BLACK WEDNESDAY AT SWAZILAND UNI

I wrote last Friday (1 February 2008) about the present dispute at the University of Swaziland (UNISWA) and how history repeats itself.

The Times Higher Educational Supplement (THES) in 1995 reported on a breakdown between the university administration and its students.

But that wasn’t the worst example from history. That accolade definitely goes to 14 November 1990 – a day that will forever go down in Swazi history as Black Wednesday.

Students were making a peaceful protest at the university when the Swaziland army was sent in to attack them.

Students at UNISWA mark Black Wednesday each year, but in recent years doubts have been raised about whether today’s students really understand what it is that is being remembered.

What follows is not a piece of journalism. It is a powerful first hand eyewitness account of what happened that day. It was written (in 2006 I think) by Michael Prosser, a professor from the United States who was working at the University of Swaziland and is posted on his website. At the end of his account Prosser asks whether there is anyone who remembers Black Wednesday. If you do you can contact him here.

BLOODY WEDNESDAY IN SWAZILAND

November 14, 1990, ‘Bloody Wednesday’ in Swaziland still lingers as a most important moment in my life. It was the only day that I thought I surely might die. I was a Fulbright Professor at the University of Swaziland in south east Africa that year.

University students began boycotting classes on November 12 in protest of a lack of faculty lecturers, poor food conditions, and the suspension of a popular young sociology lecturer for promoting democracy in Swaziland.

Early on November 12, all 1 600 university students held a protest meeting and boycotted all classes. At noon, they dumped their plastic wrapped lunches at the administration office door.

The Swazi radio, and tv stations, Swaziland’s newspapers gave extensive coverage to the dumping of the lunches. Many Swazis were subsistence farmers who often went to bed hungry; thus this student decision reflected very badly on them. All students received a University notice demanding the end of their class boycott on November 13. They decided to continue it. The University Council demanded their return to classes on November 14, or be considered in defiance of the twenty-three year old King Mswati III.

Another student meeting on November 14 continued the boycott. About 500 students peacefully barricaded themselves in the two-storey university library. Several hundred students left campus or stayed in their student hostel area. At about 5pm, armed Swazi soldiers entered the high fenced campus.

A university official drove through the campus announcing the immediate campus closure. Five young women rushed to me and asked for emergency protection in my home. I took them there immediately.

A fifteen hour rain and thunderstorm had just begun. The young women were quite terrified.
The young soldiers broke into the library and the student hostels, dragging students out, beating both men and women with their night sticks on their arms and legs, and forcing them to run a gauntlet toward the front gate while the soldiers gave them sharp blows.

The soldiers taunted the students: ‘We’ll beat the English out of you.’ They were especially vicious toward the women. The soldiers had been stationed that day at the high school next door to the campus and drank lots of beer before they attacked the campus, making them even more violent than otherwise so likely.

A neighbor warned us that at 10pm, soldiers would search our houses and arrest any students found there or on campus. Two Canadian families and I, in a caravan of three autos, took 11 frightened Swazi students in the three cars to the front gate to take them to safety.

With a gun pointed the first driver’s cheek, he got permission from the guard to leave the campus with the students. In the swirling rain, lightening, and thunderstorm, we took the students to safe shelters. When we returned to campus late in the evening, two soldiers were posted all night in the back and in the front of our houses.

With some students, I drove to the nearby hospital where more than 120 students had received emergency treatment. We visited more than a dozen badly injured students. We learned that soldiers possibly had injured as many as 300-400 and had killed perhaps as many as two-four students.

The Swazi radio and tv stations gave no information about what had happened after the students had dumped their food. However, the two Swazi newspapers did give the event considerable coverage over several weeks. They also printed many letters to the editor decrying the incident and called for a national judicial enquiry. Reuters News Agency and the South African press gave it some coverage.

Amnesty International cited it in their 1991 Annual Review. The University remained closed for two months, reopening on January 14. A national judicial enquiry, more heavily critical of the student boycott than the hostile military response, began on March 14, 1991 and ended on May 14.The enquiry panel never released any details to the public.

The print media called the incident ‘Black Wednesday’ but my students and I attempted to have the newspapers rename it Bloody Wednesday since so much innocent student blood had been shed.

I always recall that day as my worst and best day in Swaziland when much evil occurred but many good people at the campus, the hospital, and nearby clinics generously helped the students. Do these former African students, now in their thirties, still remember that day? I assume so. I certainly always do.


See also
NO CHANGE AT SWAZILAND UNIVERSITY
WHEN SWAZI ARMY INVADED UNIVERSITY

WHEN SWAZI ARMY INVADED UNIVERSITY

Following on from the eyewitness account of Black Wednesday at the University of Swaziland provided by Michael Prosser here is a detailed retrospective account of the day when the Swaziland army invaded the university’s Kwaluseni campus

The news agency Inter Press Service (IPS) called the student unrest in 1990 a ‘rebellion’ that ‘became a seminal event that signalled a new generation's political consciousness’. It was, IPS said, ‘a dawning political awareness born from a confluence of historical forces then sweeping the world and the Southern African region’.

The IPS report (2 December 1999) said ‘armed soldiers pushed police aside and forced students out of the library where they had barricaded themselves’.

The day began as a ‘disorganised demonstration’ against campus issues such as poor food ‘but soon turned into demands for democratic reforms in Swaziland's government’.

The IPS report quotes Manzini lawyer Lindiwe Khumalo-Matse, a university student at the time, saying, ‘The reason why soldiers were called in was because governmentsaw our protest as a political uprising.’

Khumalo-Matse is further quoted by IPS, ‘This was because of the involvement of Sabelo Dlamini, who was a member of the People's United Democratic movement (PUDEMO). Sabelo was prominent in the Students Representative Council,’ hesaid.

In 1990, one of its most draconian measures, a 60-Day Detention Law, was still in force, permitting authorities to lock up anyone they saw as a threat to public order. All political protestors were designated as such threats.

The violence that ensued after soldiers swept through campus has been a sensitive subject with government ever since. A commission of enquiry had its report secreted away for years, with a bowdlerized version finally released to the public in 1997.Two students who were seriously injured sued government for damages, and their cases were settled out of court.

IPS reported that not only was the traditional leadership’s fear of democracy revealed on ‘Black Wednesday’, but also a proletariat attitude of resentment, displayed by the soldiers, was shown against the educated student ‘elite.’ The military's code name for the university invasion was ‘Operation Tinfundiswa (educated ones).’

‘It was a time of wild rumors,’ recalls Khumalo-Matse. ‘We heard that government feared we would burn down the library, which belied common sense because we were inside and would have incinerated ourselves.’

The army officials in charge gave students a five-minute warning, and then unleashed what one onlooker later told an investigating committee was a ‘military riot against civilians’.
Students were beaten as they emerged from the library to escape teargas canisters hurled through windows, and had to run a gauntlet of soldiers. Other soldiers chased students until they cornered them along fences. As they beat students with batons, the soldiers informed them they were being ‘punished’.

People in Swaziland were shocked by the brutality. Particularly offensive was one newspaper photo depicting a young woman carried out of the library between soldiers ‘like a slaughtered pig’, according to a letter writer to the Times of Swaziland.

See also

MYTH OF RICH SWAZI NURSES

Nurses in Swaziland who are packing their bags ready to travel to the UK for jobs paying as much as E1,800 (260 US dollars) per hour should hold on to their suitcases.

The Times of Swaziland under the headline Swazi nurses strike it rich in Britain reported yesterday (Tuesday 5 February 2008) that nurses from the kingdom were able to earn E14,400 (about 2,000 US dollars) for an eight hour day and about E288,000 (about 41,000 US dollars) for 20 days worked in a month. This, the Times reported, was 40 times more than local UK nurses were being paid.

