swazi state forces will brutally attack the demonstration.

Meanwhile, Wilson Ntshangase, the Minister of Education and Training, told teachers they should not abandon classes and march, ‘because it was illegal’.

The Swazi Observer, the newspaper in effect owned by King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, reported Ntshangase saying the ministry was not informed of the reasons the teachers were abandoning classes today.

‘The minister stated that it would be better if the teachers had at least written a letter just to inform them why they were not going to be in class,’ the newspaper reported.

SWAZI PM - COME CLEAN ABOUT LUTFO

Would the Swaziland Government please come clean about Lutfo Dlamini.

Lutfo, the (now ex) Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, was sacked from Cabinet last month (January 2011) after his involvement in a corruption scandal involving money destined for King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, was uncovered.

But no government announcement of this has been made. Instead, we were officially told that Lutfo was off work sick until 31 January 2011.

That date has come and gone and he doesn’t appear to be back at work. The Swazi Observer, the newspaper in effect owned by King Mswati, reported today (9 February 2011), ‘Despite showing up in Parliament on Friday, Minister Dlamini had not reported for duty by Monday.’

Lutfo is cutting a forlorn figure around the Swaziland corridors of power. On Friday he attended the opening of parliament, but did not sit in the front row with cabinet members, ‘even though there were still seats available’, as the Swazi News, an independent newspaper, put it.

The paper reported that Lutfo ‘did not stay for the luncheon and left as soon as the ceremony was over at around 1:30pm.

‘He also did not go into the chambers were diplomats get a chance to greet His Majesty King Mswati III.’

Yesterday, Lutfo ‘mingled around’ with cabinet ministers before the regular weekly cabinet meeting.

According to the Swazi Observer, ‘it could not be ascertained’ whether he actually attended the meeting.

‘Some members of cabinet confirmed that Dlamini was there but refused to comment further,’ the newspaper reported.

But why the reluctance to ‘comment further?’

The Swazi Government’s official spokesperson was no help either. Macanjana Motsa told the Observer, ‘I am also not in a position to state whether the minister of foreign affairs was in cabinet or not. The Prime Minister is the one who can release that information, I have been trying to get hold of him and I am failing.’

Meanwhile, the Swaziland Solidarity Network (SSN) yesterday released a further statement about Lutfo’s involvement in the scandal, which also involves Phesheya Dlamini, the Swaziland Ambassador to Kuwait. Click here.

‘FREE POLITICAL PARTIES’ LIE EXPOSED

The Swazi Government has failed to support the Attorney-General’s assertion that political parties are not banned in Swaziland.

Majahenkhaba Dlamini, the Attorney-General, claimed to the Times Sunday, an independent newspaper in Swaziland, that there was no law that bars them. He said they were free to operate and dismissed claims that they were banned as untrue. He said the 2005 Swaziland Constitution ‘superseded’ the 1973 Royal Proclamation of King Sobhuza II that banned the political parties.

‘As far as I can interpret the law, political parties can exist because there is no law that bans their existence,’ he said.

But when the Times Sunday contacted Macanjana Motsa, the Swazi Government spokesperson, she said the question was political. Barnabas Dlamini, Swaziland’s illegally-appointed Prime Minister will give a verdict when he returns from an African Union meeting in Ethiopia, the newspaper was told.

As I wrote on Friday (28 January 2011), we shouldn’t take much notice of what the Swaziland Government says it does (or says it will do), we should judge it on what it actually does.

I am pleased to see that people the Times Sunday called for comment saw through the Attorney- General.

Philani Ndebele, of the Swaziland Democracy Campaign (SDC), told the paper, political parties were still banned in the country. The kingdom still operates under the 1973 Royal Proclamation.

He said, ‘If political parties are free to operate in Swaziland, then why is it that PUDEMO (the People’s United Democratic Movement) and SWAYOCO (Swaziland Youth Congress) leadership, and many other human rights activists are harassed, jailed and tortured by the Swazi police?’ he said. He said parties were still denied opportunities and space to organise marches, pickets and meetings.

‘The police always interrupt them. In September 2010, meetings and marches of the Swaziland Democracy Campaign were hijacked by the police. Activists were arrested and tortured and international activists were forcibly deported,’ he said.

‘The existence of the Suppression of Terrorism Act (STA) and many others that are in the pipeline testifies that Swaziland needs an urgent fundamental socio-economic and political transformation,’ he said. Ndebele told the newspaper the STA not only banned political parties, it also criminalised all their activities.

Musa Hlophe, Coordinator of the Swaziland Coalition of Concerned Civic Organisations (SCCCO), said he was happy to hear the Attorney-General formally announce that the 1973 Proclamation had been superseded.

‘We have been asking for this particular clarification for a long time.　Firstly this is an extremely important statement. It is the first time that the government and the Attorney-General have publicly, in Swaziland, conceded the point that the 1973 decree has been superseded,’ he said.

‘Superseded means replaced. In other words, the 1973 decree is dead. I hope the Attorney-General has instructed the police on this point to stop harassing our members going about their perfectly legal duties.’

He also said the Attorney-General was playing ‘fast and loose’ with words.

‘Technically and legally he is correct. There is no specific ban on political parties in the constitution. However, the legal position differs from the political reality,’ he said.

‘The ban on parties remains practically in force. In a credible democracy parties can campaign freely, mobilise without interference, put up candidates for elections, form caucuses in parliament and most importantly form a government. In Swaziland they can do none of these things.’

The Attorney-General argued in court that the freedom of association in article 25 of the constitution did not extend to political parties.

