Unrest brewing among Swazi monarch's subjects
Pro-democracy protests
Peter Goodspeed, National Post
Published: Saturday, April 15, 2006
Africa's last absolute monarchy is under attack and the potential for revolution looks a lot like the one that ended apartheid in neighbouring South Africa 15 years ago.
This week, Swazi pro-democracy protesters overwhelmed five border crossings between Swaziland and South Africa. The chanting and singing crowds clashed with police before being repelled by a volley of rubber bullets.
Hundreds of South African trade unionists joined the protests in support of Swaziland's banned political movements.
The demonstrations virtually shut down the tiny landlocked country wedged between South Africa and Mozambique.
Organizers timed their protests to mark the anniversary of a 33-year-old state of emergency that still stands, suspending Swaziland's fundamental freedoms and banning all political parties. King Mswati III rules by decree.
A new constitution, which the king ordered in February, allows the election of individuals to a parliament run by an appointed prime minister and an appointed Cabinet, but leaves the King's powers untouched.
A new bill of rights guarantees Swazis freedom of assembly and speech, but only at his whim. He continues to control the government, parliament and judges, and can suspend any constitutional right whenever he wants.
For all practical purposes, Swaziland remains a small feudal kingdom, the only country in Southern Africa that has not yet been democratized.
No one, except God, can defy King Mswati. Royal aides still crawl on their knees to greet him and local chiefs can demolish the homes of anyone who mocks the monarchy.
Yet Swaziland is one of the most impoverished and miserable places on earth, with the highest HIV/AIDS infection rate in the world and an average life expectancy of only 32.62 years.
Unemployment runs at 34% and 70% of Swazis make less than US$1 a day and live in thatched huts without running water or electricity.
In contrast, King Mswati enjoys the high life, with 13 wives, a fleet of limousines, a luxury jet that cost a quarter of the nation's annual budget and a long list of royal palaces.
By tradition, he can choose a new wife each year during the annual Umhlanga Reed Dance, when up to 20,000 bare-breasted young maidens come to perform him him.
Despite many Swazis' respect for tradition, Mswati's arrogance and extravagance have fanned the flames of a pro-democracy movement and undermined his authority.
Four years ago, he enraged many of his subjects when he ordered aides to abduct an 18-year-old high school student and announced she would become his 10th wife, without consulting the girl's parents.
Zena Zoraya Mahlangu ultimately became his tenth wife, but not before her distraught mother launched an unprecedented court challenge, demanding the King release her daughter. The case not only questioned the Mswati's power but launched a crusade for women's rights.
In a bid to curb Swaziland's rate of HIV/AIDS infection, which now has reached as high as 40%, Mswati tried to impose a five-year ban on all sexual activity for everyone under the age of 19.
Women were banned from wearing pants and forbidden from even shaking hands with men, and virgins were ordered to wear blue and yellow woolen tassels to signify they should not be sexually active. Anyone caught breaking the ban or women who refused to wear the unpopular tassels could be fined a cow or its cash equivalent.
The King ignored his own ban and continued to add under-age wives to his family.
International aid donors are also unhappy at Mswati's repeated raids on Swaziland's treasury to pay for his pampered lifestyle.
Last year, he celebrated his 37th birthday with a US$1.7-million party and recently overspent his personal travel budget of US$980,000 by more than US$200,000.
Two years ago, when Swaziland was suffering from a crippling drought, he announced plans to build new multi-million dollar palaces for each of his then 12 wives.
Not surprisingly, the combination of discontent and dictatorship has produced a growing dissident movement.
A militant opposition, led by the student-dominated People United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO), has spring up inside Swaziland. Seventeen members are now on trial for treason for allegedly undertaking a fire-bombing campaign in which they attacked government offices and the homes of senior government officials.
Last January, unionized workers staged a brief general strike to protest the King's extravagant spending.
Exiled Swazi political activists have also turned to South Africa's trade union movement, which played a major role in organizing opposition to apartheid in white-ruled South Africa in the 1980s, to help them rally against King Mswati.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) led this week's protests along the border, joining forces with the Swaziland Solidarity Network, the South African Communist Party and the Young Communist League.
Their message is simple -- reform or face a regional revolution.
"The intention is to give a warning to Swaziland that they are not an island," said Zwelinzima Vavi, secretary-general of COSATU.
"They are not living somewhere in the skies. There are people around them. This is a warning that one day they will find their borders completely blockaded."
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/story.html?id=d58d2aaf-90f2-4d7a-9052-b5ec91d4eadc
