In 2014 military spending amounted to 5.9 percent of all government, spending in Swaziland, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) in its Military Expenditure Database for 2015.
The military spending
amounted to 2.2 percent of Swaziland’s entire gross domestic product (GDP).
Swaziland has a population
of nearly 1.3 million people. Seven in ten of them live in abject poverty, with
incomes of less than US$2 per day.
In the calendar year
2014, Swaziland’s military spending was estimated to be US$80.6 million; about
the equivalent of US$62 for every person in the kingdom.
King Mswati III, who
rules Swaziland as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, and the
government he handpicks, refuse to publicly discuss military spending citing
‘national security’ issues as an excuse.
Swaziland is a tiny landlocked
kingdom and is not at war and there are no potential enemies at the borders
ready to invade. Swaziland’s international obligations in the military arena
are few, and Swazi troops are not expected to be deployed abroad anytime soon.
Despite the reluctance of
the King and Government to discuss military spending it is possible to piece
together a picture of what might be behind the large spending.
In 2011, the Swazi
Government set aside more than E1 billion (US$100 million) for spending on the
army and police force and the then Finance Minister Majozi Sithole admitted that the army was prepared for
an uprising by the population in Swaziland.
This followed a series of
prodemocracy uprisings in North Africa, leading to what became known as the
‘Arab Spring’. King Mswati was fearful something similar could happen in his
kingdom. A Facebook group calling itself
the April 12 Uprising had already called for an overthrow of the King.
In February 2011, Sithole
told an open stakeholder dialogue on the 2011-2012 budget and Fiscal Adjustment
Roadmap, ‘Yes, we are spending a lot on the army but we are not anticipating
what is happening in North Africa to come here,’ he said.
He added, ‘However, the
army is there to avoid such situations.’
In 2009, the Swazi
Government was revealed to be engaged
in arms dealing by the
United States. A diplomatic cable written by Maurice Parker, the then US
Ambassador to Swaziland, and later published by WikiLeaks revealed that the UK
Government had blocked an arms deal between a UK company Unionlet and the
Swaziland Government because it feared their ‘possible use for internal
repression’.
The Swazi Government
wanted to buy equipment worth US$60 million.
Among items listed for
purchase were, ‘3 Bell Model UH-1H helicopters, FN Herstal 7.6251mm Minimi
light machine guns, blank and tracer ammunition, armored personnel carriers,
command and control vehicles including one fitted with a 12.7x99mm M2 Browning
heavy machine gun and others fitted with the FN Herstal light machine guns,
military ambulances, armored repair and recovery vehicles, weapon sights, military
image intensifier equipment, optical target surveillance equipment, 620 Heckler
& Koch G36E assault rifles, 240 Heckler & Koch G36K assault rifles, 65
Heckler & Koch G36E rifles, 75 Heckler & Koch UMP submachine guns
9x19mm, and 35 Heckler & Koch USP semi-automatic pistols’.
The Swaziland Government
said it wanted the items to fulfil its United Nations ‘peacekeeping’
obligations in Africa.
The UK Government did not
believe it and thought either the weapons would be used against the Swazi
civilian population, or they were being bought in order to sell on to another
country, possibly Iran. The UK Government blocked the deal.
In his diplomatic cable,
Parker said, ‘The array of weapons requested would not be needed for the first
phases of peacekeeping, although it is possible someone tried to convince the
Swazi government they were required. The GKOS [Government of the Kingdom of
Swaziland] may have been attempting to build up domestic capability to deal
with unrest, or was possibly acting as an intermediary for a third party such
as Zimbabwe or a Middle Eastern country that had cash, diamonds or goods to
trade.’
The Guardian newspaper in the United Kingdom, which first broke the story, reported
at the time, Swaziland had a poor human rights record which was criticised by
the US state department in its 2009 report (the year the deal was to have taken
place).
‘Government agents
continued to commit or condone serious abuses, and the human rights situation
in the country deteriorated. Human rights problems included inability of
citizens to change their government; extrajudicial killings by security forces;
mob killings; police use of torture, beatings, and excessive force on
detainees,’ the report said.
In the months before the
attempted arms sale, Swaziland’s government declared the People’s United
Democratic Movement (PUDEMO) the main opposition political party a terrorist
organisation and arrested its leader, Mario Masuku.
Once the cable became
public in 2011, John Kunene, Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Defence,
who signed the original deal in 2008, said the kingdom had
never given up trying to buy the weapons.
The Swazi News, an
independent newspaper in Swaziland, reported (26 February 2011) that Kunene was
still trying to broker a deal.
In March 2011 Lutfo
Dlamini, who was then Minister of Defence, denied the Wikileaks report and,
according to a report in the Times of
Swaziland, told the Swazi Senate there was at no stage where the country spoke of
purchasing guns.
The Swazi Observer reported
him saying, ‘We never bought any guns anywhere and never spent E429 million.
The information leaked was misleading, it was written by someone who had his
own agendas.’
Clearly, Lutfo Dlamini
was not telling the truth since Kunene had already confirmed that he was still
trying to broker the deal.
In March 2011 Kunene was sacked from his job after a disclosure that the Umbutfu Swaziland
Defence Force (the army) had run out of food to feed its soldiers.
A month after the
Wikleaks revelation about possible arms sales to the Middle East, the AFP news
agency reported Swaziland was importing two containers of firearms through a Mozambican port.
AFP quoted Mozambican
state daily newspaper Noticias as its
source. It reported the arms arrived in Maputo, the Mozambican capital, on a
Panamanian vessel on 28 February 2011 from an unspecified country.
Swaziland is in effect
broke and has been struggling for the past four years to come up with a
recovery package that could revive the economy. It has ignored advice from the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) to cut its public service wage bill and to
increase the amount of money it collects in taxation. The IMF wants moneys to
be transferred from capital expenditure projects to help poor and disadvantaged
people.
In March 2013 it was
revealed that the Swazi government had sold US$3 million worth of maize donated by Japan as
humanitarian aid to feed malnourished people, including children. It put the
money raised in a special account at the Central Bank of Swaziland.
See also
SECRET ARMS DEAL FOR IRAN
SWAZILAND AND SECRET ARMS DEAL
SUPPORT FOR BLOCK ON SWAZI ARMS
ARMS
SHIPMENT HEADS TO SWAZILAND
