Swaziland's false customs

Swaziland’s King Mswati III passes suppression, unaccountability and royal opulent spending in the face of drought, starvation and poverty, as traditionally “Swazi” values. Tradition is also the basis for Swaziland’s constitution (from 2005), where the words “...in accordance with Swazi law and custom” are used many times. The constitution also gives the king executive authority in Swaziland and in effect lets him determine what constitutes “Swazi law and custom”. 

The Swazi system of governance, ‘Tinkhundla’, is indeed unique”, says, Sonkhe Dube, a young exiled activist who is the International Secretary of the Swaziland Youth Congress. “They claim it is a democratic institution that encompasses traditional forms of leadership. But in a democratic state, the cabinet is not handpicked by a king who literally controls everything without being accountable to his citizens”. No culture remains frozen in time. Culture is, or ought to be, about the adjustment of society to the needs of its citizens, as well as the other way round. But according to Sonkhe Dube, the current Swazi Tinkhundla system of governance is by no means adjusting itself to the needs and wishes of the people. It is neither democratic nor even truly traditional in a Swazi sense.

“It is a system based on the manipulation of culture to satisfy the insatiable appetite of the greedy monarchy. The monarchy should stop hiding behind culture. Swazi culture in not only about ceremonies but also about social responsibilities which the present powers that be are intentionally ignoring”, says Sonkhe Dube.

King Mswati III has recently spent $ 14 million on a new personal 375-seater jet and will be spending millions of dollars more on hosting a SADC Heads of State summit this year, while a quarter of his population is starving.

In Swaziland, King Mswati’s father King Sobhuza II was given the power to appoint and dismiss chiefs and in 1957, 11 years before independence, acts of disobedience against the king were made illegal by a colonial act. The foundations that were laid for such royal hegemony were seen a couple of years after independence, in 1973, when Sobhuza II banned political parties, declared a state of emergency that is yet to be officially repealed and began ruling as an absolute monarch. Swazis are made to believe that the monarchy rules through the people by way of a traditional people’s parliament, ‘Sibaya’, say Sonkhe Dube. “But when the king called Sibaya in 2012, and the convention pronounced to the king that they wanted the Prime Minister Sibusiso Dlamini and his cabinet out, the king responded by keeping them. The same Prime Minister is still in charge, against the will of the people”.

Swazis are also at the mercy of the king through his chiefs in their everyday lives. “Chiefs allocate land to people and chase them out of their chiefdoms if they feel there is something wrong with them, as happened in Kamkhweli and Macetjeni, where the king sanctioned the eviction of families. The king and the chiefs also order their subjects to do voluntary manual labour in their fields. The product from the manual labour culturally has to cater for the vulnerable and orphaned, but currently it is not doing that, yet people are still required to provide labour for the chiefs and the monarchy. Culturally, the king and chiefs do not own the land but are supposed to be holding it in trust for the people”, Sonkhe Dube says.

A Heart that Never Dies

Swaziland’s absolute monarch, King Mswati III, not only demands total loyalty from his citizens – most of whom survive on less than a dollar a day from handouts from the UN – but he also makes sure that meetings he deems ‘political’ are disrupted by police, who harass and beat up activists like Bheki. Many of them are subsequently charged with terrorism for trivial ‘offences’ such as shouting ‘viva PUDEMO’ or wearing a PUDEMO t-shirt (Swaziland’s largest banned political party, the People’s United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO).

A new documentary, ‘Swaziland – Africa’s last absolute monarchy’, made by award-winning Danish investigative journalist Tom Heinemann, describes the fight for democracy and socio-economic justice through the eyes of Bheki Dlamini, a young activist and leading member of PUDEMO. It was at university, while studying Sociology and Public Administration, that Bheki really started questioning the doctrines and cultural codes of Swazi society. The different views of students and lecturers had an impact. ‘University changed my perception and how I looked on society,’ he says.

Bheki chose to act on his new-found beliefs by, amongst other actions, helping organize civic education for poor and illiterate people in Swaziland’s rural areas. After having had his home ransacked and been detained on several occasions, Bheki was arrested in 2010, tortured, and charged with terrorism for allegedly committing arson against an MP and a police officer, crimes that he and his colleagues said he could not have committed. Bheki was in prison for nearly 4 years. He was kept in a filthy cell, no larger than 5 by 12 metres, 24 hours a day and with up to 40 other inmates.

When the trial finally began, all charges against Bheki were quickly dropped and he was released. But as Bheki told the large crowd that had gathered outside the courthouse to greet him upon his release: ‘I am moving out of the small prison into the bigger prison.’ A few months later he was forced to flee Swaziland, when the police tried to arrest him after he had given a speech on May Day.