It seems too good to be true doesn’t it? That’s because it is.

I smelt a rat when I saw that the news report was sourced from the UK’s biggest selling newspaper, The Sun. The Sun is a tabloid newspaper that only has a passing acquaintance with the truth.

The Times relied heavily on the Sun report which is available on the internet here.

The Sun distorted the figures for the salaries by making it look like one abnormal payment to one nurse was the typical payment for all nurses. The salaries were for nurses who did temporary hourly-paid work through employment agencies.

The news agency Press Association (PA) gave a fuller picture of nurses’ salaries. The PA reported that more typical salary for nurses was up to E465 (about 65 US dollars) per hour. A third of this salary would go to the agency employing the nurse.

The Times made it look as though these salaries were being earned by nurses from Swaziland, but nowhere in the original reports from the UK was Swaziland mentioned.

I guess the Times just assumed that if these salaries were on offer in the UK, then Swazi nurses would be able to get them. The Times could just as easily have said ‘Nigerian nurses strike it rich in Britain’.

Occasionally journalists in Swaziland pick up reports from news organizations abroad and print them in their own newspapers. There is nothing really wrong about this as long as the journalists give the source of their information. But journalists need to be more sceptical about the reports they read.

In the case of the nurses, the Times should have wondered why it was that agency nurses were being paid ‘40 times’ more than local UK nurses. A little bit of further investigation would have proved the original Sun report to be a huge exaggeration.

And what about these Swazi nurses? No news organisation in the UK said that Swazi nurses were getting these high salaries. We can’t even be sure that anyone from Swaziland is receiving the E465 an hour. That was a fabrication made up by the Times.

Let the Times prove me wrong and produce a Swazi nurse who has earned E288,000 for 20 days work.

SWAZILAND ELECTION BOYCOTT

Things are beginning to get interesting as Swaziland prepares for Parliamentary elections later this year (2008).

Opposition groups are set to boycott the polls and instead campaign for multi-party elections. South Africa’s Independent on Line (IOL) reported on Sunday (3 February 2008) that a dozen political parties, civic organisations and student groupings met to endorse the formation of a united front within two months to challenge the status quo in Swaziland.

IOL quoted Mphandlana Shongwe, founder member of the banned People's United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO), saying that taking part in elections would give the state a sheen of false legitimacy. PUDEMO is one of six political parties taking part in the broad movement.

IOL reported that Shongwe told a rally on Saturday, ‘For the past 24 years we have been able to deny the state legitimacy so we are proud of ourselves and we must not rest until we attain the goals we set for ourselves.’

Boycotting the polls in their current format would send a message to the world that change was required, he added.

‘Does it mean we have to start butchering people before the western world can realize that there was something wrong with the way the country was governed?’

Any member of the front who wanted to stand in elections, likely to be held in October or November, would have to resign from his party, delegates concluded.

Political parties were banned in 1973 when the late King Sobhuza II, father of incumbent King Mswati, determined that Westminster-style democracy promoted hatred.The constitution, rewritten in 2006, allows for freedom of association but people can only stand for elections as individuals.The front will be officially launched at a conference in early April where a name and constitution would be adopted.

See also
SWAZILAND ELECTIONS BACKGROUND
SWAZI MEDIA ELECTION COVERAGE

FEW RIGHTS FOR SWAZI WOMEN

Now and again the Swaziland media offer very revealing insights into the true culture of the kingdom.

Unfortunately, the journalists writing the reports often don’t realise just how much they are teaching us about their kingdom.

There was an example of this in the Times of Swaziland on Thursday (31 January 2008). A report told how a 17-year-old girl (described by the Times as a ‘minor’) had been convicted for committing abortion after her lover, a married man, impregnated her and told her to get rid of it. She represented herself in court and was sentenced to a prison term of two years or an E2 000 fine. (In Swaziland about 70 percent of the population have an income of less than E1 per day so E2 000 – 285 US dollars – is a considerable sum).

The Times reported that the girl was reported to the police after the girl’s mother noticed that her ‘five-month-old stomach bulge’ had suddenly disappeared.

What interests me is this exchange of words between the magistrate who tried the case (there are no such thing as jury trials in undemocratic Swaziland) and the girl. According to the Times, the magistrate questioned the girl as to why she had not taken contraceptives measures during her ‘ill-fated fling’ with the married man.

Magistrate – Do you know that there are contraceptives in this world?
Girl – Yes, I know.
Mag – Why did you not use protection when you engaged in sexual activity with this man?
Girl – He refused that we use a condom.
Mag – Why did you not tell him that you would not agree to have sex if he did not use one?
Girl – He grabbed me such that he got his way.
Mag – Oh he forced you? That is rape, did he rape you?
Girl – Eish.. no, You see, we were lovers, he didn’t rape me.
Mag – But still you could have told him no protection no sleeping?
Girl – Like I said, he grabbed me such that I eventually gave in and said yes.

The Times reported that at the time the newspaper went to press ‘she had not paid the fine and was being prepared to be sent to prison’.

The newspaper report leaves the story there, but journalists could have reminded readers that in Swaziland women have few rights. Traditional custom allows that women of any age are ‘minors’ and to all intents and purposes are the property of men, usually their fathers or their husbands.

The magistrate in this case seems not to understand the reality of life in Swaziland. The girl, aged 17, has been coerced into having sex (‘he grabbed me such that he got his way’) with a married man. The age of the man is not given but as a married man he is clearly an adult. Yet the fact that he had sex with the ‘minor’ girl (which could possibly itself be a crime) goes unmentioned. The idea that she could negotiate the use of contraceptives in such circumstances is laughable.

The 17-year-old had no rights in the ‘relationship’ with the man. That is entirely typical of the position women generally have in Swaziland where women are predominately subordinate to men. Their important role is limited to child bearing and making sure that the house and family chores are done.

Women are economically dependent on their husband. A husband has the customary right to use the labour of his wives to till any fields he may keep for his own use. The husband gets to own any surplus produce.

Much of this is done quite legally. The Marriage Act 1964 confers marital power to the husband over property, the capacity of the wife and the property of the wife.

The journalists told us none of this, but I cannot believe they did not know.

OFFICIAL – CHANNEL SWAZI IS BIASED

The head of the only independent television station in Swaziland has admitted publicly that his station airs biased programmes.

Qhawe Mamba, who co-owns Channel Swazi (Channel S), confirmed this week that the station would always praise King Mswati III.

This news may come as no surprise to the channel’s few viewers, but it is good to have the information confirmed nonetheless. It also means that we should not trust news and current affairs programmes that appear on Channel Swazi, as they will always support the king and by extension the kingdom’s corrupt ruling elite.

The Weekend Observer (2-3 February 2008) reports Mamba saying that Channel Swazi is seen frequently praising the king. The Weekend Observer reported Mamba saying ‘this is something they would do always because they paid allegiance to their king in their capacity as bona fide citizens’.

Mamba is reported saying, ‘We are citizens of the Kingdom and we have to be patriotic.’

This intentional bias directly contravenes the Swaziland National Association of Journalists (SNAJ) Code of Conduct. Section one states that it is the duty of every journalist to write and report, adhere to and faithfully defend, the truth. A journalist should provide the public with unbiased, accurate, balanced and comprehensive information.

Deliberately distorting news and information about King Mswati III in order to be ‘patriotic’ is the job of a propagandist, not an independent journalist.

Mamba was quoted in a news report in which he criticised the survey African Media Barometer (AMB) Swaziland 2007, recently published by the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) – Swaziland Chapter.

Mamba told the Weekend Observer that the AMB report had said that Channel Swazi is co-owned by Mamba with King Mswati III. The report then gave him space to criticise the report more generally. The Weekend Observer then enlisted Vukani Maziya, the chief executive officer of Swaziland’s only other television station, the government-controlled Swazi TV, to join in criticism of the report.

