Swaziland continues to
repress political dissent and disregard human rights and the rule of law, the latest
international report on freedom in the kingdom reveals.
Human Rights Watch in its
review of 2017, just published, adds the independence of the
judiciary is severely compromised and repressive laws continue to be used to
target critics of the government and King Mswati III, who rules Swaziland as
sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch.
The report states, ‘In
September, King Mswati told the United Nations General Assembly in New York
that Swaziland is committed to peace and a decent life for all. He said his
government grants every citizen an opportunity to voice their views in order to
constructively contribute to the social, economic, cultural, and political
development of the country. He failed to mention, however, the recently passed amendments to the
Public Order Act, which allow critics of the King or the Swazi Government
to be prosecuted, and upon conviction be fined E10,0000 (US$770), imprisoned
for two years, or both for inciting “hatred or contempt” against cultural and
traditional heritage.’
The amendments to the
Public Order Act grant sweeping powers to the national commissioner of police
to arbitrarily halt pro-democracy meetings and protests, and crush any
criticism of the government.
Human Rights Watch states, ‘Restrictions
on freedom of association and assembly continued. The government took no action
to revoke the King’s Proclamation of 1973, which prohibits formation and
operations of political parties in the country. The police used the Urban Act,
which requires protesters to give two weeks’ notice before a public protest, to
stop protests and harass protesters.’
King Mswati is above the
law, Human Rights Watch states. ‘The constitution provides for equality before
the law, but also places the King above the law. A 2011 directive, which
protects the King from any civil law suits, issued by then-Swaziland Chief
Justice Michael Ramodibedi after Swazi villagers claimed police had seized
their cattle to add to the king’s herd, remained in force in 2017.
‘The Sedition and
Subversive Activities Act also remained in force in 2017. The act restricts
freedom of expression by criminalizing alleged seditious publications and use
of alleged seditious words, such as those which “may excite disaffection”
against the King. Published criticism of the ruling party is also banned. Many
journalists told Human Rights Watch that they practice self-censorship,
especially with regards to reports involving the king, to avoid harassment by
authorities.’
Earlier this month (January
2018), Freedom House in its own review of human rights in Swaziland during 2017
declared the kingdom to be ‘not free’. It said civil liberties had deteriorated
in the past year. Freedom House reported, ‘Swaziland’s civil liberties rating declined from
five to six due to increased government infringements on religious freedom and
freedom of private discussion.’
Civil liberties in
Swaziland have deteriorated in the past year, a leading global freedom group
has reported.
Freedom
House reported, ‘Swaziland’s
civil liberties rating declined from five to six due to increased government
infringements on religious freedom and freedom of private discussion.’
The organisation said this
in the Freedom in the World 2018 report just released. On a scale from one to
seven where seven is the least free, Swaziland scored 6.5 on freedom; seven on
political rights and six on civil liberties. It scored 16 out of 100 in total
and Freedom House reported Swaziland was ‘not free’.
It has yet to release a
detailed report on human rights in Swaziland for the past year. Swaziland is
ruled by King Mswati III as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch.
Freedom House is not the
only organisation to issue annual reports on freedom in Swaziland. The United
States State
Department in its most recent report
published in 2017 and covering 2016 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.
‘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.’
The Swaziland Democracy Campaign (SDC) is holding a public rally in Johannesburg on Sunday (10 April 2011) to mark the group’s first anniversary and to support the current campaigns for freedom in the kingdom.
DETAILS
Public Rally: Sunday morning (10 April 2011) at 10.00am at the Civic Theatre in Braamfontein, Johannesburg, to be addressed by:
The 2nd Deputy President, COSATU-Zingiswa Losi
Secretary General, Swaziland United Democratic Front-Mduduzi Gina
International Officer, SAMWU and SDC South Africa Chapter Coordinator-Stephen Faulkner
In a statement SDC says, ‘The Swazi Royal Elite and the Regime has been embroiled in the worst economic crisis that has faced Swaziland for more than a generation, and one that has been intrinsically linked to the chronic corruption and greed of the ruling elite.
