ANC LEADER CALLS FOR SWAZI REFORM

New Age, South Africa

11 August 2011

SOURCE

Mantashe calls for reform in Swaziland

By Eric Naki

ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe might be the first top leader of the ruling party in South Africa to express a clear public view on the seemingly untouchable political situation in Swaziland.

He was quoted as saying our neighbour, the landlocked kingdom, must allow multi-party democracy or unban political parties. Could Mantashe’s public pronouncement reflect the thinking within the top echelons of the ANC or was his a voice in the wilderness? The former must be true, I contend.

Holding a post that is traditionally highly regarded as being an “engine” of the movement for the power it carries, his could not be just a lone voice. Whether Mantashe was saying this as the ANC secretary-general or was using his position as chairperson of the SACP, whose position is clear toward repression in this, Africa’s only remaining absolute monarchy, I have no idea.

Mantashe is most likely reflecting the inner thinking and the fermenting discourse at the top level of the ANC. Especially coming on the heels of the controversial R2.4bn loan by the South African government to Swaziland, this strong statement tells us the ANC would like to get value for the money that went to Mbabane.

That value of the money (whether taken from taxpayers or from the coffers of Reserve Bank matters not) should be the ushering in of democracy in Swaziland, where political parties remain banned and political activism restricted since the reign of King Sobhuza II, the late father of King Mswati III.

The country is ruled by a no-party Tinkhundla royal political system headed by the king.

That senior leaders like Mantashe are now breaching the diplomatic protocol of not interfering in the internal affairs of another state is indicative of thinning patience by Luthuli House towards the political stagnation in Swaziland.

The loan provides an excuse for some to come out of the closet and express their “rebel” viewpoints on the uncharted waters of the Swazi Tinkhundla dictatorship.

It is important to note that the ANC was alone in turning a blind eye to the repression inflicted by the Mswati leadership in Swaziland, as its alliance partners, Cosatu and the SACP, long have taken an unequivocal stand that Swaziland must permit free political activism or must face isolation by South Africa, the SADC, African Union and the international community.

Our left-wing activists working alongside Swazi activists in exile here staged several border blockades in solidarity with the oppressed Swazi masses, and many Cosatu leaders were detained and deported and declared as a nuisance and interfering in that country’s internal affairs by the Mswati regime in the process.

The situation in Swaziland is dire, make no mistake, but the response of our political fathers in SADC and AU has been muted, with Mswati even being trusted to lead the SADC troika on politics, defence and security.

Across that border, opponents of the regime are daily subjected to apartheid-style arbitrary detentions, harassment, disappearances, mysterious deaths, arrests and torture of leaders who face trumped up charges, particularly those from the People’s United Democratic Movement (Pudemo), with its president, Mario Masuku, going in and out of jail.

The president of the Swaziland Youth Congress, Bheki Dlamini, is in jail while many political activists and opposition members are living in exile in South Africa and other neighbouring countries.

Recently civil servants rose up to demand better wages and free political activity. Such pro-democracy protests often result in intensification of repression by Swazi authorities against their organisers and leaders.

If South Africa fails to act to normalise the situation in Swaziland, we will find ourselves with another Zimbabwe in our hands – a never-ending exodus into this country of illegal economic immigrants, the majority of whom do not benefit this country’s economy but become a burden to its social security system and job market.

Unless Pretoria acts on Swaziland and helps to free its people from the yoke Mswati perennially puts on their necks, we will be forced to cough up more money to bail out a failing economy and prop up an oppressive regime next door.

While the conditions attached to the R2.4bn loan to Swaziland are vague, with only a call for “political reforms” there is hope that influential voices are emerging to speak out against the lack of democracy in that country.

Luthuli House is better placed to influence the South African government’s new approach, which could help usher democracy in Swaziland.

We need to watch what Mantashe’s pronouncement on Swaziland will precipitate in the short to medium term. With any of our neighbouring states unfree, we cannot enjoy our hard-won freedom in South Africa.