The newspaper interviewed nobody from MISA, the publisher of the AMB report.

Nor, it would seem did the Weekend Observer reporter bother to read the AMB report itself because the AMB report doesn’t say that the king co-owns the station.

What the report actually says is that Channel Swazi is ‘privately owned “on behalf of his majesty”’.

As I wrote on 24 January 2008 Swaziland is not a democracy and the government on behalf of the monarchy keeps a strong control of broadcast media. However, in 2001, in an effort to mislead the outside world that Swaziland allowed freedom of expression, the government allowed Channel Swazi, to begin operating within the kingdom.

King Mswati III supported Channel Swazi, because he wanted to show that his regime was democratic and respected human rights.

Now, Mamba has confirmed that his television channel will always support the king. With such a man as Mamba in charge of an ‘independent’ television channel the king doesn’t need to invest any of his own E1.4 billion (200 million US dollars) wealth on a television station when he has someone to do his bidding for him for no payment at all.

See also
SWAZI MEDIA RIGHTS STILL RESTRICTED
DIRE OUTPUT ON SWAZI CHANNEL S

NO CHANGE AT SWAZILAND UNIVERSITY

Swazi media have been full of the dispute at the University of Swaziland (UNISWA) over the past four months.

For those who haven’t been paying attention here’s a recap of what’s been going on. The students are in dispute with the UNISWA administration over the way the academic year has been reorganised into semesters. The campus was closed in December after some university buildings were damaged during a protest. Armed police still occupy the campus. Classes have resumed, but we await a ruling from the Appeal Court of Swaziland before the matter is finally put to rest.

I was surfing around the Internet when I came across a newspaper report from the UK about UNISWA. It told of the closure of the UNISWA Kwaluseni campus after unrest among students. Authorities claim the students are not thinking for themselves but are being led by outside political organisations. The vice chancellor is attacked for poor handling of the situation. The deputy Prime Minister is worried about the situation. The Swazi Government is thinking of cutting the amount of money it gives the university each year.

It didn’t seem that the newspaper report said anything new. The Swazi media have been reporting similar stories since September last year (2007).

Then I looked a little more closely and saw the report was dated 24 March 1995 – nearly 13 years ago. I swear that if you changed the date of the report from 1995 to 2008 you would hardly tell the difference. Nothing much has changed at UNISWA or in Swaziland more generally during that time.

The report was from the Times Higher Education Supplement, a weekly newspaper in the UK aimed mainly at people who teach in universities and institutes of higher education.

The original report headlined Student unrest rocks Swaziland royal rulers can be found here.

The University of Swaziland has become the focus of a political storm which has little to do with academe but may jeopardise future government funding of higher education in the small kingdom.

Virtually the entire student representative council has been expelled and several other students suspended for periods of one to two years for their role in the disturbances that led to the closure of the Kwaluseni campus last November.

While most students seemed relieved to resume their studies when UNISWA re-opened at the end of January and claimed to have had nothing to do with the unrest, the political controversy behind the students’ actions is still simmering.

The dispute dates back four years to what has become known as Black Wednesday. On November 14 1990, the Swazi government dispatched armed police and military units to the campus to disperse boycotting students. It was a crackdown of unprecedented violence in the history of the university. In the ensuing melee several students were crippled for life, hundreds injured and one woman successfully sued the government for an out-of-court settlement of 225,000 Lilangeni (Pounds 40,000) for the loss of an eye.

The reason why the students staged the boycott is still the subject of debate. Their grievances ranged from the poor quality of food provided in residence to extremely low allowances. Among their demands was that a student and lecturer who were members of the banned political organisation, Pudemo, and who had been charged and aquitted of high treason, should be reinstated at the university.

Following the crackdown, the government, under pressure from parents and political organisations, established a commission of inquiry to determine who was responsible. The hearings were held in camera and only the findings and recommendations have been released. According to lecturers, parents, past and present students, the wounds will fester while the report remains secret.

The minister of education, Prince Khuzulwandle Dlamini, said it was unlikely the report would ever be released because witnesses testifying to the commission had been guaranteed confidentiality. Legally, he explained, his hands are tied. This lack of transparency has fuelled a major public controversy extending well beyond the confines of the university.

The government believes the students are being used by political activists to advance their own agenda for multi-party democracy in Swaziland. The kingdom is ruled according to the Tinkhundla system which embraces traditional structures and enables a degree of democracy at the grassroots level. However, political parties such as Pudemo, which is banned from operating openly, are increasingly frustrated at the slow progress towards what they perceive as real democracy and the continued involvement of the royal family in political life.

Both Pudemo and the Swaziland Youth Congress have attempted to enlist the support of students, and have partially succeeded.

One moderate student said that over the past couple of years the students council had been ‘hi-jacked’ by these political organisations, leading to increasing militancy.

Since 1990, Black Wednesday has become the point of conflict between the students and university administration leading to disruption of lectures and the suspension or expulsion of several students. However, in the view of Vakashile Simelane, an economics lecturer at UNISWA for the past 16 years, the government's attitude is a little too self-serving. She believes the students are very well aware of the political realities in the region and make their own decisions without necessarily being manipulated by activists. And she says the senate acted too hastily when it closed the campus.

‘I think that if the students were allowed to commemorate Black Wednesday it would be better, because we would only lose one day, instead of the weeks and weeks we have lost now.’

Parents mainly feel the same way, and the columns of Swaziland’s only independent newspaper The Times have been filled with angry criticism of vice chancellor Lydia Makhubu’s handling of the whole affair. To root out the culprits responsible for threatening lecturers, intimidating students and destroying university property last November, she convened an informal inquiry and summoned each of the 2,150 students to her office for questioning.
The process dragged on throughout Christmas and New Year and evoked such strong sentiments that Professor Makhubu’s home became the target of a fire-bomb attack.

She refused to meet or discuss the issue with a crisis committee composed of concerned parents, who then took their grievances to the cabinet instead.

Deputy prime minister Seshayi Nxumalo, who also has a child at UNISWA, met the committee but says he was perturbed by the number of representatives of organised political groups. ‘This immediately raises the problem of who the government is dealing with, the students, or the political groups who are attempting to get some form of recognition?’ The government has left matters to the university senate and Professor Makhubu. However it could call for a wider inquiry if there was gross injustice.

But there is political fall-out. Swazi students are fully funded by government, unless they fail a year in which case they have to support themselves. Most also enjoy the benefits of campus accommodation. By contrast, primary and secondary school pupils are paid for by their parents.

There is a groundswell of feeling that privileged students should take their studies seriously, and if they paid their own way, maybe they would not be so preoccupied with politics.

The minister admitted that he had already started considering whether the 20 million Lilangeni earmarked for the university in the next budget could not be better spent elsewhere.

See also
SWAZI UNI TRIES TO MISLEAD MEDIA

SWAZI MEDIA ELECTION COVERAGE

Swaziland will hold its unique form of elections later this year (2008). I say ‘unique’ because although the ruling elites in the kingdom believe the elections to be democratic, just about nobody else does.

The date for the elections has not been set, but it is generally accepted they will be towards the end of the year, possibly in October or November.

As in elections anywhere in the world, the media will play an important part in keeping people informed about what is going on. In the free world it is generally accepted that the media have a prime responsibility to examine what government is and is not doing, by reporting the news, interpreting the news, influencing citizens’ opinions, setting the agenda for government action, and socializing citizens about politics and encouraging a political culture to evolve.

This is even more important at election time when voters go to the polls to elect a new government.

In Swaziland where political parties are banned, candidates are only allowed to stand as individuals. You can learn more about the Swazi electoral system here.

Most of the time the Swazi media are not very good at calling political leaders to account and this is especially so at election time. In this, the first of an occasion series of posts about the media and the forthcoming Swazi elections, I want to look back to the last elections in 2003 and see how the media performed.

