DEAD GIRLS TRANSPORTED LIKE CATTLE

The young children who died in a traffic pile-up on their way to Swaziland’s Reed Dance were packed into the back of a truck like cattle, photographs of the event reveal.

The girls were forced to stand up in the back of an open truck cheek-by-jowl. There was no space to sit down or even to turn around. Photographs show that at least sixty children were squashed onto the back of a single truck. Many of the trucks that transported the girls were usually used to move building materials.

Tens of thousands of young girls from across Swaziland were forced to travel in similar trucks to attend the Reed Dance where they were expected to dance topless in front of Swaziland’s King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch. Media in Swaziland routinely describe the girls that dance for the 46-year-old king as ‘virgins’ or ‘maidens.’

Reuters news agency has released photographs of trucks used to transport girls to the Reed Dance. They are similar to the one that transported the children to their deaths. 

The crash happened on Friday (26 August 2015) evening. Media reports of the accident are inconsistent, but it is generally agreed that the children were thrown from the back of the truck when it was involved in a collision. Police reported that not all the girls died on the spot.

The exact number of deaths in the incident is disputed. The Swazi Government said 13 people died; 10 maidens and three older people who were their supervisors. There is widespread disbelief in Swaziland that the death toll was so low. The Swaziland Solidarity Network, a prodemocracy group banned in Swaziland, citing the Swaziland Defence Force as a source, on Friday put the figure of deaths at 38. It later revised this figure to 65, citing medical officials as a source.

The official figures include an 11-year-old girl and seven girls aged 16 or under.

Media in Swaziland are heavily censored; the Swazi Observer, one of only two daily newspapers in the kingdom, is in effect owned by the King. The Media Institute of Southern Africa Swaziland chapter in a report on media freedom in Swaziland described the Observer newspapers as a  ‘pure propaganda machine for the royal family’. 

International media reported that journalists in Swaziland were stopped from gathering information about the accident. The Reed Dance, which is also known as Umhlanga, is one of the main cultural events in Swaziland and it is strongly connected with the King. In Swaziland reporting negatively about the Reed Dance would be seen to be the same as criticizing the King.

Welcome Dlamini, a senior reporter on the Swazi Observer, confirmed on his Twitter account that only ‘official statistics’ were used in compiling the report on the accident. 

(Below) A photograph issued by Reuters. The caption reads ‘Maidens riding in the back of a dump truck arrive before the last day of the Reed Dance at the Ludzidzini royal palace in Swaziland.’

See also

‘COVER-UP ON SWAZI REED DANCE DEATHS

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2015/08/cover-up-on-swazi-reed-dance-deaths.html

 

‘CANCEL REED DANCE AFTER DEATHS’

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2015/08/cancel-reed-dance-after-deaths.html

‘TIMES’ BLOWS COVER ON KING’S WEALTH

A Swazi newspaper has told its readers that King Mswati III’s net personal wealth is estimated at US$200 million (E2 billion), breaking protocol that the personal life of the monarch is never discussed.

The estimate first came from the Forbes magazine in 2007, repeated in 2009 and has been widely reported all over the world and used extensively by critics of the king who say he squanders money on himself while seven in ten of his 1.3 million subjects live in abject poverty on less than US$2 per day.

Now, the Times Sunday,an independent newspaper in the Swaziland where King Mswati rules as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, has reported an interview the king gave with the international news agency, Reuters.

The interview was published on 13 September 2013, but it is only now that the Times has reported on it.

In its report the Times Sunday says, ‘In 2009, Forbes magazine estimated his personal wealth at US$200 million (about E2 billion).

‘In response to this estimation, the king told Reuters that he had no idea where the figures came from.

‘“I was very surprised and wondered where I got all this amount of money,” said His Majesty the King.

‘“You just live according to what you can afford and according to your taste within the budget that has been allocated. It’s not in anyone’s interest to overspend.”’

The report from Reuters, published in the run-up to the national election in Swaziland in September, was largely critical of the king.