‘Meanwhile, the people of Swaziland continue to be increasingly impoverished and are amongst the most deprived peoples of our continent despite the lavish lifestyles of their so-called leaders. State repression of democratic activists has continued unabated, and the use of spurious and draconian legislation to curtail fundamental human rights has escalated. The Swazi regime has turned Swaziland into a pariah state. The ILO, Amnesty International and a whole host of human and civil rights organisation have exposed the nature of King Mswati’s rule, as his hangers-on squabble amongst themselves for their share of the dubious rewards of sycophancy.
‘On the other hand, democratic forces on the ground have been growing in confidence and have shown their willingness to mobilise against the mismanagement of the economy, and the appalling human rights record of the discredited self appointed government. Trade unionists, student and community organisations, faith based organisations and a very broad range of civil society organisations have redoubled their efforts to assert their universal rights, and to push forward with plans to bring about a democratic Swaziland. We congratulate their courageous efforts.
‘The Swaziland Democracy Campaign was established to provide a non-sectarian and activist orientated platform for democracy activists inside Swaziland, and to marshal support and encouragement from South Africa and elsewhere.’
Action for Southern Africa (ACTSA) has completed its submission to the United Nations Human Rights Review of Swaziland that takes place in October 2011.
In its summary, ACTSA states, ‘With a context of high levels of poverty and a devastating HIV/AIDS pandemic, the people of Swaziland are denied a range of human rights, with poverty and HIV/AIDS showing strong feminisation.
‘The Constitution violates the principle of separation of powers in government. Rights to freedom of association, expression and assembly, as well as rights to liberty and security of the person, are regularly violated under the auspices of anti-terror legislation, or restrictive legislation pertaining to the operations of trade unions. While Swaziland has made some commitments to access to education and prevention of the spread of HIV/AIDS, better treatment of HIV/AIDS infected persons, and universal access to primary education are required.’
Click below to read the full report, or click here.
I wrote last weekabout the striking similarity between conditions in Swaziland and in Tunisia where people took to the streets to overthrow a dictator.
Then protests moved onto Egypt. Here, ordinary people, especially the youth, bypassed the established opposition parties and took to the streets on their own account – utilising social networking to publicise their cause.
There are lessons there for Swaziland.
As with Tunisia, there are uncanny similarities between the social, economic and political situation in Egypt, prior to the uprising and the experience of Swaziland.
This was brought home to me by an editorial comment in the Observer, a Sunday newspaper in the UK, yesterday (30 January 2011). The newspaper was writing about Egypt, but it could easily have been (and might yet be) writing about Swaziland.
Here is part of what the Observer wrote. I have changed the names ‘Egypt’ to read ‘Swaziland’ and president ‘Hosni Mubarak’ to read ‘King Mswati III’. See what I mean?
Days of rage in [Swaziland] signify the end of days for [King Mswati’s] repressive and bankrupt regime. For [25] years, the [king] has held his country down through fear, secret police, emergency laws, American cash subsidies and a lamentable absence of vision and imagination. His crude, Gaullist message: without me, chaos. Now the chaos has come anyway. And [Mswati] must go.
Five days of rage on the streets of [Swaziland] have transformed the way [Swaziland] sees itself. For years, they said it was impossible. The regime was too powerful, the masses too apathetic, the security apparatus too ubiquitous. Like eastern Europeans trapped in the Soviet Union's cold, pre-1991 embrace, they struggled in the dark, without help, without hope. Movements for change, such as [PUDEMO], were brutally suppressed. Courageous dissidents such as [Mario Masuku] were harassed, beaten and imprisoned.
Yet all the time, pressure for reform was rising. Every day, higher prices, economic stagnation, poverty and unemployment, political stasis, official corruption and a stifled, censored public space became less and less tolerable. Every day, impatience with the regime's insulting insouciance bred more enemies. Hatred seeped like poison through the veins of the people. Until, at last, in five days of rage, as if as one, they cried: ‘Enough!’ And now, [Mswati] must go.