In a report of the Swazi media coverage of the 2003 elections the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa (EISA) found that the print media in Swaziland played an important role in keeping the voters and all stakeholders informed about the elections by their extensive coverage of the elections but the broadcast media were less good.

Here is an extract from the report.

We observed however that the approach the two main dailies; the Times of Swaziland and the Observer took was different from one another.

The Observer, seeing that it was government owned, took a conservative approach to the elections whereas the Times of Swaziland, a privately owned paper, took a progressive approach and tended to sensationalise the issues.

With regard to the content of their coverage we noted that the eight cases that arose from the primary election disputes, received more coverage in both dailies than pertinent electoral issues that are aimed at informing the electorate. The local observers and media personnel indicated that coverage by the broadcasting media on the other hand was scant. There were no programmes or any other discussions on
elections in the few weeks leading to the polling day.

The response from the contesting candidates regarding access to the media varied. Some individuals commented that there had been unfairness in terms of giving people equal access; that candidates with financial influence had greater access to the print media. And usually those featured were mostly the popular candidates, which tended to marginalise those in rural communities with no assets.

Others however commended the broadcasting media for providing equitable access.

The Swaziland Broadcasting Information Service (SBIS) they noted, allowed all candidates to canvass in the airwaves for about five minutes.

Reports from the local observers as well as representatives from the media indicated
that the use of the media by the Elections Office was very limited. Most commented that there was very little feedback from the Elections Office to the various media outlets regarding the election process.

Local observers blamed this lack of communication on the mistrust the Election Officers had for the media.

That said, at least one representative from the media outlets commented positively on the interventions of the Elections Office to ensure that pertinent information regarding the election process was regularly fed to the media.

In a related matter, we observed that there was no monitoring mechanism within the Elections Office to assess the media’s coverage of elections. This would have ensured that the media played a more constructive role in the elections.

Most media personnel commented that they were not aware of a policy, law or even a commission that ensures that elections were covered effectively and fairly or one that allocates fair and free time to all candidates.

The Commonwealth Expert Team which observed the elections in 2003 came to similar conclusions about the media. It liked the ‘vigour’ print media coverage, but also criticised the Times of Swaziland for being sensational. The report said, ‘we hope that it will do more in future to discuss issues as well as to report on personalities’.

The report found broadcasting coverage of the election in Swaziland ‘disappointing’.

It went on,

‘The limitation on resources was quoted in explanation. Radio Swaziland told us they carried short items by the candidates early in the morning, but there was little news about the election and in the week up to the poll we heard no discussion programmes or any other substantial coverage. This mattered because the majority of Swazi citizens have access to the radio, so this is the perfect medium for conveying information and
creating awareness. Although the state broadcasting media had internal guidelines there was no Code of Conduct regarding the behaviour of the media. There was no allocation of broadcast “free time” for candidate.’

The Commonwealth Expert Team also criticised Swaziland Radio coverage on the election day itself. ‘The fact that it was election day was not even mentioned on the early morning news,’ the report stated.

The report concluded that in future elections a Code of Conduct for media personnel covering elections should be drawn up. This, it felt, would ‘ensure high standard and balanced coverage’.

Such a code of conduct is not in place, but I’ll be writing in future posts about why a code would be useful and what the code could usefully include.


See also
SWAZILAND ELECTIONS BACKGROUND

SWAZILAND ELECTIONS BACKGROUND

Swaziland is due to hold elections later this year (2008). Elections in the kingdom are held every five years, but the exact dates for this year’s election have not been set but it is generally expected that they will be held towards the end of the year, possibly in October or November.

To help readers who are unfamiliar with Swaziland’s unique form of ‘democracy’ here is a short background to how the system works. The information is taken from the Swaziland Election Dossier 2003 No.1 from the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa (EISA) and is based on the situation as it was at the last election in 2003. I am not aware that the Constitution which came into force in 2006 has changed any of this. Political parties remain banned in Swaziland and representation in the kingdom is based on individual candidates.

If anyone knows differently, please let me know.


The current electoral system is known as the ‘Tinkhundla’ system which has been rejected by many groups for lack of democratic credentials. The Tinkhundla system is the electoral system operational use in Swaziland today – the Kingdom uses it to elect its parliamentarians by holding regular parliamentary elections under a no-party dispensation.

The Tinkhundla system is a system that has been operating purely for the basis of providing a semblance of public representation in Parliament. Parliamentary representatives are initially elected from specific constituencies or Tinkhundla through a three stage electoral process.

There are a total of 55 constituencies (Tinkhundla) in the Kingdom of Swaziland, and each constituency is further divided into several chiefdoms.

The first stage of the process entails public nominations of candidates usually between four and ten in each chiefdom.

Technically in this stage, each chiefdom chooses the candidate who will represent it at the Tinkhundla / constituency level, by secret ballot. The elected candidate in the primary elections is then expected to compete in the secondary elections, after they have been dutifully introduced to the constituents. The election process ends with those candidates receiving the most votes representing the constituency in the National Assembly.

The elected parliamentary representatives conclude the process by becoming members of the bicameral parliamentary system constituted by the National Assembly and the Senate.

The National Assembly is constituted from the 55 members elected through the Tinkhundla and ten King’s appointees. These members then elect ten members to the Senate which consists of 30 members in total; the rest of which are appointed by the King.

Public representation is also dutifully administered at the local level through a local council, also known as the Inkundla – the second level of government.

The electoral system described above has been operative since 1993. Prior to this, elections were conducted under a slightly different system. After the repeal of the Constitution in 1973, which had provided for a Westminster-style parliamentary democracy, Swaziland experienced a five year break during which period no elections were held until the establishment of the Parliament Order in 1978.

In the absence of any electoral laws, the Parliament Order was introduced without much opposition. It was this Order that ushered in the unique traditional electoral system commonly known as the Tinkhundla.. Elections under this system were conducted on a non-party basis at the primary elections stage through public queuing – each voter wishing to voter for a particular nominee queued behind their favourite candidate who normally would be sitting at a gate, and the counting officer counted the voters as they each passed the gate.

Winners of these elections would then form an Electoral College from which the House of Assembly was constituted. Their only responsibility, once elected was to select 40 members from the public to make up the Parliamentary numbers. The obvious shortcomings of this system, most notably the lack of a secret ballot, necessitated a review; and this resulted in the establishment of the current system through a number of minor legislative amendments.

Needless to say, the system currently in place has its own limitations; the most serious of which, given the variation in size of the constituencies, is that usually the candidate from the largest constituency wins the secondary elections. Moreover it lacks accountability, it is non participatory and it is the least competitive form of representation in both Parliament and government.

You can read much more about politics in Swaziland and other aspects of the kingdom here.

NEED TO AUDIT SWAZI JOURNALISTS

Journalists in Swaziland need more and better training to help them work more professionally.

This was one of the findings of the African Media Barometer – Swaziland 2007 report I wrote about last Friday (25 January 2008).

One of the report’s recommendations was that a ‘skills audit’ of existing Swaziland journalists should be made. A ‘skills audit’ is a method of analysing how well journalists do the work they are paid to do.

I don’t know how likely it is that the audit will actually take place, but if a similar exercise that took place in South Africa is anything to go by, the results could be startling.

In 2002, the South African National Editors’ Forum (Sanef) published its own audit of journalism skills. The audit was undertaken because there was concern about the quality and standard of journalism in the country, and there was a need to establish the extent of the problem and find ways of dealing with it. This is very similar to the situation Swaziland finds itself in today.

The skills audit looked at journalism reporting, writing and accuracy skills among reporters with between two and five years experience.

The findings of the South African skills audit will ring bells here in Swaziland.