Reuters reported, but the Times Sunday did not repeat, ‘The king denied accusations of autocracy and was unapologetic about the lavish lifestyle enjoyed by him and his dozen or so wives, each of whom has a palace paid for by an administration that he himself appoints.’

It added, ‘On the streets of the capital, Swazis offer criticism of the king only in whispered tones, leaving the most strident voices to come from the relative safety of South Africa.

‘“This is a monarchy that says there is a constitution for the government and then says that we rule above it," Wandile Dludlu of the Swaziland United Democratic Front, a coalition of pro-democracy activists, told a seminar in Pretoria this week.

‘“We should not allow Mswati to play God over our lives.”’

Reuters also reported, ‘Despite his [the king’s] self-assurance, outside the concrete walls of Lozitha, guarded by soldiers and conveniently sitting next door to the Ministry of Defence, all is not well in the tiny sugar-producing kingdom of rocky hills and rolling plains.

‘Swaziland has the world's highest HIV/AIDS rate, with more than one in four adults infected, and the $4 billion economy is flat-lining, starved of investment and struggling to recover from a 2011 budget crunch that almost bankrupted the state.’

Reuters also quoted a report from the UK-based think tank Chatham House which said,‘Swaziland is on a non-sustainable trajectory, which the king and the government will ignore at their peril.’

Reuters reported, ‘The chief resident of Lozitha [the king] does not share the concerns.’

The publication by the Times Sunday of the Reuters’ report will bring back memories of 2007, when King Mswati threatened to close down the newspaper and its companion titles the Times of Swaziland and Swazi News after it reported a news agency report critical of the king.

Then, the Times Sunday reported Afrol News, from Norway, which said, ‘Swaziland is increasingly paralysed by poor governance, corruption and the private spending of authoritarian King Mswati III and his large royal family. The growing social crisis in the country and the lessening interest of donors to support King Mswati’s regime has also created escalating needs for social services beyond the scale of national budgets.’

King Mswati called the Times publisher to Lozitha Palace and threatened to close down the newspapers unless the people responsible for the publication of the article were sacked and an abject apology was published. The Times did as it was told.

On the Thursday (22 March 2007) following publication an ‘unreserved apology’ to the king was published on the front page of the Times of Swaziland (repeated in the following week’s Times Sunday).

The apology signed by both the publisher and managing editor of the Times Group said the article, ‘was disparaging to the person of His Majesty in its content, greatly embarrassed him and should not have passed editorial scrutiny.’

It went on, ‘Our newspapers take great care with matters regarding the monarch, being conscious always of the unbreakable link of the King with the Nation. What occurred is reprehensible and we will renew our vigilance in editorial matters with the utmost vigour.’

To make absolutely certain that there was no doubt of the newspaper group’s subservience to the king, it finished the apology, ‘Once again your Majesty, our sincere and humble apologies.’

See also

CLOSURE THREAT AT ‘TIMES’

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2007/11/closure-threat-to-times.html

 

KING ADMITS NO CHANGE ON DEMOCRACY

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2013/09/king-admits-no-change-on-democracy.html

 

SWAZILAND KING KEEPS COINING IT IN

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2009/07/swaziland-king-keeps-coining-it-in.html

S AFRICA UNDER ATTACK FOR LOAN

Reuter

4 August 2011

SOURCE

S. Africa loan to Swazi King raises policy questions

JOHANNESBURG, Aug 4 (Reuters) - South Africa defended today (4 August 2011) its loan to cash-strapped Swaziland against critics who saw the bail-out of the country's absolute monarch as symbolic of Pretoria's reluctance to push political reforms on the continent.

Critics say the ruling African National Congress, which was helped in its battle to bring down apartheid by international sanctions against the white-minority government, should be using its status as Africa's largest economy to effect change in autocratic states in the region.

Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said it was in South Africa's interests to have a stable neighbour and it would not force reforms on King Mswati III, who has faced condemnation from global powers accusing him of autocratic rule and gross fiscal mismanagement.

