‘Forbes’ article praising Swaziland King thought to be April Fool joke was public relations piece

An article in the international business magazine Forbes Africa that praised King Mswati III, the absolute monarch of impoverished Swaziland / eSwatini, for his ‘his highest aspirations for the welfare of its people,’ that was widely circulated on social media on 1 April 2019 was thought by many to be an April Fool joke.

Instead, it turns out the article was genuine; but it was not a piece of objective journalism, only public relations. It was produced by the marketing company Penresa and was published in the magazine for a fee. The cost has not been publicly disclosed. Penresa said the article was produced with the ‘guidance’ of Sibi Mngomezulu, eSwatini Ambassador in Brussels, and Christian Nkambule, eSwatini High Commissioner in London. 

The articles raised smiles among people with knowledge of the kingdom that has been in financial meltdown for years. The King holds power by banning political parties from taking part in elections and jailing those who campaign for democracy.

The article referred to the Royal Family’s as intent on bringing ‘prosperity to the country with forward-thinking measures that are paving the way for the nation’s sharp national economic growth and modernisation’.

The article did not say that when delivering the national budget in February 2019 Finance Minister Neal Rijkenberg reported Swaziland was broke and ‘facing an unprecedented economic crisis’. In his speech he said the ‘economic outlook remains subdued’. Foreign direct investment into the kingdom ruled by King Mswati who is sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, was getting worse – with a contraction of 0.4 percent in Swaziland’s GDP for 2018.

‘The economy has stagnated and we are failing to attract investment as the gap between the rich and poor continues to grow,’ Rijkenberg said. He added that for too long, ‘this economic reality has not been addressed’.

Forbes Africa made no mention of the vast spending by King Mswati and his Royal Family who continue to spend lavishly. The King has at least 13 palaces and fleets of top-of-the-range Mercedes and BMW cars. He and members of his extensive Royal Family (he has had at least 15 wives) live opulent lifestyles and are often seen in public wearing watches and jewels worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The King wore a watch worth US$1.6 million and a suit beaded with diamonds weighing 6 kg, at his 50^th birthday party in April 2018. Days earlier, King Mswati took delivery of his second private jet aircraft that with upgrades was estimated to have cost US$30 million.

In recent years public hospitals have run out of vital medicines and schools have closed because supplies of food to feed children have run out. This is because the government failed to pay suppliers. 

The article in Forbes Africa was produced by Penresa which describes itself as ‘an independent consultancy agency, specialized in marketing and communication for emerging markets’.

It said it targeted countries that are ‘casting off their former labels’.

Richard Rooney

See also

Swaziland people pay E1 billion for absolute King’s upkeep, but it’s kept a secret

https://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2019/03/swaziland-people-pay-e1-billion-for.html

 

Swaziland King prepares for lavish birthday celebrations, despite dire poverty in the kingdom

https://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2019/03/swaziland-king-prepares-for-lavish.html

SWAZI PROPAGANDA WILL NOT WORK

There has been a lot of talk in Swaziland recently about the need for the government to set up a public relations (i.e. propaganda) unit to counter the ‘bad press’ the kingdom is getting in the international media.

By ‘bad press’ supporters of King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, mean information about the lack of democracy and human rights in the kingdom.

In fact there is no ‘bad press’ worth talking about in the mainstream / commercial media.

As research I did previously showed, the news media outside of Swaziland are not much interested in what is going on in, what to them, is an irrelevant little country somewhere in Africa. (Click here and here to see the research).

That research was conducted in 2007 and nothing much has changed since. Swaziland does make the news when something the media sees as ‘exotic’ happens – the Reed Dance, where tens of thousands of ‘maidens’ dance bare-chested in front of the king, is an example.

What has changed in the past couple of years has been the growth of sites on the Internet exposing the lack of human rights in Swaziland (you’re reading one now). Among such sites are the Swaziland Solidarity Network (SSN) forum; SSN on Facebook; SSN on wikispaces; the People’s United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO) (where supporters have set up a party site, a wikispaces site, a news site; and a Free Mario Masuku site); the Swaziland National Union of Students; Mfomfo Nkhambule’s blog; S1ka; and the Swaziland Coalition of Concerned Civic Organisations.

Apologies to anyone I’ve accidentally missed out.

The people who supply information to the world on these sites are spreading the message and not the mainstream media.

The Swazi Government can set up as many ‘public relations’ units as it likes, but it will make no difference. We know the truth and we shall go on telling it.

REED DANCE AND THE SWAZI BREASTS

I wrote on Friday (29 August 2008) that Swaziland’s King Mswati III was thought to have an image problem in the United States because he encouraged 40,000 bare breasted maidens to dance before him at the annual Reed Dance ceremony.

The Americans thought that there was an obvious ‘sexual undertone’ to the dance.

With the Reed Dance once more upon us there is bound to be some international media coverage of the event (there always is) and you can bet your house that most of the media reports will be about those breasts.

I was reminded of this ‘image problem’ last week by an article the Sunday Monitor, Uganda (24 August 2008). It was a piece designed to encourage people to visit Swaziland for its ‘culture’. The writer, Moses Serugo, however, had a bit of a one track mind.