‘No matter what they do to me, the fight continues,’ hesays, unflinching and looking straight into the camera. ‘The state is afraid, so if we can push much harder it is going to succumb to our pressure.’ 

A Despot's Time Will Come

King Mswati the Third of Swaziland has a fleet of luxury cars, a dozen mansions and 15 wives. Mswati is the last absolute monarchy on the continent and has ruled since he was 18; his father had banned all political parties a decade earlier. Many Swazis are too poor to agitate, and those that do are quashed. There are no trade unions. Members of the main opposition group, the “People’s United Democratic Movement,” are regularly arrested, peaceful demonstrators beaten up and journalists sent to jail. Many of his subjects live grim lives: Swaziland is the seventh-hungriest country in the world, 63 percent of its citizens live below the poverty line and more than 1 in 4 adults (aged 15–49) have HIV/AIDS. GDP growth is negative and unemployment is at nearly 23 percent.

He buys luxury cars worth 61 years of Swazi wages, takes trips to Las Vegas on private jets and picks a new virgin wife every couple of years. Most Swazis are too busy trying to feed their families to start a revolution. “The majority aren’t screaming for democracy because they are not educated,” says Nhlanhla Msibi, the Swazi author of The Delayed Revolution: Swaziland in the Twenty-First Century. HIV has wiped out “muscle,” too, he says: “There’s only young orphans or old people.”

But in the cities, a democratic movement is challenging Mswati’s rule. “It’s a rotten, pathetic, undemocratic and corrupt system,” says Philani Ndebele of the Swaziland Democracy Campaign, a coalition of organizations demanding multiparty democracy in the country. There are elections. It’s just that Mswati decides the outcome

For Western nations that promote democracy abroad, Swaziland lacks geopolitical significance. While there are some exceptions — South Africa rescinded $207 million after Mswati refused to make basic political reforms, and the United States booted Swaziland from the African Growth and Opportunity Act over human rights concerns — few countries care much about that small patch of green next to South Africa.

 “The problem is that Swaziland is not Zimbabwe. There is no extreme humanitarian crisis and it has no oil or interesting natural resources,” says says Chris Vandome of the Africa program at U.K.-based Chatham House. It does have is sugar — the country’s main export — but it can’t compete much with producers like Brazil.

Mswati hasn’t done much to diversify the agricultural industry.  Budget cuts have become so severe that teachers are not getting paid and schools can’t open their doors, yet Swaziland spent about $478 million over the past four years on defense, and the king’s annual household budget is $61 million.

“If things continue like this, the country will soon be depending on humanitarian aid and eventually collapse into a failed state,” warns Msibi.

Nevertheless, public disaffection is on the rise. Several mass protests have taken place since 2011. “Transformation is inevitable,” says Ndebele, citing the Arab Spring. “No matter how despotic, brutal and indifferent a regime is, it can be toppled.”

Little changes in Swaziland

 King Mswati III of Swaziland, Africa's last absolute monarch, was claiming to have received a vision from God. Coming in between two rounds of parliamentary elections, the King's spokesperson announced that Mswati said he had been told by God to make his kingdom a "monarchial democracy". Many of the country's opposition groups and activists - many of whom are exiled in neighbouring South Africa - ridiculed the news, highlighting the monarch's undemocratic record and criticising the elections as superficial window-dressing.

In the final round of Swaziland's parliamentary elections in September, over 400,000 Swazi voters cast their ballots to elect 55 MPs. However, the vote was again held according to an electoral system known as tinkhundla, which was implemented in the 1970s and under which political parties are not allowed to participate. In protest, Swaziland's main opposition party, the People's United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO), boycotted the elections, calling the polls a farce and a sham designed to maintain the King's absolute rule.

 Last week when Mswati summoned his kingdom to a sibaya (a cultural gathering) at his royal residence where he re-appointed Barnabas Sibusiso Dlamini as Prime Minister for a fourth time, and perhaps dashed completely when it was announced yesterday that the new cabinet would include eight members of the old guard.

Indeed, keeping with tradition and continuity following the election, Mswati selected 10 MPs in addition to the elected 55, and re-appointed Dlamini, of the Dlamini clan, as Prime Minister. Mswati's unsurprising choice of a tried-and-tested monarchist and conservative to head government further cements the Dlamini clan's political legacy. Establishing their dominance through military conquest, absorption and subjugation of other smaller or weaker clans since the 1400s, the Dlaminis in present-day Swaziland continue to rule and dominate as its members occupy influential positions as traditional chiefs, royal advisors and top-ranking civil servants thereby reinforcing Mswati's power.