The report stated that one of the most pressing problems facing the media industry was the juniorisation of the industry. This is exactly what Swazi journalists have been complaining about for years.

Other issues identified in the report were:
- Reporters’ skills to properly report on and write about news events
- Mistrust between government and the media
- Transformation in the media industry
- News coverage and comment on socio-economic challenges
- Management of news, staff and infrastructure
- Apparent lack of training
- Profile of reporters

The report is too long to reproduce here but you can find more details at the Sanef website.

To give you a flavour of what the report says, here is a breakdown of what news editors said about their reporting staff:

- Development of story ideas: 30-60% of reporters do not initiate stories
- Relevant issues considered: only 10-20% consider all relevant issues
- Deadline pressure: 10-34% submit despite possible errors
- Background: 20% not sufficient
- Editorialising: 8% editorialise
- Enterprise/inventiveness: 40% not result of reporters' enterprise
- Insight: 20% lack insight
- Factual accuracy: 10% not factually accurate
- Sources: 8% not credible sources; 23% do not double check sources
- Fair/honest, balance/completeness: 10% lack skills & experience
- Sensitivity: almost 20% lack it - urgent attention needed
- Personal accountability: 30% average/below
- Possible errors/imbalance: 50% do not highlight errors


If we were to do a similar audit in Swaziland, I strongly suspect the results would not be any better.

The audit led to a lot of debate in South Africa and a main conclusion was that journalists needed more ‘training’ and better ‘education’.

Training and education may be major factors in increasing the capacity of journalists in Swaziland, but as I wrote in an article in the academic journal Ecquid Novi, African Journalism Studies, there is also a major cultural hurdle to overcome before the kingdom can produce good professional journalists.

Children in Swaziland learn informally and formally. Informal education centres on the home and community where children are taught to respect and defer to their elders. This respect and deference does not encourage a questioning attitude in people. The non-democratic nature of the country also requires people to defer to the wishes of local chiefs (who are in effect representatives of the monarch).

Formal learning takes place at school, but analytical learning is discouraged because success for both individual teachers and schools is measured in terms of the numbers of examination passes. This encourages rote learning in the classroom and the cramming of students to pass examinations.

This type of learning does not produce people with inquiring minds.

See also
SWAZI MEDIA RIGHTS STILL RESTRICTED
SELF-CRITICAL SWAZI JOURNALISTS

‘TIMES’ OF SWAZILAND GROVELS – AGAIN

It seems that my suspicion yesterday that the Times Sunday invented a source of information in a report about Swaziland Prime Minister Themba Dlamini’s trip to the Bahamas was well founded.

The Times Sunday’s companion newspaper the Times of Swaziland had a grovelling front page apology to the Prime Minister, the Swazi Cabinet and just about everybody else as well yesterday (29 January 2008).

The Times Sunday (27 January 2008) had reported that the Prime Minister took his pastor with him when he went on a trip to the Bahamas to collect an award for his ‘humanitarianism’. The Times Sunday reported that the Prime Minister said he personally paid the expenses for the pastor to join him on the trip. The newspaper then cited unnamed ‘sources’ saying that the cost of the pastor’s trip came from government funds.

Yesterday (29 January 2008), I queried whether we could believe the newspaper because it based its information on ‘sources’ which it did not name. I wrote, ‘it is very difficult to believe newspapers when they do not reveal the source of their information’.

Yesterday the Times published this fulsome apology on its front page.

In an article carried in the Times Sunday – PM Takes His Pastor to Bahamas – an impression was created that we were disputing the PM’s word when he said he had paid for his pastor Phila Mathunjwa to accompany him by quoting our sources as saying part of the pastor’s expenses were borne by government. The truth is that the PM paid for all his pastor’s fares. We wish to unreservedly apologise to the PM, his Cabinet and all concerned.

As apologies go this one is pretty abject. But it is not quite up to the standard of the apology made by both the Times and the Times Sunday last March when it published an article about King Mswati III after publishing this from the Afrol news agency

‘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.’

When this appeared the king threatened to close down the African Echo, the group that owns the Times and the Times Sunday, unless a grovelling apology was forthcoming. The apology duly appeared.

See also
SWAZI PEOPLE HAVE NO RIGHT TO KNOW
CLOSURE THREAT TO TIMES

SWAZI PEOPLE HAVE NO RIGHT TO KNOW

News that the Swaziland Prime Minister Themba Dlamini took his pastor with him when he went on an all expenses paid trip to the Bahamas has reopened important questions about government secrecy in the kingdom.

The Times Sunday reported this week (27 January 2008) that the pastor went with the Prime Minister when he and his wife travelled to receive an award for ‘humanitarian’ work.

Details remain sketchy about what exactly the ‘humanitarian’ work consisted of. The government’s official spokesman Percy Simelane and the PM himself have never publicly explained what Mr Dlamini actually did to deserve the award.

The Times Sunday reports that the pastor accompanied the PM, and this fact is accepted, but nobody can explain why the pastor was needed.

The next part gets tricky. The Times Sunday reports Simelane saying that the PM paid for the costs of the pastor’s trip. But the newspaper also quotes ‘sources’ saying that the Swazi taxpayer footed the bill.

So we have a conflict here. Who really paid the bill? It is a pity that the Times Sunday did not name its source. As I have written before it is very difficult to believe newspapers when they do not reveal the source of their information. How can readers be sure that the newspaper didn’t just make it up?

There would be no dispute over who paid the pastor’s bill if people in Swaziland had the right to get information from their government.

Last October the Times of Swaziland tried to find out how much the PM’s trip to the Bahamas cost and was told to get lost because the information was ‘classified’.

But why should the cost of the PM’s trip remain a secret? In any open society the information would be freely available and people could judge for themselves whether the money was well spent.

But Swaziland isn’t an open society and those in ruling positions can do what they like. We are right to be suspicious because corruption is rife in Swaziland and it is estimated that it is costing ordinary honest Swazi people E40 million (about 6 million US dollars) each and every month.

The report of the African Media Barometer Swaziland 2007 published last week condemned the state of freedom of information in Swaziland.

Part of the report reads,

‘There is no freedom of information legislation in Swaziland. The government and public institutions cannot be forced to disclose information of public interest. The Official Secrets Act 1963 makes it entirely the government’s prerogative whether to release information or not, and there is no means of appealing against government decisions. There are no formal procedures for obtaining public information and requests often get caught up in bureaucratic red tape. Information that should be in the public domain, such as the defence budget and the budget of the King’s office, is never disclosed.

‘There is an attempt to introduce freedom of information (FOI) legislation in the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Draft Bill 2007. However, there are concerns that the draft bill contains too many restrictions on accessing information and, in fact, turns the whole idea of FOI on its head by opening up ways for the government to access private information, rather than opening up the public’s access to public information.’

So that just about sums it up. Swazi people will only be told what the government wants them to know and that situation is not going to change any time soon.

See also
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION FIGHT
RIGHT TO KNOW DAY
SWAZI MEDIA RIGHTS STILL RESTRICTED

SWAZILAND ‘TIMES’ TALKS SENSE ON RAPE

Is the Times of Swaziland coming to its senses on the subject of rape?

The paper that told its readers the reason why women get raped is because they wear short skirts now says rape is an ‘immoral life threatening act’. Only three weeks ago the Times said, ‘When a woman or girl dresses half-naked she is saying through her action “I am available to any man that needs me”. When you dress seductively you are exposing yourself to the danger of being raped.’

Now, the Times has changed its tune. The about-turn came on Friday (25 January 2008) in an editor’s comment after a gang of men were sentenced to a total of 103 years in jail for raping 11 girls aged six to 11 years old. Dogs and knives were used to threaten some of the girls into submission.