Here are the opening paragraphs. The article called Swaziland: Mountains, mountains and more mountains (make of that what you will) goes on to give an interesting insight into Swaziland’s history since independence in 1968. To read the full article, click here.

To the lecherous mind, Swaziland is nothing more than a parade of bare-breasted maidens. The culturally inclined will become wide-eyed on hearing that the reed dance goes beyond providing King Mswati with yet another chance to increase his harem. The curator at the National Museum will tell you it is a cultural celebration like that of any other community in the world.

The reed dance usually takes place at the end of August but the museum is awash with images that include black and white ones, dating as far back as the early 20th Century to latter day colour pictures showing topless nubile girls that have no qualms about showing their sharp breasts.

These are mostly a male distraction and the temptation to pick up a calendar on which Swazi princesses form part of the photography is high. The princesses have a distinguishing feature on their head gear - red feathers forming a semi-circular scalp adornment that is supposed to make them stand out from ordinary mortals.

The royal daughters are a ravishing lot, which says something about King Mswati’s choice. Hushed voices will however whisper to you that there have been two runaway queens who were not content with the restrictions that come with living in the royal palace - even with the regal trappings that include a plush abode and a sleek BMW vehicle.

See also

US FIRM BATS FOR SWAZI KING

US FIRM BATS FOR SWAZI KING

My post earlier this month (August 2008) about how Swaziland's King Mswati III had hired a public relations (PR) firm in London to improve his image in the international community prompted a reader to point out this recent article in a US magazine.

It seems that King Mswati III has also been paying a PR lobbyist E140,000 (20,000 US dollars) a month in the United States to work for him. The PR firm told the magazine the king was ‘real green behind the ears’. The PR firm told the king to stop holding the annual Reed Dance because important people in the United States didn’t like the idea of 40,000 maidens dancing with bare breasts because there was a ‘sexual undertone’ to it.

Here are the opening paragraphs to the article by James Kirchick. It is called Despots and the lobbyists who love them and it appeared in the New Republic on 13 August 2008. To read the full article click here.

Joe Szlavik remembers the moment when he began to suspect that his work on behalf of the Kingdom of Swaziland was an enormous waste of time. It was 2006, and Szlavik--a lobbyist who had represented foreign governments ranging from Burundi to Gabon to Uganda, as well as the late Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan--was helping Swaziland, a tiny, landlocked monarchy sandwiched between South Africa and Mozambique, navigate the tricky waters of Washington politics. Swaziland's King Mswati III (“a great guy, one-on-one,” says Szlavik, but “real green behind the ears”) and his foreign minister (“crusty, old guard, and incompetent”) were in town, and the lobbyist met them at the stately Willard InterContinental Hotel. Szlavik, whose firm was pulling in $20,000 per month from its Swaziland account, had some difficult news to deliver about a certain Swazi custom. “You have this reed dance, with these virgins,” he explained to me recently. Szlavik's message to his client was simple. “Listen to me,” he implored the king. “You got to stop this.”

The reed dance, or umhlanga in the Swati language, is probably Swaziland's best-known tradition. Every August or September, thousands of girls congregate at Ludzidzini, the King’s royal residence, for an eight-day festival of music, dancing, and singing, officially in honor of the king's mother. On the seventh day, the young women--all topless--don skirts made of freshly cut reeds and perform personally for the king, who may decide to choose one of them as a bride.

The reed dance had recently been a source of domestic political embarrassment for Mswati. In 2001, troubled by his country’s high HIV rate (at least one-third of the population is believed to be infected), Mswati had issued a decree that no girl below the age of 18 would be allowed to have sex for five years. Then, in 2004, at the annual reed dance, Mswati chose a twelfth wife. The problem: She was 16 (and a former Miss Teen Swaziland finalist to boot), meaning that the king was now technically in violation of his own law.

Soon enough, the sex ban was lifted. The reed dance, however, continued--and, back in Washington, it was causing Szlavik no end of problems. Earlier, he had brought the king and Swazi ambassador to meet with Chris Smith, a socially conservative Republican representative from New Jersey and then chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa. Smith “understood there was a traditional part to the dance but in light of the gravity of the HIV situation [thought] maybe they could put tradition aside,” Szlavik recalls.

Such arguments were lost on King Mswati. “Look Joe, I understand the whole thing with the West, but we look at breasts like you look at feet,” the monarch told him. It wasn't an unreasonable point. In some rural African cultures, women refraining from wearing tops is about as common as U.S. postal workers wearing shorts in the summer. But try explaining that to a conservative Republican congressman.

“I like breasts personally,” Szlavik, a fast-talking cheerful man of about 40, told the king. “But, you know, there's a sexual undertone to it clearly.”

See also

SWAZILAND KING AND THE PR FIRM

SWAZILAND KING AND THE PR FIRM

Swaziland’s King Mswati III uses a controversial public relations company to project a positive image of himself to the world.

The King has chosen Eligo International, based in London, UK, for the job. The King’s contract with Eligo is not public knowledge in Swaziland.

