Swaziland
Newsletter No. 748 –14 October 2022
News from and about Swaziland, compiled by
Global Aktion, Denmark (www.globalaktion.dk)
in collaboration with Swazi Media Commentary (www.swazimedia.blogspot.com),
and sent to all with an interest in Swaziland - free of charge.
The King vs. The People: The Struggle to Bring
Democracy to eSwatini
By Sazi
Bongwe, Harvard Political Review, October 9, 2022
As we know too well, history
is no stranger to the idea that a single match can light a roaring fire.
The people of eSwatini —
officially known as the Kingdom of eSwatini and formerly known as Swaziland,
one of the world’s 12 remaining absolute monarchies — have reminded the world
of just that. In June 2021, Siphiwe Mkhabela had to find the
body of her son Thabani Nkomonye, a 25-year-old law student at the University
of eSwatini, with its eyes gouged out and with three holes in it on a field in
Nhlambeni, eSwatini. A death that was all but confirmed to be at the hands of
the police gave rise to the unrelenting voice of the people of eSwatini.
Protests demanding justice
bled into pro-democracy protests, which in turn bled into June 29, 2021, what
is now remembered as the eSwatini massacre — a massacre of 80 protestors by the
army and police forces. In spite of it all, King Mswati III’s grasp remains
firmly and remorselessly on the throne, and democracy continues to elude the
people of eSwatini.
The King and the People
“If you open the country’s
constitution, it says the country is called Swaziland,” explained Manqoba
Nxumalo, a human rights activist from Manzini, eSwatini and a founder of the
eSwatini Solidarity Fund, in an interview with the HPR. “The king woke up on
his birthday, without notice, without informing parliament, without debate, and
just decided to change the name of the country [to eSwatini] which
grammatically doesn’t even make sense. If there’s any symbol of absolute
monarchy, it’s that.”
What explains King Mswati’s
continued position as the last absolute monarch in Africa? “The number one
thing is mythmaking,” according to Cebelihle Mbuyisa, an eSwatini-born writer
and subeditor, also in conversation with the HPR. “For many years, the royal
family has positioned itself and told stories about itself like some kind of
saviors of the Swazi nation and preservers of our culture.”
In the words of Nxumalo, “In
a continent where every other country [has had] some form of political conflict
and civil strife, Swaziland has not had that…It has been idyllic and beautiful
and peaceful, according to people outside the country, and seen as the last
bastion of peace in a continent ravaged by conflict.” He continued, “the
monarchy has postured itself as a pristine traditional stroke, a cultural
heaven for the world to see how Africa was before colonialism.” For the most
part, this benevolent picture has allowed eSwatini’s atrocities to occur beneath
the radar of most human rights organizations.
Such is the myth of the
Swazi royal family, as absurd as it is entrenched. King Mswati’s father, King
Sobhuza II, observed the longest verifiable reign of any monarchy in recorded
history, ruling for 82 years from 1899 to his death in 1982, with Mswati ruling
since. Yet it is important that one looks beyond the spectacle of the monarchy
and toward the devastating consequences of its authoritarianism.
Senseless name-changing is
hardly the only sign of the king’s power over the people. “All I knew growing
up, all I saw, was poverty: Young people, men and women, having to go through
life without means, having to accept poverty as the default position through
which to live their lives,” says Mbuyisa of his upbringing. It is this that led
him to journalism: “In Swaziland, eventually you don’t expect anyone to take
accountability. But things still must be noted. And that is why I decided to do
journalism. Because of the suffering around me, I felt that it’s something that
ought to be noted.”
To say that poverty in
contemporary eSwatini is pervasive would be an understatement. “I mean, you can
find economic hardships everywhere in Africa,” says Nxumalo, “they are very
acute in this country.” Whichever indicator one chooses to
use — unemployment, poverty, hunger, or inequality — points to a suffering
people.
Yet as is often the case for
countries of Africa and the Global South, it is a suffering that goes
unnoticed. “It’s just unfortunate that it is only when people die, when there’s
violence and brutality, that certain matters get attention,” remarked Qhawekazi
Khumalo, Deputy Secretary in the external region of the People’s United
Democratic Movement and a member of Swazi Lives Matter, a global solidarity
movement, in an interview with the HPR. “Nobody is sending anything to
Swaziland; I’ve never heard anybody sending anything to Swaziland like they do
in Ukraine. The value attached to the lives of emaSwati (the Swazi people) is
neither here nor there for the international community.”