S AFRICA ‘DON'T SUBSIDISE DESPOTS’

New Age, South Africa

5 August 2011

SOURCE

Editorial: Should we help despots?

The New Age Editorial

The government’s R2.4bn bailout of Swaziland is one of those classical conundrums in politics – damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

In announcing the bailout, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan stressed it was meant to ensure Swaziland improved its governance and moved towards democracy, and that it would not benefit the kingdom’s despotic ruler, King Mswati III. The rescue package is said to be a loan from the South African Reserve Bank to the Swaziland Reserve Bank, implying that it is not a government-to-government agreement. That is cold comfort, given the hold that Mswati has on all institutions in his country.

Not surprisingly, the announcement came under immediate fire from across the political spectrum in both South Africa and Swaziland. The main criticism is that the bailout is likely to strengthen the position of Mswati and weaken pro-democracy forces.

This is not without merit and, if one considers the conditions spelled out by Gordhan, it was taken into account. The question is whether it will be enforced should Mswati renege.

In fairness to the government, these matters are never as easy as they might seem. South Africa is the leading nation in the region and has an obligation to respond in pragmatic ways to potential contagion crises. The collapse of Swaziland would be minuscule in global terms. Certainly, compared to the goings-on in Europe and the United States. But here, on our doorstep, it would have huge ramifications, not only for us, but for the region as a whole. The same goes for a collapse of Zimbabwe, next in the queue for an even bigger bailout.

As the events in Europe and the US demonstrate, the solutions are not straightforward and leaders struggle to make sound and lasting remedial decisions. However, SA resources shouldn’t, in any way, subsidise any despotic rule.

See also

S AFRICA SETS OUT LOAN CONDITIONS

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/08/s-africa-sets-out-loan-conditions.html

SWAZILAND: IMPOVERISHED FIEFDOM

The New Age, South Africa

24 June 2011

SOURCE

Analysis: A failed, impoverished fiefdom

By Lucky Lukhele

Should South Africa help Swaziland out of its self-inflicted economic doldrums without setting conditions for democratic reforms, it will be an insult to the oppressed Swazi people and the ANC-MK cadres who sacrificed their lives in Swaziland.

The adage that if you are too close you can’t see the real picture applies to President Jacob Zuma and South Africa’s Nobel Peace Prize laureates for not reacting when they see commercials on TV screens alluding that Swaziland is the destination paradise of half-naked virgins coerced and choreographed to dance for the attention of suitors.

No one realises that construing Swaziland as Africa’s cultural museum, means Swazi citizens and posterity remain predestined by the world to be an exhibition of how Africans survive under absolute monarchies.

Hence the unfortunate and lame argument by pro-monarchy economists that it is the SA Customs Union (Sacu) revenue that has brought Swaziland’s economy to its knees.

Whereas South Africa, also subjected to Sacu solely by virtue of being a democratic state, whose economic growth estimate has been upgraded to 4% this year by the IMF, Swaziland’s is headed for economic disaster with a budget deficit of 14.3% of GDP.

Before the banning of political parties, the Swaziland economy was vibrant and always maintained a budget surplus. The economic woes have always been associated with the recycled present Prime Minister Sibusiso “The Landlord” Dlamini when he was finance minister in the 1980s.

History will testify that since 1983-84, the Peoples United Democratic Movement (Pudemo) withstood various forms of persecution while peacefully arguing that the growing dependence on Sacu by the Tinkhundla system of government and its inherent lack of transparency, accountability and checks and balances would destroy the economy.

In fact, the signals were very clear – 25 years later in 2008-9 the time had come when Sacu’s actual revenue, forecast at R31.3bn, declined to R22.8bn.

As echoed by Pudemo, few nations have such a high level of dependence on one source of revenue that comes essentially as a flow from abroad, save for economies that have been rendered inefficient by the mammoth cultural task of sustaining a monarchy, as is the case in Lesotho and Swaziland.

Grynberg and Motswapong (2009) argue “the revenue-sharing formula that was negotiated in the apartheid era renegotiations of the Sacu agreement in 1969, created a politically, if not economically, unsustainable formula”.