The editor’s comment applauded the judge in the case ‘for a befitting sentence to this immoral life threatening act. Rape in this country has become a fashion and unless the courts take a stern stand against it by imposing heavy sentences, it is bound to continue to wreck this already fragile HIV AIDS ravaged country.

‘The rapists got what they deserved but no matter how many years they spend behind bars, nothing can replace the harm and damage that has been caused to the lives of the innocent young survivors.

‘Society has a role to play in ensuring others do not experience such suffering. We owe it to the future generation to create a safe environment they can call home.’

I applaud the Times for coming out clearly against rape on this occasion. But the newspaper has a dreadful history of misinformation on the subject of rape. In the editor’s comment it says ‘society has a role to play in ensuring others do not experience such suffering’. He is right and I would go further and say that newspapers and the media generally have an important role in this regard. And none more so than the Times.

I now await a full retraction and apology from the Times on the lies it has told in the past on rape. Let us see a clear statement from the newspaper that women and children who get raped are victims and are in no way responsible for the rape.

On a related note. I saw in the Times that the rapists were said to have raped 11 girls. The Swazi Observer report said they raped 18 girls. Both newspapers can’t be right. I’m afraid this is just another example of how you can’t believe anything you read in the Swazi newspapers.

See also
‘TIMES’ PEDDLES IGNORANCE ON RAPE
MORE RAPE LIES FROM ‘TIMES’

LEAKS AT UNIVERSITY OF SWAZILAND

Somebody is having a laugh at the expense of the University of Swaziland (UNISWA).

A report in the Times Sunday yesterday (27 January 2008) reveals that the University Registrar is upset about documents leaking from the UNISWA Senate. He thinks too much unauthorised information is making its way to lawyers representing students in the ongoing dispute over the introduction of semesterization at the university.

And how do we know this? Someone (the newspaper variously calls him/her a ‘mole’ a ‘spy’ and a ‘traitor’) has leaked a letter sent by the Registrar to the university’s lawyer to the newspapers.

As they used to say about good theatre back in the UK ‘this one will run and run’.

See also
SWAZI UNI TRIES TO MISLEAD MEDIA

SWAZI MEDIA RIGHTS STILL RESTRICTED

The rights to freedom of expression and media freedom are severely restricted in Swaziland.

That was the unsurprising conclusion of an extensive examination of the Swazi media published on Wednesday (23 January 2008).

However unsurprising the conclusion, the report offers one of the most comprehensive analyses of the media in Swaziland in recent years.

The report, called African Media Barometer – Swaziland 2007, reveals that the media environment in Swaziland is still characterised by self-censorship, lack of independence from government, little diversity and competition, no transparent and independent broadcasting regulation, no self-regulation and a lack of professionalism among media practitioners.

The report was produced by the media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Swaziland chapter in conjunction with Frederich Ebert Stiftung. Eight panellists from the media and civil society in Swaziland met for two days in July 2007 to discuss the state of the media in Swaziland.

The panel’s conclusions were overwhelming negative and regular readers of this blog will be aware that I share much of the pessimism of the panellists.

There is too much in the 48-page report for me to discuss in one post, but (for a change?) I would like to share with you some of the positive developments the panellists were able to identify over the past two years in Swaziland.


Positive developments

- The adoption of the Constitution, which guarantees both freedom of expression and media freedom.

- Increased public consciousness of the right to freedom of expression and increased efforts by the media to enable people to exercise their right to freedom of expression.

- The drafting of six new media bills, designed to introduce freedom of information legislation, legislation establishing a public broadcasting corporation and an independent broadcasting regulator, amend the Books and Newspaper Act and replace the outdated Cinematography Act.

- Increased editorial freedom and independence at the state broadcasters, spearheaded by journalists willing to challenge the status quo.

- The resurrection of the media union with the launch of the Media Workers’ Union of Swaziland (MWUS).

- Increased salaries for media practitioners.


Main drivers for positive change

- Government’s change in attitude, making it more open to free media activity, has been an important catalysts for change and is evidenced, for example, by government’s efforts to reform some media laws and provide funds to train journalists.

- Media managers who are determined to bring about industry reform and development.

- MISA Swaziland has been instrumental in many different areas of media development, e.g. facilitating exchange programmes and in-house training for journalists, assisting with the launch of the Media Complaints Commission and voicing opposition to statutory regulation, critiquing the six media bills and conducting media content research.

- The Ministry of Public Service and Information (in particular the Director of Information), which is tasked with implementing the Information and Media Policy and is overseeing the drafting of new media legislation.

- Journalists who are willing to take risks by resisting self-censorship and censorship from the authorities.


Activities needed over the next few years

Despite these ‘positive’ aspects of the Swaziland media landscape, the report remains overwhelmingly negative in its findings. To try to improve the situation the African Media Barometer report suggested the following activities that could happen over the next few years.

- A skills audit should be conducted in all media houses to assess the existing capacity of media practitioners at all levels.

- Skills development opportunities for working journalists should be increased, both in-house training as well as enrolment in external part-time and full-time courses.

- On-the-job training and mentorship programmes need to be established in all media houses to ensure entry-level reporters are given sufficient direction and guidance.

- Civic education on freedom of expression, access to information and media freedom needs to be conducted by the media and civil society organisations.

- The law reform process needs to be launched to ensure all media unfriendly laws are repealed or amended to conform to the Constitution. The establishment of a law reform commission should be fast-tracked.

- A national conference on law reform should be conducted to produce an action plan and way forward on the law reform process.

- The consultation process on the six draft bills needs to continue with a new consultant and should include a broader base of stakeholders.


The AMB report is published by MISA – Swaziland and available from its office.

MISA hopes to put the report on its internet site sometime soon.

See also
SWAZI GOVERNMENT HITS ITS CRITICS
UNREALITY OF SWAZI MEDIA FREEDOM
MEDIA AND GOOD GOVERNACE

DIRE OUTPUT ON SWAZI CHANNEL S

Swaziland’s only ‘independent’ television station Channel Swazi (Channel S) has been boasting about new equipment it has installed in its studios.

Congratulations to them, but what a pity that the standards of their programmes remain so awful.

For those who haven’t been paying attention the Times Sunday newspaper reported (13 January 2008) that E6 million (just under one million US dollars) had been spent on upgrading facilities.

Channel S is a controversial television station run by an equally controversial man Qhawe Mamba.

Swaziland is not a democracy and the government on behalf of the monarchy keeps a strong control of broadcast media. However, in 2001, in an effort to mislead the outside world that Swaziland allowed freedom of expression, the government allowed Channel S, to begin operating within the kingdom.

King Mswati III supported Channel S, because he wanted to show that his regime was democratic and respected human rights, but this illusion was soon exposed when Channel S had its offices raided by police after it screened a report deemed too critical of the king. The authorities immediately reined in any hint of independence at Channel S.

The criticism of the king was an aberration, because Mamba has always been excessively loyal to the monarchy. For many years he managed to hold down two jobs. Even while he was head of Channel S he was employed full time by the Swaziland government-controlled station, Swazi TV.

During this time Mamba was a ‘praise singer’ for Swazi King Mswati III. A ‘praise singer’ is exactly what it sounds like and Mamba would travel across the world following the king on his travels and reporting back for Swazi TV on the king’s deeds and singing the praises of the king to anyone who would listen.

What Mamba and Channel S presented was hardly independent news. But we expect this from broadcasters in Swaziland so there is nothing new here.

Today Channel S can jump up and down with excitement all it likes about the new equipment, but it doesn’t alter the fact that the programmes the channel produces are extremely bad.

Most of the programming on the station isn’t even produced in Swaziland. The programme schedules are full of cheap imports (endlessly repeated), mainly from the US.

But, of course, the new equipment will be used on homegrown shows. Certainly, something needs to be done about the way Channel S produces its news. Here’s what they put out last Thursday (17 January 2008) on their English language news programme.