Raising the Voice of the People
Each of the above economic
conditions alone would be enough to push any society to the brink. Yet while
the struggle in eSwatini has been gathering momentum for a while, it is only
recently that it has reached its fullest expression. Part of the reason for
this, according to Mbuyisa, was that “because of the mythmaking, people cannot
imagine a life or a governance of the country outside of the royal family.”
Khumalo added that since “most of us are born into oppression, it’s taken quite
a lot for us to realize that, you know, it doesn’t have to be like this.”
There is also a brutally
entrenched climate of repression, where neither political parties nor
independent media are allowed to form. For Nxumalo, the reasons his people rose
up and why he founded the eSwatini Solidarity Fund, a volunteer organization
whose goal is to help activists and ordinary Swazis who are victims of state
brutality and repression, are the same. “All of those things, a political and
economic environment created by this absolute monarchy, account for why most
Swazis stood up to fight but also why the Solidarity Fund had to come up,” he
said. ‘It needed to respond to the massacre, not just a massacre that happened
overnight, but rather a massacre that had been happening and maturing
differently with the evolving of time.”
And so in a fashion and on a
scale that the country had never seen before, the people of eSwatini registered
their discontent, to deathly ends. “The younger generation just said this is
it, we’ve had enough. We are tired of living in an underdeveloped country,
where one man continues to live in luxury, where you see how this man is able
to amass such a lot of wealth from the country’s resources and yet he has
nothing to show for in terms of development, and a dignified life for the
people,” said Khumalo.
Most, if not all, citizens,
when asked what they are primarily calling for out on the roads, will give one
answer: multiparty democracy. “In Africa, liberal democracy has been embraced
almost everywhere,” Nxumalo notes, “even where there are war torn places they
have embraced at least the basic tenets of multiparty democratic governance.
How Africans have allowed Swaziland in the 21st century to have political
parties banned is itself shocking.”
That PUDEMO, of which
Qhawekazi Khumalo is a member, has managed not only to organize but to gain
traction and membership is itself a significant and valiant response to the
authoritarian power of the monarchy. “We want a multiparty democracy,” explains
Khumalo, “and that is not for any co-option in any structure of the current
government. It is an uprooting of those particular structures, because our
oppression comes from those structures.”
As has been the case with
all other liberation movements across Africa and the Global South, the tale of
the people of eSwatini is one of oppression and resistance. The impunity and
remorselessness of King Mswati’s regime is there for all to see, yet even
behind that is another hidden layer of insidious suppression. As a journalist,
Mbuyisa has borne witness to much of this. Speaking of PUDEMO he says, “there
is nothing they haven’t suffered.”
The most brutal instrument
of the state is the police, who, in Mbuyisa’ words, have a particular modus
operandi: “They will go to any roadblock, to any protest, to any march, and
fire guns; fire at random, a few gunshots to the air, and then aim the gun,
just kill one person and then leave.” He further explained that they have
already done this before. “That’s what they did in many, many sites around the
country. July 4, 2021, they shot a guy in Ngwenya, and I happened to be
there.”
Mbuyisa’s experiences are
not solely as a witness. At the height of eSwatini’s unrest last year, he and
another journalist, Magnificent Mndebele, working at New Frame, were dispatched to report on the protests. They sensed that they
were being surveilled, and had it confirmed when they were followed and
threatened to delete whatever they had gathered. Mbuyisa and
Mndebele were later stopped on the highway and taken to a nearby police
station, where they were detained, interrogated, assaulted, and tortured.
“You come close to dying and
you see that, oh, these people can really kill you,” Mbuyisa said.
To read more of this
report click here
Mswati III and scholars at daggers drawn
By Sambulo Dlamini,
CAJ News,
6 October 6, 2022
MBABANE:
University authorities can blame unforeseen circumstances for the postponement
of the annual graduation ceremony at the University of Eswatini (UNESWA).
Yet they ought to have seen this coming.
King Mswati III and students have not been seeing eye to eye since the
beginning of the worst political unrest in the Southern African country last
year.
Only that it has now assumed a literal dimension.
The graduation ceremony was scheduled for this weekend but has been
halted as the unrest in the Kingdom escalates.
“Due to unforeseen circumstances, the graduation ceremony has been
postponed from Saturday, 8th October, 2022 to a future date to be announced,”
reads the memorandum by Dr Salebona Simelane, UNESWA Registrar.