Fittingly, [Swaziland’s] youth led the way against the old order, using not guns or bombs but the arsenal of 21st-century information technology: social media, mobiles, texts and emails. The Paris mob of Bastille notoriety became, through peaceful evolution, the flash mob of Tahrir Square. They espoused no leaders. They wrote no plans. In fast-moving, separate but interconnected street offensives, they out-thought, outfoxed and outran the police.
With the once omnipotent security forces looking beatable, [Swazis] of all backgrounds rose to join the fight: students, trade unionists, women, rights activists, Islamists and, crucially, the great workers’ army of [Swaziland’s] employed and unemployed. Here, truly, was people power in all its magnificent might. Here was democracy in the raw. Here was the legitimacy of a [Swaziland] freed of its old fears and suddenly alive to its changing destiny. In five days of rage, they seized control of their country’s future. And so, inevitably, [Mswati] must go.
King Mswati III,Swaziland’s king and the last absolute monarch in sub-Saharan Africa, must be jumping at shadows after the recent events in Tunisia that saw the overthrow of its dictator, President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
It happened in the blink of an eye and showed that even a fairly small event could spark a national uprising that a carefully constructed state apparatus was powerless to stop. Within a month of the start of protests, Ben Ali had to flee the country into exile.
There are two lessons for the Swaziland pro-democracy movement from this: (i) dictatorships can be overthrown; (ii) social networking – that is Internet sites such as Facebook, Twitter, You Tube – were important tools in mobilizing action and opinion against the dictatorship.
The first lesson (and most worrying for the Swazi regime) is simple: people can overthrow tyrannical governments. In Tunisia’s case the protests were sparked when a 26-year-old impoverished college graduate set fire to himself in front of a government building to protest that the authorities had confiscated his only way of making a living: an illegal vegetable vending cart.
Demonstrations spread throughout the country. Ordinary Tunisians who were fed up with unemployment and corruption took to the streets and were later joined by labour unions, lawyers, students, professionals and youths.
Tunisia, according to Amnesty International, under Ben Ali had one of the Arab world’s most repressive governments.
The similarities between Tunisia and Swaziland are uncanny, with both ruled by dictators who came to power in a bloodless coup. Tunisia’s Ben Ali, began his presidency in 1987, while Swaziland’s King Mswati came to power in 1986 on the back of the 1973 Royal Proclamation delivered by his father Sobhuza II. The proclamation banned political parties and created a state of emergency that (despite a new constitution) for all practical purposes exists today, making King Mswati an absolute monarch.
Both Tunisia and Swaziland have a large over-educated, under-employed, population, many of them young people. Public dissent in both nations was almost unheard of, with free speech and free assembly routinely quashed by state forces. Many protests are met with violence by police and a top priority of government is to disrupt anyone or any group seen as opponents to the regime.Because of the lack of Western journalists in Tunisia or Swaziland, hardly anything about this gets into the international media.
Tunisia and Swaziland have many of the same social, economic and political problems, including a high rate of youth unemployment (with graduates very often unable to get anything but menial work); a general lack of economic opportunity; elections viewed as a political farce; the state’s credibility lost; members of the government more concerned with their own welfare and operating a jobs-for-the-boys policy when government jobs are allocated; widespread corruption (but, often unacknowledged); and unemployment becomes a medium of expression on the streets for want of another means of expression.
President Ben Ali blamed ‘foreign elements’ for stirring up trouble. In Swaziland, the blame goes to people who are ‘un-Swazi’. Barnabas Dlamini, Swaziland’s illegally-appointed Prime Minister, wants foreigners who speak out against his government tortured.
On a more personal level, Ben Ali's daughter, Nesrine, aged 23, was perceived as ‘friendly and interested, but naive and clueless’. She reflected the very sheltered, privileged and wealthy life she has led.’ (Shades here of King Mswati’s eldest daughter, the rapper, Princess ‘Pashu’ Sikhanyiso).