"Swaziland is a sovereign country, we can only go so far. For the rest, our Swazi colleagues and citizens must use the opportunities rising from these sorts of agreements to ensure that democratic processes take place as they require them," he said in a national broadcast on Talk Radio 702.

South Africa, which dominates Swaziland's tiny economy and accounts for almost all of its trade, agreed to lend 2.5 billion rand ($370 million) to help it through a budget crunch that had prompted unprecedented protests against a royal family once cynically propped up by the apartheid government to show concern for its black neighbours.

The post-apartheid government of the African National Congress adopted one of the continent's most liberal constitutions and has called for an end to the oppression of people worldwide, but has seldom flexed its muscles to bring about change.

"The bottom line is that if South Africa were to toe a tough line on Swaziland, who on Earth would object to it?" said Sisonke Msimang, executive director of the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa.

"But it is clear that South Africa remains shy about being seen as a hectoring Big Brother."

AFRICAN UNITY

Global powers look at South Africa and see a country with governmental institutions and views on democracy similar to their own, overlooking that it would rather stand closer to its African brothers than with the Western countries that colonised the continent.

"It is very easy, given the size of South Africa's economy and the level of its development, to overestimate what it can actually do, particularly in the case of crises that are essentially internal," said John Campbell, a senior fellow specialising in Africa at the U.S. based Council on Foreign Relations.

But the region and the world have sought South Africa's help to push reforms in its neighbouring Zimbabwe as well as Ivory Coast and Libya only to be met with an often confused and mostly ineffective response from Pretoria.

In the Ivory Coast, South Africa at first joined the African Union and others who backed Alassane Ouattara as the winner of vote against incumbent Laurent Gbagbo.

President Jacob Zuma a few weeks later cast doubts over the results by saying there were "discrepancies" in the election. Then, a few weeks later said there was no doubt that Ouattara won.

In the middle of all this, South Africa angered west African states trying to avoid a widening military conflict, by sending a war ship to the region -- which Pretoria said was to be used to evacuate its nationals.

South Africa has mostly refrained from criticising Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe despite igniting political violence that led to a mass refugee exodus and economic mismanagement that caused the country to collapse under hyperinflation about three years ago.

It has tried to play the part of honest broker in the Libya crisis with Zuma travelling twice to the state where he was treated by leader Muammar Gaddafi as more of a message boy than an international intermediary.

The ruling ANC is also at war with itself over foreign policy. It ousted former leader Thabo Mbeki in part because he was seen as more interested in international affairs than domestic and replaced him with Zuma, who had little foreign experience.

The ANC's left-leaning governing partner, labour federation COSATU, has slammed it for the loan to the Swazi King, dubbed by one COSATU union as a "hyena tyranny".

The ANC's Youth League has called for the ouster of the democratically elected leader of Botswana, drawing a sharp rebuke from the ANC for not backing government policy.

But the ANC has been mostly silent on the Youth League breaking away from the country's foreign policy by backing North Korean leader Kim Jong-il over the democratically elected government in Seoul.

"In some ways, it is hard to make heads or tails of South Africa foreign policy," Msimang said.

THREAT TO SWAZI KING IF WAGES CUT

Reuters

28 June 2011

SOURCE

JOHANNESBURG, June 28 (Reuters) - Swaziland is too scared to slash civil servant wages to resolve an acute budget crunch because of the fallout that could accrue to Africa's last absolute monarchy, Finance Minister Majozi Sithole said.

In a parliamentary address reported in Swazi media on Tuesday (28 June 2011), Sithole said the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was putting the screws on King Mswati III's unelected administration as a condition for any emergency bailout.

Top of the IMF's reform list is taking the carving knife to Africa's most bloated bureaucracy, with a wage bill that consumes a whopping 18 percent of gross domestic product.

Sithole said cuts were too much for the landlocked southern African nation, which has historically relied on revenues from a customs union with regional giant South Africa for nearly two-thirds of government funding.