That “future date” apparently is not anywhere on the horizon.
Mswati III is the Chancellor of this volatile varsity that for months
has resembled a warzone than an institution of higher learning.
By postponing the graduation ceremony, authorities have therefore curbed
a potentially explosive situation. The king was not welcome.
This comes at a time students have been protesting over insufficient
scholarships.
Ahead of the ceremony, the graduation arena was vandalised. While
students were obviously chief suspects of the destruction this week, some
reports suggest unknown outsiders breached the security and turned the facility
upside down. It is said this mysterious group was armed with sticks and stones.
Police sources confirmed the arrest of four men.
In some areas, there is graffiti on some walls denouncing the monarch. “Mswati
Must Fall” is the most prominent one at this university of more than 7 600
students enrolled. Thus, the writing is on the wall!
“We cannot have someone presiding over a government that is murdering
students capping us,” said a student at the main Kwaluseni campus centre-west
of the country.
The campus in the Manzini, the largest city in Eswatini, has been restless
ever since the onset of the protests in May last year. In fact, protests
ongoing in Eswatini started after police allegedly murdered law student,
Thabane Nkomonye, who was a student at this university. The body of the
25-year-old, who was not an activist, was found outside Manzini.
Police claimed he died in an accident but students are convinced he was
yet another victim of brutality by the maligned Royal Eswatini Police Service,
blamed for the repression that has reinforced Mswati II’s repressive regime. An
unspecified number of students have been killed, abducted and tortured during a
standoff with law enforcement.
Universities and schools have at times been forced to close because of
the protests. Even education at some high schools around the country has
sometimes come to a standstill as scholars protest in solidarity with the
tertiary counterparts.
The protests have morphed into the worst civil unrest in Eswatini, where
the broader society has also made the most of the situation to protest repression
and demand democratic reforms. In Eswatini, Africa’s last absolute monarchy,
political parties are banned, dating back to the 1970s when King Sobhuza II,
now late. Mswati III has ruled since 1986, aged 18. Some opposition activists
have been jailed.
Late last month, it emerged legislators Bacede Mabuza and Mthandeni Dube
were tortured in custody. “We encourage all emaSwati in all sectors to rise and
disown this senseless regime and demand the release of the MPs immediately,”
Thantaza Silolo, spokesperson of the Swaziland Liberation Movement (SWALIMO),
stated.
A number of police officers have been killed in what is believed to be
reprisal attacks. State institutions have been bombed. Arsonists have
petrol-bombed even primary schools. “Government condemns in the strongest
possible terms the ongoing senseless attacks on members of the country’s
security forces,” said Alpheous Nxumalo, government spokesperson recently. Nxumalo
said the insecurity was derailing national dialogue.
Some critics allege government practices double standards. “Why does
government issue a statement when the security forces are shot but is silent
when forces kill unarmed citizens?” queried Linda Dlamini.
For now, nothing has come out of the domestic dialogue. Rather, the gulf
between the Mswati III regime and pro-democracy activists has widened. The
Southern African Development Community (SADC) regional bloc has also been
dithering on the Eswatini crisis. Twice this year, summits specifically
scheduled to discuss Eswatini were cancelled because Mswati III was “not
available.”
SADC’s last summit, held in the Democratic Republic of Congo in August,
was a routine conference of heads of state and government. Mswati III attended.
The 16-member SADC pledged to convene an “Extra-ordinary Summit of the Organ
Troika plus Eswatini.” A date is still to be determined.
Monarch no-go area for MPs - EBC
By Joseph Zulu, Times of eSwatini, 11 October
2022
PIGG’S PEAK: The Monarch is a ‘no-go area’ for
parliamentarians as their powers are limited to government matters.
This was said by Prince Mhlabuhlangene, the
Chairperson of the Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC). He was
speaking during a meeting with traditional authorities yesterday at the Pigg’s
Peak Hotel and Casino. Prince Mhlabuhlangene’s presentation received a
thumbs-up from the traditional authorities, who now want this to be taken to
the rest of the country. The prince made a presentation on elections, in
readiness for the 2023 general elections. He said parliamentarians were elected
to represent the people but that their powers were not absolute. He said their
authority was limited to the government section of the country and this
excluded the Monarch.