PM Dlamini is himself a member of the royal family and one of the country's longest-serving premiers. Meanwhile, the new senate composed of 30 senators - 20 chosen by the king and 10 elected by parliament - consists of six of the King's brothers and sisters as well as 14 loyalists including the controversial acting chief of KoNtshingila, Gelane Zwane, whose senatorial appointment sparked protest in her southern district of Shiselweni resulting in a heavy-handed state intervention. With a selection of family and trusted allies to keep a watchful eye on things, the King appears keen to maintain the status quo rather than yield to calls - whether domestic, international, or other-worldly - for democratic reform. Dlamini's return to the helm does not bode well for an improvement in labour relations. Many are mindful of the hostile relationship between the state and the unions.

As well as packing decision-making positions with loyalists, Mswati also seems to be trying to curb any potential influence the few opposition figures who managed to get elected might have. Following the announcement of the election results on 21 September, Dlamini banned all private meetings between newly-elected MPs. On several occasions legislators tried to hold private lunches to discuss voting strategies for electing their ten members of the senate, but they had to be cancelled after the prime minister threatened police action if MPs held meetings other than those convened by parliament. Like their predecessors, it seems Swaziland's new MPs' wings have already been clipped.

Much has been made of the election of trade unionist and anti-government activist Jan Sithole; the new MP for Manzini North is seen as a potential reformer and voice of dissent. Apart from Sithole, former teachers' union activists, Phineas Magagula and Saladin Magagula, as well as controversial youth activist Titus Thwala could be among those calling for change.  Shortly after their election, both former teacher activists quickly withdrew their previous criticism of the monarchy and promised to serve dutifully. Phineas Magagula was rewarded by becoming Minister for Education, a position which could suggest open-mindedness on the part of Mswati, but can also be seen as a way to ensure a potential dissenter toes the line. Meanwhile, at last week's official introduction of legislators to the King, Sithole pledged his allegiance to the Crown, raising eyebrows in both pro-monarchist and opposition circles. It is too early to predict what this might mean, but it is important to remember that given the overwhelming majority of monarchists and moderates in government, it is unlikely a minority will change the system from within no matter how outspoken.

Last year, during a wave of industrial action in the education and public transport sectors, thousands of members of the Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT) took to the streets calling for a 4.5% salary increase. After weeks of striking, other workers unions marched in solidarity demanding the same increment. However, rather than engage in dialogue with the protesters, the state, commanded by Dlamini, responded with tear gas, rubber bullets and widespread arrests. The salaries of striking teachers were slashed by 33% and government sought a court order to declare the strike illegal and have SNAT's leaders imprisoned.

Click here for Tendai Marima’s full article

Siyaya eSwaziland, 7th September!

The Swaziland Democracy Campaign (SDC), formed by trade unions, political parties, civil society groups and churches, has called for a global day of action on September 7, 2010. It will include a mass protest and show of “defiance” in Swaziland. Delegates from the international labour movement will join the action in Swaziland.

1.3 million inhabitants of the land-locked southern African kingdom live under the thumb of one of the world’s last absolute monarchies, repressive regime whose plunder of the country is systematic and comprehensive. King Mswati III controls the parliament, appoints cabinet ministers, judges and senior civil servants, and makes and breaks the law at will. Political parties are banned, along with most demonstrations and meetings. Strikes are illegal. Gatherings of any kind are often broken up by police assaults. The media is subject to constant harassment and intimidation. During the latest wave of repression, in May 2010, democracy activist Sipho Jele, who had been arrested and interrogated, was allegedly “found” by police hanging from the rafters in a prison toilet.

Swaziland’s autocracy is based on the “Tinkhundla” system through which royally sponsored traditional leaders dispense patronage and exercise control at local level. But Swazis themselves reap no benefits from it. Swaziland now suffers the world’s highest rate of HIV/AIDS infection – perhaps as much as 40% of the adult population and 42% of all expectant mothers. Swaziland has the highest annual rate of death from AIDS, about 10,000 a year - 1% of the population. Life expectancy has plummeted and is probably now as low as anywhere in the world. Fifteen per cent of households are headed by orphaned children.