The programme started with the newsreader facing the camera, stumbling her way through a script of the news. I hope viewers had not been drinking too much because they would have suffered a bout of motion sickness as the camera swayed first to left and right and then up and down. A photograph illustrating the report she was reading first appeared on screen, then disappeared. Then a blank space appeared where the photograph should have been. And this was only the first minute of the programme.

The first news report didn’t appear. When it did, the picture froze and the sound came on… and then went off. The camera showed the newsreader looking like a startled dog caught in the headlights of a car.

To cover up the mistake, Channel S went to a commercial. But even that didn’t work. So it was back to the news report. Once that was over it was on to the second report. But this report covered pictures that had just been shown in the previous report.

I’ll put Channel S out of its misery here and not tell you about the rest of the 30-minute programme.

Regular viewers of Channel S news programmes (if there are any) will know that what I have described is not a one-off occurrence. The news is like this every day. Channel S should stop worrying about new equipment; it should start hiring people who know how to do their job.

Channel S operations manager Mduduzi Hleta is quoted in the Times Sunday saying that ‘almost half a million’ people in Swaziland watch the channel. This is certainly untrue. Half a million people amounts to roughly half the population of Swaziland (adults and children) and since more than two thirds of people in Swaziland live in abject poverty on less than one US dollar a day it is highly unlikely they can afford to watch television.

I leave it up to you to speculate why Channel S tells lies about its viewing figures but in truth until the quality of its programmes improves dramatically it will be lucky to keep half a dozen viewers let alone half a million.


See also
TELEVISION MISUSES CHILDREN

SWAZILAND ‘TOO RICH’ FOR AID

Did you know that Swaziland is too ‘rich’ to receive development aid even though about 70 percent of the kingdom’s population live on less than one US dollar a day?

Did you know that the unemployment rate in Swaziland is 40 percent, and more than four out of ten Swazis depend on some form of food assistance to stay alive?

Did you also know that about 20 percent of the Swazi population controls more than 80 percent of the kingdom’s wealth?

If you answered yes to the questions above you’ve been reading the foreign press. If you haven’t a clue what I’m talking about, don’t worry you are no different from all the people in Swaziland who have to rely on Swazi journalists for their information.

I was prompted to ask the questions after reading both the Times of Swaziland and the Swazi Observer last Thursday (17 January 2007).

They both carried reports about the European Union Commissioner to Lesotho and Swaziland Peter Beck Christiansen who signed an agreement to hand over to Swaziland up to E630 million (about 100 million US dollars). He also gave a wide-ranging speech about the development needs in Swaziland, which included some comments about how the Swazi government was using money previously donated.

I don’t think the Swazi journalists quite understood what was being said, since the headlines they put on their reports contradict one another.

The Times had this headline EU WARNS GOVT ON SPENDING
The Observer had this headline EC BOSS PLEASED WITH GOVERNMENT

The Times reported that during his speech Christiansen said, ‘Social inequalities are increasingly leaving Swaziland with one of the most skewed income distributions.

‘I think it is a particular responsibility of the country to ensure that every citizen receives a fair share of the national wealth.’

Christiansen did not elaborate on this point of view and true to form the Swazi journalists didn’t think to ask him what he meant.

I’ve written before about the capacities of Swazi journalists and how they don’t ask questions.

There are a number of reasons for this. One is cultural: people in Swaziland are not encouraged to ask questions, especially of people in authority. The second is more practical: the journalists don’t have the capacity to understand and interpret what is being said to them and therefore they only reproduce in their newspapers the words of speeches and press handouts.

That is why it took an overseas news agency, the Inter Press Service (IPS) from Johannesburg, South Africa, (17 January 2008) to fill in the gaps for us.

IPS followed up on the Christiansen presentation and was able to reveal to its readers the facts that I used at the beginning of this post.

Its report went on.

‘The economy is performing poorly, especially in comparison with the other nations of the region,’ said Richard Ndwandwe, an investment advisor with an Mbabane bank, told IPS.

‘We have not achieved 3.0 percent economic growth in a decade, and the central bank says an annual growth rate of 3.6 percent is required just to keep up with population growth,’ Ndwandwe said, stressing that the, ‘net result has been a deterioration in the standard of living for almost all Swazis.’

‘It is the rich minority that is skewing the statistical picture, and making the country appear better off than it is for most people,’ explained Ndwandwe.

‘Social inequalities are increasingly leaving Swaziland with one of the world's most-skewered income distributions,’ noted Peter Beck Christiansen, the European Union’s (EU) ambassador to Swaziland.

Colonial-era landholders and business people who did not have their properties compromised when Swaziland gained its independence 40 years ago, government leaders, and a small - but well-off - clique of Swazi entrepreneurs have amassed wealth that has raised the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP).

Less than twenty percent of the population controls eighty percent of the nation's wealth, according to the World Bank. But, the World Bank - using GDP to classify the country's state of economic development - has placed Swaziland in the ‘low-middle income’ category of nations.

‘We are far from being a middle income country, but we are not considered a low income country, and this makes a world of difference when it comes to accessing development funding,’ said Ndwandwe.

‘It is not a fair rating,’ Abdoulaye Balde, the country director for the WFP, told IPS from his Mbabane office that coordinates the world’s response to Swaziland's food shortage crisis. ‘It does not take into consideration that way most people are living. We are always telling this to our donors,’ he stressed.

The director of another humanitarian relief NGO - which receives World Bank logistical assistance - said, ‘There is so much need in the world and so many peoples competing for limited resources that it is easy for an NGO to go by World Bank guidelines to decline assistance to a country like Swaziland. It’s not necessarily fair.’

Several times this past year, Prime Minister Themba Dlamini and Majozi Sithole, his finance minister, reminded the country that Swaziland does not qualify for low-interest loans or interest-free grants awarded to countries classified as ‘low income’ although a large majority of Swazis live in absolute poverty.

Denied developmental funds, the government's response has been to encourage economic growth by boosting the private sector, with the hope of increased tax revenue from businesses.

While foreign direct investment (FDI) is sought by globetrotting teams of government officials, ordinary Swazis are encouraged to become small entrepreneurs.

Christiansen signed a treaty with Swazi leadership for a 100 million US dollar aid package, Wednesday.

‘I think that it is a particular responsibility of the country to ensure that ever citizen received a fair share of the national wealth,’ Christiansen said.

However, not even the country’s small - and by law nonexistent - opposition groups who speak about countering the ruling monarchy’s grip on governance, have called for wealth redistribution.

‘The rich are not going away, and that's the only way to make Swaziland statistically a low income country,’ Anthony Simelane, an attorney based in the central commercial hub Manzini, told IPS.

‘There is not going to be wealth redistribution that would benefit the poor. The country is denied development funds to help the poor, so all government can hope to do is boost the economy and reap taxes,’ Simelane said.

The impediment to this plan is government corruption. Sithole has estimated that the amount of government money lost to various forms of corruption annually equals the country’s national debt.

Christiansen touched on corruption when he signed the EU's developmental agreement. ‘I have learned in my three years in Swaziland that no amount of funding or donor assistance can lead to development if the right conditions are not in place.

‘Deficiencies in the areas of governance have and will continue to seriously limit your development progress, with or without the HIV/AIDS threat,’ he told his Swazi hosts.

The EU's aid package is contingent upon the implementation of what Christensen called ‘an ambitious governance reform programme to enable Swaziland to reach at least the level of other Southern African countries’.

See also
SWAZI REPORTERS CAN’T EXPLAIN

SWAZI PRESS CHASES VIOLENT COPS

Swazi newspapers are refusing to let the police off the hook, following the heavy violence some officers engaged in last Thursday (17 January 2008) outside the University of Swaziland (UNISWA).