The prince said it should be noted that government was
separate from the Monarch and that the Members of Parliament’s (MPs) authority
ended at government level, as such, they could not cross over to the side of
the Monarch. He said the MPs could say whatever they wanted about
government but not the Monarch. “That’s a no-go area for them,” he said, adding
that their immunity was limited. The prince stated that though MPs had
parliamentary privilege, this did not mean they could say whatever they wanted
to anyone. “You cannot get that immunity if you are now canvassing things
that are out of your authority,” he said, giving examples of statements such as
‘King must fall’. Also, he warned that saying the Monarch must fall was
treasonable as it meant that the person was fighting with the status quo. He
said Eswatini was a Monarchical Sovereignty, meaning that the Monarch was protected
by the law.
Prince Mhlabuhlangene said it was wrong for
parliamentarians to use their forum to criticise the Monarch. “You can say
whatever you want about the government, but not about the Monarch,” he
warned. Prince Kekela, Chief of Mvuma, commended EBC chairman for the
presentation. He said it was very informative and hoped that it could be
compiled and handed over to the traditional authorities, so that they could be
able to deliver the message to the communities. Chief Kekela also wondered
why parliamentarians who were supposed to work for the government interfered in
matters of royalty. “Bangenelwa yini, ngumoya webusathane yini?” he
asked. He said the section of government and that of the Monarch were
different. Prince Kekela expressed hope that they could also be taught about
this so that they understood their limitations. He warned that while
parliamentarians were elected, kingship was acquired by birth. “These are two
different things,” he stated. Also among the attendees were Prince Mphatfwa,
who is the Chief of Ludlawini and Chief Jubiphathi of Nyakatfo.
King Mswati
to go to seclusion again without a political dialogue.
By
Zweli Martin Dlamini, Swaziland News, 9 October
2022
MBABANE: King Mswati is highly expected to go to his
Incwala seclusion again in the next few weeks without hosting the highly
anticipated political dialogue.
Eswatini, a tiny Kingdom situated in Southern Africa
is in the midst of a political crisis after Mswati allegedly unleashed his
police and soldiers to shoot and kill dozens of civilians merely for demanding
democratic reforms.
Reached for comments, King Mswati’s Spokesperson Percy
Simelane said the Southern African Development Community (SADC) tasked its
Troika Organ to work on the eSwatini turmoil in accordance with the
Constitution, in an all-inclusive manner adding that no date had been set.
“SADC tasked its Troika to work on the Eswatini
turmoil in accordance with the 2005 Constitution in an all-inclusive manner.
We are not aware of any date set by Troika but very much alive to
Eswatini's concerns about the hostile environment that currently obtains which
includes threats by key stakeholders to use violent means to deal with those
who will present against them or stand in their way during the dialogue. How Troika
sees these concerns has not yet been made public,” said the King’s Spokesperson
when responding to our questionnaire on Sunday evening.
Speaking to this Swaziland News on Sunday evening,
human rights lawyer Thulani Maseko, the Chairperson of the MultiStakeholder
Forum (MSF)said it was very unfortunate that the King’s Spokesperson could
claim there were people who wanted to disrupt a political dialogue.
Responding to our questions on the subject matter, the
MSF Chairperson said it was, in fact, the masses who have been calling for a
dialogue even before SADC was seized with the eSwatini political crisis.
The MSF is a coalition of pro-democracy groups
collectively advocating for democratic reforms in the Kingdom eSwatini.
“SADC Troika produced a draft with the terms of
reference and Government has not reacted to the proposal by Troika that
stipulates what form must the dialogue take. So he can’t then say it is the
Troika that must fix dates when they have not reacted to the proposal by Troika
that stipulates how the dialogue must be held. You will recall that back in
February, SADC Troika proposed the dialogue with timelines because you can’t
have a dialogue without fixed timelines. But Government undermined those
timelines, so the main issue we are faced with here is that Government is
reluctant to commit on the proposal by Troika,” said the MultiStakeholder Forum
Chairperson.
Eswatini is ruled by King Mswati as an absolute
Monarch with Executive,Judicial and Legislative powers, political parties are
banned from participating in elections.
Two Members of Parliament (MPs) Bacede Mabuza and
Mthandeni Dube were thrown behind bars allegedly by King Mswati for demanding
democratic reforms, they are facing politically motivated terrorism charges.
We
need more women in parliament: SWALIMO Chairperson Busi Mayisela
By
Eugene Dube, Swati Newsweek, 8 October, 2022
MBABANE: Busi Mayisela, the Swaziland Liberation
Movement (SWALIMO) Chairperson believes Swazi women are oppressed by the royal
Swazi regime hence there is a need have more women in Parliament.