While 70% of the population live on less than a dollar a day and 25% rely on food aid, the royal family make do on some $67,000 a day. According to US-based business magazine Forbes, Mswati’s personal net worth is an estimated $200 million.Mswati is also head of a multi-million pound conglomerate, set up in 1968 by royal charter, which owns a significant slice of nearly every major Swazi business and industry – sugar, mobile phones, mines, media, tourism. Theoretically, Mswati holds the conglomerate’s assets in trust for the nation, but the fund, like all royal assets, is shielded from public scrutiny. Six in ten Swazis are engaged in subsistence farming, mostly on communal land owned in trust by the king, whose family also directly own a major share of the remaining “privately owned” land. Forced labour is commonplace. Under Swazi Administration Order No. 6 of 1998, it is a duty of Swazis to obey orders from local chiefs to participate in compulsory works (which may include construction and agricultural labour or even weeding the gardens in Mswati’s palaces). There are severe penalties for those who refuse. The Swazi monarchy has maintained its grip by collaborating with the prevalent regional powers, first with the Boer republics, then the British Empire and in the 1980s with apartheid South Africa. Besides assisting in the arrest and killing of African National Congress members who had fled to Swaziland, the king denounced sanctions against South Africa, the only Commonwealth leader besides British PM Margaret Thatcher to do so. Coca-Cola, whose concentrate plant, exporting to much of Africa, is located in Swaziland because of favourable tax arrangements and access to cheap raw sugar. Coke accounts for up to 40 per cent of Swaziland’s GDP, and an unknown but sizeable chunk of this goes directly into the king’s pocket.

The days of the absolute monarchy are definitely numbered.

Swazi King's Birthday

The media are having a field day exposing the hypocrisy of millions ,officially put at $2.5 million though widely believed to be five times higher , being spent on celebrating King Mswati III's birthday .

He will be 40 .

unemployment, 40 percent
HIV rates: nearly 40 percent among adults. Life expectancy has nearly halved since 1998 because of the AIDS epidemic and is now less than 31 years, according to the most recent U.N. figures.

70 percent live below the poverty line, and 20% depend on international food aid.

A new constitution took effect in 2006 maintains the ban on political opposition parties. The king appoints the prime minister and the cabinet. A previous king ,Sobhuza , declared a state of emergency in 1973 which Mswati has never formally lifted.

About 5,000 trade union members took to the streets Wednesday to protest against the expenditure

Tribes or Nations ??

From The London Times

" Siphiwe Hlophe, founder of Swaziland for Positive Living (Swapol) led a 1,000-strong demonstration in the capital Mbabane to protest that eight of his 13 wives, plus their children and an entourage of bodyguards, maids and hangers-on, had chartered a plane to Dubai for a shopping spree. English public-school-educated King Mswati III, whose personal take of the national budget is half the health budget, is estimated to have spent £2.2m on the trip and is planning a huge 40th birthday party.

Swaziland has the worst HIV infection rate in the world; 31% for women.
It is also pathetically poor, with nearly 70% of its people living on less than 50 US cents (about 27p) a day.

In Swaziland the king and the ruling elite refer to the Swazi nation but pretend that Swazis are a traditional tribe, utterly obedient to the king and his chiefs. The king misuses tradition to appropriate the country’s meagre resources, prevent development and keep the people subservient.

What is the difference between a tribe and a nation anyway? Tribalism describes a frame of mind all human beings suffer from: a pig-headed “my group, right or wrong” attitude. In Africa people are always referred to as members of tribes, but how can 25 million Yoruba or 33 million Hausa people be called tribes? If they are, then surely the English, Welsh and Scots must be British tribes. Does the media refer to former Yugoslavia as tribal or the Israel-Palestine conflict as a land dispute between two semitic tribes. That’s how it would be described if they lived in Africa.

Africa’s problem is not tribalism as such, but the utterly incoherent nation states cohabited by different ethnic groups bequeathed to Africans half a century ago. Africans had no part in the creation of their nation states. At the end of the 19th century, Europeans drew lines on maps of places they had never been to. Fifty years ago the filled-in spaces became Ghana, Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, countries that had never existed before. Suddenly pitched into independence, they had no sense of common nationhood. By contrast the ruling Europeans had always emphasised ethnic differences and suppressed any sense of nationalism.

Beneath the surface of Africa’s weak nation states lie old cultures, old communities, very different societies with their own laws and languages. Nigeria contains some 400 different ethnic groups. Uganda has more than 40. They lack what we take for granted: a common conception of nationhood and national citizenship. The unification of Africa remains a distant dream, and separatism is frowned on because it could lead to bloody disintegration..."

We also read that a meeting of more than 200 African kings and traditional rulers has bestowed the title "king of kings" on Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

The rulers, wearing gold crowns, sequined capes and colourful robes met in the Libyan town of Benghazi. Sheikh Abdilmajid from Tanzania told the BBC that the traditional rulers could play an important role. "The people believe in the chiefs and kings more than they believe in their governments,"
While Col Gaddafi told the assembled dignitaries "We want an African military to defend Africa, we want a single African currency, we want one African passport to travel within Africa,"

Socialist Banner declares that only through democratic de-centralised world socialism can the African peoples become united but also Africa will be unified with the rest of the world and enjoy common ownership of the worlds treasury.