There was anger in Tunisia that President Ben Ali and his family lived in opulent style. US Ambassador Robert Godec, in a cable published by Wikileaks said, ‘The opulence with which El Materi [Ben Ali’s son-in-law] and Nesrine [Ben Ali’s daughter] live and their behavior make clear why they and other members of Ben Ali's family are disliked and even hated by some Tunisians. The excesses of the Ben Ali family are growing.’
In Swaziland, the excesses of King Mswati and his family are well documented in international circles, but mostly unmentioned in the Swazi media.
The second major lesson to be learned from the Tunisian experience is that ordinary people can use ‘social networking’ as a way of organising protest and letting the world know of their grievances.
In Tunisia, as in Swaziland, state-controlled television and radio is a propaganda tool of the government. Tunisian state television reported that the protests were ‘isolated events.’ This lie was completely shattered when Al Jazeera satellite television aired Facebook and YouTube videos, as well as Flickr images, showing that the demonstrations were anything but isolated. Al Jazeera and other Arab television networks broadcast social media videos because non-state media were banned from reporting from Tunisia.
Tunisians used videos, pictures and words to show the world what is going on in their country. And by putting those messages online, they spurred individuals and media organizations around the world to take a closer look at their cause.
CNN journalist Tim Lister told CTV's Canada AM that Twitter and Facebook were ‘the real motors’ of the protest movement. ‘The scale of the protests became very quickly noticeable to the outside world on Flickr, on Twitter, on Facebook and that attracted the attention of some of the Arabic news networks…and they began to cover this.’
During the protests, Tunisians constantly uploaded videos and up-to-the-minute Twitter feeds of street demonstrations. Some of the images of police brutality were gruesome, which probably served to outrage international opinion even further.
And at least one Tunisian revolutionary, who runs a websitecalled Free Tunisia, told a Huffington Post blogger that social media such as Twitter — along with cellphones, text messaging and various websites — was crucial to the flow of information and helped protesters gather and plan their demonstrations.
Turning to Swaziland, protests are brutally repressed by state forces,but people continue to demonstrate. The economy is in collapse and even the Prime Minister has warned of social unrest.
With social networking, it is impossible to calculate exactly how many people in Swaziland use Facebook, Twitter and the other Internet sites, but the number is growing by the day, most obviously among young, educated people, living in urban areas. Many Swazi people online only use the Internet for social chit-chat, but there is also a sizeable pro-democracy community online. Even now, while Swaziland remains relatively peaceful, these sites are valuable at getting information about human rights and civil liberties abuses out into the wider world.
We know that social networking worries the Swazi Government, because it blocked the website of the People’s United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO) and is making plans to expand its propaganda operations outside of the kingdom.
Social networking will be important in the Swazi uprising, but one thing must be clear: it was the Tunisian people who toppled Ben Ali, and social networking helped. In that order.
So, in a nutshell: any small event can spark off the uprising and the ordinary people of Swaziland can get support for their cause from social networking.
Social networking is in place. All we need now is the spark.
Swaziland showed a significant decline in democracy over the past year (2010) and there was very little resistance to it from the democratic world.
The kingdom, ruled by King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, is among a group of 25 nations where there was a decline in political rights and civil liberties, according to Freedom House, a watchdog group, based in the United States.
‘Our adversaries are not just engaging in widespread repression, they are doing so with unprecedented aggressiveness and self-confidence,’ said David J. Kramer, executive director of the group. ‘And the democratic community is not rising to the challenge.’
Arch Puddington, director of research at Freedom House, said, ‘Authoritarian regimes will have a much freer hand to silence their domestic critics if there is no resistance from the outside world.’
He was commenting at the launch of Freedom House’s annual report. Freedom House is expected to release a detailed report on human rights in Swaziland sometime during the next three months.