She was responding to questions from this publication
about the challenges faced by women in Eswatini.
She said, “We need more women in strategic positions
especially in Parliament. There are still laws that discriminate women, eg
(when a woman is widowed, she cannot be in Parliament for 2 years. That’s
ridiculous.”
She narrated, “Swalimo will always ensure the broader
aspect of equality, there are various clevegea but the idea of women being
fully represented in society and in the broader spectrum of leadership is paramount,
so through the women’s league we are certain that this sector will and doing
justice to women representation.”
During the interview, Mayisela blamed the state for
allowing women oppression.
She said, “This is unfortunate as women are the
Pillars of families. If you feed one woman, you are sure that she will feed at least
10 other family members. Our government is not helping in sorting this mess.
Actually the government perpetrates this abuse by the textile industries.”
Mayisela said the economic situation of the textile
workers should be improved.
“Government should revisit the minimum wage bill. It’s
ridiculous and unfair to our people. The conditions are terrible as well. Some
textile employees cannot even afford to take maternity leaves because they are
not paid. No they are not,” said Mayisela.
Tension
looming as Sergeant Dumsile Khumalo who led police officers in a historic
protest faces arrest.
By
Zweli Martin Dlamini, Swaziland News, 12 October, 2022
MBABANE: Sergeant Dumsile
Khumalo, the Secretary General of the Police Staff Association is now facing
arrest after leading disgruntled law enforcers into a historic protest march in
demand for a salary increment.
As exclusively reported by
this Swaziland News on Monday evening, police officers eventually marched to
the Prime Minister’s office on Tuesday morning, they are demanding their money
meant to increase their salaries under Phase Two (2).
It has been disclosed that
members of Executive Command have looted over R100million in monies meant to
increase salaries for junior police officers, the money was misappropriated
through the creation of over twenty (20) Deputy National Commissioner and
Assistant Commissioners posts that are now redundant.
It has been disclosed that
after creating the posts and falsely convincing King Mswati that they were
benchmarking with the Southern African Development Community (SADC) standards,
the Executive Command subsequently allocated themselves huge salaries that
depleted the millions meant to increase salaries for junior officers:
Reached for comments,
Sergeant Dumsile Khumalo confirmed that a warrant of arrest was being prepared
against her, however, she declined to comment further and referred this
journalist to the Police Spokesperson, Superintendent Phindile Vilakati.
“I am aware of the warrant
of arrest, please contact the Police Spokesperson,” said the influential police
officer.
But junior police officers
who spoke to this Swaziland News on Wednesday warned the Police Executive
Command against touching their leader Seargent Dumsile Khumalo.
“Nothing will happen to
Madam Dumsile, if they arrest her we will forcefully release her, wait and see.
We are police officers and we want our money. This is not end, even if they can
release this money under Phase Two (2), we want the other monies that
disappeared under the Death Benefit Fund,” said a junior police officer.
Police Staff Association
Secretary General Sergeant Dumsile Khumalo, a police officer based at Malkerns
Police Station has been described by junior police officers as a human rights
defender who has been advocating for the welfare of police officers since she
joined the organization.
“She is brave and powerful
but she needs our support as police officers, we know the strategic places and
individuals that we can target if they arrest her. We are working for this
government and we know it’s operations,” said the police officer.
A questionnaire was sent to
Superintendent Phindile Vilakati, however, she had not responded at the time of
compiling this report.
Reached for comments,
Sibusiso Nhlabatsi, a highly regarded human rights lawyer said the allegations
suggesting that the police officer who led the protest might be arrested are
misplaced adding that the law enforcers had a right to bargain collectively.
In terms of labour laws,
collective bargaining refers to the negotiation of wages and other conditions
of employment by an organized body of employees.
“Police officers have a
right to collectively bargain for better terms and conditions of service. If
the junior police officers are alleging that within their place of employment,
there were different phases that were implemented and were not favorable to
their working conditions, they have a right to confront the Minister responsible
for police which is the Prime Minister. So there is no criminal offense when
you say you are bargaining collectively for purposes of better terms and
conditions of service. The Police Service Act established the Police Staff
Association solely for such matters. So you cannot therefore say, when an
employee raises grievances, it’s a criminal offense. If it can happen that a
police officer gets arrested for collective bargaining, that would mean the
country has reached a deep end,” said the human rights lawyer.
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