The Swazi Observer devoted an entire page under the headline UNISWA saga: When cops pounce on ‘innocent’ citizens yesterday (Monday 21 January 2008).

It told the story of Nkosinaye Dlamini, the Swaziland College of Technology (SCOT) student, an innocent by-stander, who was shot by police in his own home.

Witness, Nkosibone Vilakati, aged 20, told the Observer that Dlamini was passing by the gates of UNISWA on his way from SCOT to a house close to the UNISWA Kwaluseni Campus.

Vilakati told the Observer that he and Dlamini walked towards the university gates to see what was happening at UNISWA where students were protesting against examinations and semesterization at the university.

The Observer reports the pair ‘only saw students chanting and they returned into the house’.

They were followed by a group of police officers and one of them said that Dlamini had been making the life of the police difficult. Dlamini responded to them and then the police jumped over the fence of the house and Dlamini and Vilakati rushed into the house.

The Observer takes up the story.

He [Vilakati] says they rushed into the house but the officers forced themselves in, pulled Nkosinaye outside and poked him with batons. He claims that they ordered him to make a drill in the same way the UNISWA students did at the gates.

‘My sister and I came out to tell them once more that he is not from UNISWA. They seemed to understand this time around and left him. He returned to the house,’ claims Nkosibone.

As they left they fired a salvo of insults, he says, but before they left the compound, his sister asked them why they were insulting them.

‘She told them that they forced themselves in the family premises and went on to invade the privacy of the family house. They turned at once at high speed as though they had received an order. We rushed to close the door but they broke the glass door with the nozzle.

‘Nkosinaye joined us to push the door against them. At the door was my sister’s 14-month-old baby, Sibahle. They pushed so hard until I was left by myself against them. Sibahle was less than half a metre away when the shot was fired,’ says Nkosibone.

He says he thought it was a teargas canister and rushed to grab the baby outside. But lo, he threw himself at them and they went for him, he claims. He says others went inside to assault Nkosinaye. The others went for his sister Sibonelo.

‘They slapped me and pulled me with hair extensions trying to get me outside. I resisted and that made them even madder. They tried to disable me by hitting both my shoulders. I knew I was almost done and tried to plead for mercy.

‘Then they went for my buttocks instead. I collapsed and they left me. I never saw them leave. I can identify about three of them,’ says Sibonelo.

She says she then came to life after a brief passing out and entered the house to get ice to cook her face. It was then Nkosinaye told her that he was hit by a bullet.

The Observer’s account is not the first account in Swazi newspapers about police brutality at UNISWA. The Observer, the Times of Swaziland and the Times Sunday have all published accounts of police out of control.

What we have still to see in any of the Swaziland news media is a statement from the Royal Swazi Police Commissioner in response to the detailed accounts that victims of the out-of-control police have made.

It is also to be hoped that someone brings the guilty police officers to account.

See also
MORE ON SWAZI POLICE BRUTALITY
SWAZILAND POLICE ON RAMPAGE

MORE ON SWAZI POLICE BRUTALITY

Newspapers in Swaziland are continuing to pursue the Swazi police after officers went on the rampage outside the kingdom’s university and shot an innocent by-stander.

I reported yesterday (Sunday 20 January 2008) that the Times of Swaziland and the Swazi Observer both reported how a man was shot in his own home. A 14-month-old baby was also nearly shot.

The Times Sunday yesterday (20 January 2008) reported another example of the police being out of control during a demonstration by University of Swaziland (UNISWA) students protesting about examinations and semesterization.

The Times Sunday reported on one student who was shot at by police, who told his story to a meeting of university of students. Here is the report as published in the Times Sunday.

Police slapped, kicked and spat on my face – student

One of the four students who were arrested at the riot at the University of Swaziland submitted at the meting that he was slapped, kicked and spat at by a policeman, whom he went on to reveal his force number.

He said this happened during his arrest. Emmanuel Ngubeni an LLB3 [third year law] student further told the gathering that the police tried to shoot him three times on the fateful day.

‘They swore at me and shouted that I must not dare run away because they were going to shoot me dead. I jumped over the wall fence and I could hear their noise as I was running. I jumped into a maize field and the bullet hit the maize cobs and I could hear that,’ the student said.

He went on and said that he became weary and stopped when two police officers wearing helmets and bullet proof clothing came and arrested him.

‘They came to me, kicked me and spat on my face. One of them slapped me, I looked at him, he asked why I was looking at him and slapped me again. It is at that moment that I took and crammed his force number,’ he related, much to the excitement of the students who then formed a big circle around him and danced.

Ngubeni assured his fellow students that his experience had not deterred him and would not so long as he was able to fight for his rights as a student.


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SWAZILAND POLICE ON RAMPAGE

SWAZI UNIVERSITY PR DISASTER

The continuing dispute between students and the University of Swaziland (UNISWA) over semesterization is turning into a public relations disaster for the university’s administration.

UNISWA has decided to suspend the examinations due to start today (Monday 21 January 2008). But the way the university announced the decision has failed to diffuse the situation and left students and the public confused.

Last Thursday police brutally attacked students at the gates of UNISWA’s Kwaluseni Campus and shot one defenceless by-stander in his own home

Following this violence from police (who were meant to protect the university community) and angry students the UNISWA Senate met on Saturday (19 January 2007) and decided to suspend the exams.

So far, so positive. It was clear to anyone who has been paying attention that the police of all people could not guarantee calm on the campus, so the move by the Senate was welcome.

What happened next was the public relations disaster.

I wrote on Friday (18 January 2008) about how UNISWA senior management communicates with its students, staff and the world at large, through paid-for advertisements / press statements. This means that the management doesn’t have to explain itself to journalists or anyone else.

True to form such an advert was sent off to the press. It appeared in the Times Sunday yesterday (20 January 2008). This is what it said in part. ‘… the examinations for undergraduate programmes scheduled to begin on Monday 21st January 2008 be deferred pending further advice from the Senate.’

When journalists approached students on Saturday who were holding a meeting at a venue away from the university (UNISWA has banned students from meeting on campus) about the contents of the statement the students were understandably confused about what it meant. The Times Sunday reported students asking for clarification ‘because they did not understand it.’

The confusion was about what happens next. If the examinations are suspended does that mean that semesterization is also cancelled? When would exams be held? This statement talked about undergraduate programmes, what would happen to the postgraduates?

Many students interviewed saw the statement as a trick to divide them, rather than as a way forward towards a solution to the dispute.

A badly written statement was the first part of the PR blunder. The second came when the UNISWA Registrar contacted by the Times Sunday for clarification ‘confirmed the suspension but declined to comment further.’ So, a genuine confusion could have been cleared up if a senior administrator of the university had wanted it to be. It remains a mystery as to why he stayed silent.

As a result tensions on the Kwaluseni campus remained high over the weekend and there were more scuffles between police and students. Today (Monday 21 January 2008) could be a very tense day at the university.

There was no need for any of this confusion. What went unreported was that at its meeting on Saturday the UNISWA Senate decided that the exams should be suspended because of the problem over safety. It resolved that all academic faculties should meet today (Monday 21 January 2008) to discuss what happens next. It was stressed that student representatives should be invited to the meeting. Time would also be given to them to consult with their fellow students and the ban on student meetings would be lifted. After faculties had met they would forward their recommendations on the way forward to the Senate for deliberation.

Why on earth didn’t UNISWA tell the students, staff, media and the world at large any of this? Students are now being consulted on the way forward. This is a major step forward in the dispute, but the chance may have been lost because UNISWA seems incapable of explaining its intensions in a clear manner.

Let’s hope all is not lost, because it is generally believed now that the only way this semesterization mess can be cleaned up is through discussion.


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SWAZILAND POLICE ON RAMPAGE

SWAZI UNI TRIES TO MISLEAD MEDIA