The King’s move might come as a surprise to some people, but if you think about it from the King’s point of view you can see why he needs help over the coming month.

Swaziland faces a controversial election, in which political parties have been banned and which is widely seen internationally as a sham because the parliament that is being elected has no powers.

Also taking place over the next month in the kingdom are celebrations of both the King’s 40th birthday and the 40th anniversary of Swaziland’s independence from Britain. The celebrations are expected to cost upwards of E25 million (nearly 4 million US dollars).

These events will almost certainly put Swaziland in the international spotlight, more than it has been since 2004 and 2005 when the world learned that the King was spending lavishly on himself and his wives (remember all those expensive cars and new palaces) while 70 percent of Swaziland’s population lived in abject poverty, earning less than one US dollar a day (E7).

In some respects, Eligo might be a good choice for the King. Eligo, on its website, boasts that it deals in ‘crisis management’ for countries and statesmen. 

The website says, ‘We have also in times of national and international trouble succeeded in defending a country’s image against media and public attack through setting up issues and crisis management systems.’ 

As my report on censorship and self-censorship in the Swazi media published last month (July 2008) demonstrated, King Mswati has a tight control over what is said about him in Swaziland. He doesn’t have such a control of the international media, and that is why (I assume) he has felt the need to take on a public relations company.

Eligo is so proud of its association with King Mswati that on its website it boasts that he is one of its customers.

Other customers include Prince Khalid Al-Faisal of Saudi Arabia (a country with an even worse human rights record than Swaziland).

‘Our clients continue to be international leaders, royalty, cabinet ministers, ambassadors and high commissioners as well as many other public figures,’ Eligo says.

But Eligo has been embroiled in controversy for many years. In 2005, the Sunday Times, London, UK, reported (13 March 2005) that Eligo had tried to give the UK Labour Party a donation of 500,000 British pounds (about E8 million).

The Labour Party, although in debt to the tune of five million British pounds, decided not to take the money after it made background checks on Anthony Bailey, Eligo’s owner.

Bailey is known for his love of litigation, so from here on in everything said in this blogpost about him should be viewed as allegations.

The Sunday Times reported, ‘A senior Labour party source said of Bailey: “Questions have been raised about this man and his wealth. We just weren’t happy to take his money.”’

The Sunday Times continued, ‘Bailey first came to public attention in the mid-1990s. He was arrested for allegedly working alongside Prince Michael of Kent’s then private secretary in an attempt to blackmail a man who claimed to be a Libyan prince. The charges were thrown out by the courts.’

Some of the companies Eligo has worked for are also embroiled in controversy. The Sunday Times reported Eligo.s clients included, ‘BAE Systems, the defence firm under investigation by the [UK] Serious Fraud Office; and businesses owned by Nadhmi Auchi, an Iraqi-born industrialist with legal problems in France.’

According to Eligo’s website, the company has also acted for exiled royals from Libya, Ethiopia and Greece.

I’ll leave it to your imagination to decide why King Mswati III chose this particular company to do his bidding. Any suggestion that it was Eligo’s expertise in working with ‘exiled royals’ is pure speculation.

See also
CENSORSHIP AND THE SWAZI MEDIA

SWAZI TEXTILES ‘PR BLUNDER’

A public relations exercise by Swaziland’s textile factory owners may have backfired badly.

Journalists from Swazi media houses were given a tour of some of the factories in the kingdom that were at the centre of controversy in March this year (2008) when workers striking over poor pay and conditions were brutally attacked by police.

The idea was to show that the textile factories were responsible employers and had an important role to play in the Swazi economy.

The tour was organised by the Swaziland Textile Employers Association (STEA) with the Taiwanese embassy in Swaziland. (Companies based in Taiwan own most of the textile factories in Swaziland.)

The Swazi Observer played ball with the STEA and in its newspaper yesterday (8 May 2008) gave a simple account of the work going on in four of the major textile factories in Swaziland. Readers learned how many people were employed and such like. All good public relations stuff on behalf of the owners.

The Times of Swaziland took a different tack and managed to paint a pretty poor picture of the owners. A report (8 May 2008) headlined HIV/AIDS killing workers said that investors in the textile industry were complaining that too many workers were taking time off work because they were sick.

The Times reported, ‘It is said that those who are sick would spend more time visiting the health centres and clinics to seek medical attention than being at work.’

The Times managed to find someone to condemn the textile owners and complain that they were making unsubstantiated allegations against the workers. There are no official statistics available on which textile workers go sick and for what reason. Also, STEA members did not have HIV AIDS programmes to help workers. The conclusion reached was that ‘STEA were only interested in making money and do not care about Swazis.’

It didn’t get better for STEA when the Times also reported that factory bosses were searching workers as they left work to make sure they were not stealing. One factory owner described this behaviour as dehumanising.

The Observer has promised readers more reports from the textiles tour in its edition today (9 May 2008). The Times made no such promise. For which I am sure the STEA will be extremely grateful.

See also
SWAZI UNIONS AID ATTACKED WORKERS