“This revenue dependence has continued and worsened, and has fostered a significant measure of mutual resentment in Pretoria and other Sacu capitals in the post-apartheid era.”

We can go on and on blaming the Sacu formula and so forth, the bottom line is that the economy is not stupid. Mswati cannot lie about the GDP because it reflects on the miserable living conditions of the masses in Swaziland which contrast with his life style.

The high dependence by Swaziland on Sacu revenue is a result of skewed and mind boggling economic strategies premised on pyramid schemes, begging, aid from regional and international agencies, and praying for rain and miracles from ancestors.

As the unlimited financial aid from Muammar Gaddafi and the Kuwait royal family is no longer forthcoming, the IMF and South Africa are the lenders of last resort.

Why is Swaziland turning out to be the most affected? Why are global giants like Sappi, which owns one of the world’s largest man-made forests in Swaziland, packing and leaving Swaziland?

The answer is simple and straight forward: it is a fiefdom that is run by an absolute monarchy and the risk is very high for investors.

“When the rest of sub-Saharan Africa was growing over the last decade, the economy of the kingdom of Swaziland stagnated,” wrote the IMF in 2008.

“For example, in 2001 about 75% of residents lived in poverty and 20% of the population claimed two-thirds of the income. A major contributor to the stagnating Swazi economy has been its monetary policy, which has taken, steps backward in the past decade,”

Monetary policy in Swaziland is only focused on ensuring that Mswati’s Forbes ranking improves at the expense of the overall growth of the economy without addressing poverty, income equality and financial accountability. Mswati’s underhand dealings in the economic meltdown are a result of his affinity for luxury and vanity.

It is worth reminding all and sundry that the writing was on the wall during his coronation when he disregarded traditional regalia, instead dressing as Michael Jackson.

The Sacu card is one being repeated over and over by detractors of the quest to democratise Swaziland. While Mswati has amassed a fortune estimated at $200m (R1.37bn) “the government has been surviving by running up $180m in domestic arrears and eating into the central bank foreign reserves, which now stand at $570m, or just 2.6 months of import cover”. (Croply, 2011)

Lucky Lukhele is the spokesperson for the Swaziland Solidarity Network.

DEMOCRACY IS COMING TO SWAZILAND

Here is another editorial from a South African newspaper today (14 April 2011) saying that King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, must accept that his days are numbered. Democracy is coming to Swaziland.

The New Age, South Africa

SOURCE

14 April 2011

EDITORIAL : Mswati must be reined in

The protests organised by trade unions in Swaziland and the harsh reaction to them by the Swazi authorities should not go unchallenged. According to reports, Swazi police fired teargas and water cannons and beat protesters with batons. They arrested scores of people in their attempt stop a march against Africa’s last absolute monarch.

With the winds of change blowing through north Africa and the Middle East, Swazi King Mswati III must know that his day is coming. The freedom of association where people join political parties or organisations of their choice is a universal right. In Mswati’s Swaziland, however, political parties were banned in 1970 by King Sobhuza II, Mswati’s father. The ban continues to date.

Many political activists and opponents of the monarchy have been arrested over the years. Arbitrary detentions by the Swazi authorities are the norm. Swaziland and Zimbabwe are two members of the Southern African Development Community that have shown complete disregard for human rights.

Those who attempt to show solidarity towards the opponents of the monarch’s undemocratic rule, are themselves harassed. We have seen members of Cosatu and its affiliates either being prevented from entering Swaziland or being detained when they enter the kingdom.

South Africa should lead the campaign to ensure that Swaziland is democratised. South Africa must put both political and economic pressure on Swaziland to change and respect the will of the people to live freely in a democratic environment.

The government has more than enough muscle to bring Mswati and his government to heel and avoid a conflagration of tragic proportions.

See also

DEMOCRACY IN SWAZILAND IS INEVITABLE

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/04/democracy-in-swaziland-is-inevitable.html