‘The government also lost a case on this very point in the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights in 2005 and have done absolutely nothing to rectify the situation,’ he said. Equally, this government has ratified many International Conventions on Political Rights but has not put them into law.

‘What the law says and what the government does are two different things,’ he said.

HAS MAMBA BEEN LEFT OUT TO DRY?

Lutfo Dlamini, Swaziland’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, has distanced himself from his senior civil servant who spoke out against Col Muammar Gadaffi of Libya, one of King Mswati’s close allies.

And, Clifford Mamba, Principal Secretary at the Ministry, who is at the centre of the storm, is keeping his head down and refusing to speak to the media.

Meanwhile, the Swazi Government is in no hurry to come to Mamba’s aid. Government mouthpiece Macanjana Motsa and her assistant Sabelo Dlamini told inquiring reporters to talk to Mamba.

Lutfo Dlamini ‘repeatedly’ refused to comment on Mamba’s position when contacted by the Times of Swaziland, the kingdom’s only independent daily newspaper.’

According to the newspaper, Dlamini said ‘they were going to investigate the authenticity of the leaked document’, but told the newspaper it should speak only with Mamba.

But, Mamba repeatedly refused to answer his phone or respond to a text message, the Times reported.

The row hit Swaziland last Friday (31 December 2010) after I reported that Wikileaks had published a secret cable sent by Maurice Parker, the then US Ambassador to Swaziland. Parker reported that Mamba had criticised Gaddafi’s time as Chair of the African Union (AU). Mamba reportedly said Gaddafi had ‘put the AU secretariat into chaos, by-passing all protocol and the institutional framework’ during his time in charge. Gaddafi was Chair of the AU for one year until January 2010.

King Mswati has been an ally of Libya for some years and has been trying to get business and development aid for Swaziland. At least one of King Mswati’s sons, Prince Sicalo, is undergoing military training in Libya. Barnabas Dlamini, Swaziland’s illegally-appointed Prime Minister, visited the prince while he was in Libya in October 2010.

In 2009, Col Gadaffi sent the king six camels as a token of his friendship.

SWAZILAND LIES ON PRESS FREEDOM

Swaziland’s new official government spokesperson Macanjana Motsa must think we are blind.

She has hit out at a new international report from Reporters Without Borders (RWB) that places Swaziland in 147^th place in the world when it comes to freedom of the press.

In a statement Motsa rubbished the report and said, ‘press freedom is guaranteed by the constitution of the Kingdom of Swaziland. The Swazi public and the international community is well aware that local media is not repressed in this country’.

Has she been drinking? She certainly hasn’t been paying attention. Her defence of press freedom in Swaziland comes in the same week that the illegally-appointed Prime Minister Barnabas Dlamini told journalists that if they criticise King Mswati III’s recent speech to parliament they will face sedition charges.

Over the past few weeks former Swazi Government cabinet member Mfomfo Nkhambule has been hauled before police, threatened with jail and been told he will be disowned by his traditional regiment if he continues to write articles in the Times of Swaziland newspaper that criticise the King and the anti-democratic ruling elite in the kingdom.

Only last month (January 2009) trade unions and other civic organizations petitioned the Swazi Prime Minister demanding that every citizen of Swaziland should be allowed equal access to the three state media organisations: the Swaziland Broadcasting and Information Services (SBIS), Swazi TV and the Swazi Observer newspaper.

The petition called upon government to ensure that these media houses’ independence was guaranteed. It also demanded ‘equal access to public institutions such as halls, stadiums and tinkhundla centres which are currently the formal meeting place for people without any hindrances’.

Motsa joins a long list of Swazi Government denialists. Whenever there is a report critical of Swaziland, the government blames the messenger and lies about the message.

Bizarrely, Motsa attacked the credibility of RWB because it had once used the UNESCO logo without permission.

Motsa and the Swazi Government know this is a smokescreen. RWB is not alone among international media watchers in criticising Swaziland’s lack of press freedom.

The most recent annual So This Is Democracy? report from the Media Institute for Southern Africa (MISA) highlighted many cases of press repression, including the case of the Times of Swaziland publishing house that was threatened with closure by King Mswati III because he objected to a report it had written on how the International Monetary Fund (IMF) believed that the king’s lavish lifestyle was deterring overseas’ investors from supporting Swaziland.

MISA concluded that the Swazi Government continues to harass journalists. ‘This was evident when the Swazi House of Assembly set up a Select Committee to investigate Mbongeni Mbingo, the editor of the Times Sunday, following a commentary piece he wrote in his newspaper criticising the House Speaker for not allowing a debate to take place on possible amendments to the kingdom’s Constitution. The House of Assembly said the editor was in contempt of Parliament.’

The International Press Institute (IPI) in its annual World Press Freedom Review, published in May 2008 reported how Njabulo Mabuza, the then Minister for Health and Social Welfare, ‘simply banned the media from entering Swaziland’s biggest hospital, after various publications published exposés alleging that a pattern of staff negligence and drug shortages resulted in the death of a young girl. Similar accusations had been published in the past, prompting Mabuza, a week earlier, to issue a government memo to the hospital administration, instructing the same to deny media access to the hospital premises without his permission.’

I could go on ... and on (Click here to read more on press freedom in Swaziland).

This was Macanjana Motsa’s first media release since she was appointed Government Press Secretary. It is not an auspicious start and her credibility for honesty is in tatters. She needs to be careful, I am reminded of her predecessor in the job Percy Simelane; when he tried to defend a report critical of Swaziland’s poor governance, he so outraged parliamentarians they branded him a ‘herdboy’.