"As Cabinet we are scared to cut the salaries, because we do not know what the consequences would be," Sithole was quoted as saying in the Times of Swaziland. "We are scared, but that is what the IMF wants."

The paper also said that if the government failed to secure emergency funding, it would "soon" run out of money and public sector salaries would have to be delayed or slashed in half.

That prospect is likely to stoke already unprecedented public anger against Mswati, who is insulated from the hardships of his 1.4 million compatriots by a personal fortune estimated at $200 million. He also has at least a dozen wives.

This year, his security forces have used water cannon and rubber bullets to disperse rare protests against his 25-year rule. Dozens of prominent students and democracy activists have been arrested.

"NO BELT-TIGHTENING"

So far, the government has kept its head above water by running up at least $180 million in unpaid bills and eating into central bank reserves, which stood at just over $500 million last month.

But drastically reduced customs receipts after a 2009 South African recession mean that situation cannot carry on forever, and the IMF does not appear to be in a forgiving mood.

"They have said we are behaving as if we do not need the money, as there are no signs of belt-tightening, salary cuts and many more," Sithole said.

Mswati has also turned to neighbouring South Africa for help, but it is hard to see South Africa's ruling ANC, a self-proclaimed champion of democracy in the region, writing blank cheques for a regime that has caused it diplomatic headaches for more than a decade.

South African opposition parties and the powerful COSATU union federation, which loathes Mswati, have made clear any aid should only be granted in the interests of regime change.

Swazi dissident groups said this week they had received "credible reports" that Pretoria had agreed a $1.2 billion emergency loan, although South Africa's Treasury denied on Tuesday that was the case.

"While the South African government is in receipt of a loan request from Swaziland, as confirmed last week, no loan has been agreed to or granted to Swaziland," it said in a statement.

S AFRICA DENIES LOAN - UPDATE

Reuters

The Reuters news agency has updated its report from earlier today (28 June 2011) that denied the South African government had granted a R1.2 billion loan to Swaziland.

28 June 2011

SOURCE

S.Africa denies Swaziland bailout reports

* Pretoria denies granting aid to Swaziland

* Pressure mounting on Africa's last absolute monarch

JOHANNESBURG, June 28 (Reuters) - South Africa denied reports on today it had approved a $1.2 billion bailout loan for neighbouring Swaziland, which is Africa's last absolute monarchy and mired in an acute cash flow crisis.

"While the South African government is in receipt of a loan request from Swaziland, as confirmed last week, no loan has been agreed to or granted to Swaziland," the Treasury said in a statement.

The Swaziland Communist Party (SCP), an underground movement based mostly in South Africa, said this week it had received "credible reports" Pretoria had thrown a lifeline to King Mswati III, who is ploughing through central bank reserves to keep his unelected government afloat.

The SCP declined to say how it had obtained the information.

Mswati, who has at least a dozen wives and an estimated fortune of $200 million, turned to Pretoria after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said he must do more to slim down Africa's most bloated bureaucracy if he wanted any aid.

A collapsing Swaziland -- a landlocked nation of 1.4 million people -- is not in the interests of South Africa, the continent's largest economy, but helping Mswati is politically very sensitive for the ruling African National Congress.

It is inconceivable that the ANC, a self-proclaimed champion of democracy in the region, would write a blank cheque to a country that has served as a long-running diplomatic and political headache right on its doorstep.

South Africa's powerful COSATU union federation, which loathes Mswati, and opposition parties have made clear any assistance should only be granted in the interests of regime change and restoring democracy.

Swaziland's chronic fiscal crisis -- the IMF puts its budget deficit at 14.3 percent of GDP, similar to Greece -- stems from a sharp decline in receipts from a regional customs union that has normally provided it with two-thirds of its revenue.

The budget crunch and prospect of a civil service overhaul has sparked rare protests against Mswati, whose security forces have responded with water cannon, rubber bullets and the arrest of prominent students and activists.

So far, the government has kept its head above water by eating into central bank reserves and running up at least $180 million in unpaid bills, although there are doubts about its ability to pay public sector salaries in the next few weeks.