Dec 31 SD 2007

Alan Booth called the period from 1973 to 1983 The Royalists Decade. His book, Swaziland: Tradition and Change in a Southern African Kingdom, was published in 1983 and little did he know of the students who were beginning to united for democratic change on Dlamini's farm. Would he label 1983-2008 The Path of Resistance? 2008 marks the 25th anniversary of the creation of the Peoples' United Democratic Movement of Swaziland.

While the aristocracy drags its feet on sharing power, people of the nation see the need for change. The abuse of public funds has reached a tipping point but the Royalist still think they are "the chosen ones", "the descendants of the sun".

Perhaps one Royalist, the Prime Minister Dlamini, was only trying to be "modern" when he spoke of not leaving women out of the formula. He also says implementing the constitution is a "challenge". The constitution took effect almost two years ago in Feb 2006, but now the Commonwealth Secretariat, UNDP and the European Union will be the official excuse for delay.


Dec 30 E500,000 ($100,000)—just for decorations at king’s birthday
Dec 31 ‘Don’t leave women out of general elections’
Dec 31 PM says implementing constitution a challenge
Dec 24 SCCCO: Busy Doing Nothing-Swaziland in 2007


Finally, one last point before the year flips. Twenty-five years ago, on Jan 1, 1983 the Internet was born. It's now part of our daily routine and is a useful tool for researching, organizing, educating and even mobilizing. Don't doubt its potential!
All the best for 2008!


To follow current events in Swaziland see LATEST NEWS

Dec 24 SD 2007

Sd - Busy doing Nothing

Below is the end of year report from the Swaziland Coalition of Concerned Civic Organizations - SCCCO. It does not paint a rosy picture because one does not exist. Instead, it portrays a brutal, retrogressive and archaic manner of ruling "subjects".

In 1906, Rosa Luxemburg's argued "...the complete unity of the trade-union and the social democratic movements, which is absolutely necessary for the coming mass struggles... is actually here...". She was referring to Germany but a parallel situation in Swaziland currently exists. Things change when progressive political movements, in tandem with civil society and trade unions are united. Rosa Luxemburg, 1906, The Mass Strike

Busy Doing Nothing – Swaziland in 2007

2007 was the first full calendar year of the new Constitution. What has changed in Swaziland as a result? Very little. It is becoming apparent to Civil Society that the Constitution is being used as little more than a fig-leaf to cover the international shame of 33 years of rule by decree. What we now have is a piece of paper that is not being promoted or even defended by the government. The rights and duties that are enshrined in it are not being protected or enforced. This year has seen defenceless suspects killed by the police, public meetings broken up or prevented from happening, union members harassed, property taken without due court processes, newspaper editors intimidated, journalists threatened by government. The people of Swaziland are in the dark about the constitution and their rights and the government seems more than happy to keep them that way.

The kingdom continues to wear two faces, the one it shows to the outside world, a happy, peaceful, united democratic nation. The other face is the reality of an internally riven, politically bankrupt, corrupt and profoundly anti-democratic system that is underperforming economically. Rather than investing the public coffers in relation to areas of greatest need and with the potential for greatest results it squanders them on economically unproductive projects that do little more than stroke, already inflated, egos.

It is the year that many comparative international studies have started to peek behind the veil and show that Swaziland consistently is one of the worst performers in terms of human rights, political participation, civil rights, governance, corruption and use of natural resources. (World Bank, Mo Ibrahim Foundation, Open Society, New Economics Forum, Amnesty International, US MCA) yet these studies are regularly pooh-poohed by our leaders. These are not high flown legalistic issues. Good governance directly affects the country’s ability to develop its economy, society and environment and to access the international aid that might just help us out of our multiple and interlinked crises.

We were already aware that Swaziland has the shame of the highest HIV prevalence, lowest life expectancy on earth and with equally appalling infant mortality rates. This year saw the publication of the Whiteside report that put these into a completely different context. The report shows that the deaths that arise as a result of HIV/AIDS are now at a level that is equivalent to generally accepted definitions of emergency requiring massive international action as is seen in cases of natural disaster, famine and civil war. We were shocked to find out that Swaziland now has more OVCs per head of population than Darfur. The slow and silent nature of the orphans’ parents’ deaths does not make the emergency any less real, just less newsworthy.

A constitution is more than a piece of paper; it defines the political culture of a country. Enacting it and upholding it are not matters of luck or chance but require energy, skill, resources, practice and passion. We do not see any of these necessary qualities being used at present. Rather we bear witness to the masterly arts of planned and practiced inactivity, prevarication and procrastination. The necessary structures to defend democracy and freedom – Commissions on Human Rights and Public Administration and the Elections and Boundaries Commission are nowhere close to being set up. The Royal Swazi Police Force is not trained in the implications of policing under a Bill of Rights. Women remain in law, and practice, second class citizens to such an extent that the governor of Ludzidzini is able to say with confidence, and in public, that they do not have the right to make decisions on their own lives and should be equated with children, subservient to their husbands as head of the household. As for the rights of children… we’ll not even start with that one. Most disturbing of all was the discovery of over one hundred foetuses in a dam near Matsapha. The causes, implications and effects of that particular nightmare are still being worked out. The human tragedies that lie behind these headlines shame us all.

The constitution defines emaSwati as citizens, not subjects. The difference is profound, if enacted. Citizens cede their power to politicians and then call them to account for their stewardship. Subjects do as they are told. The transition from subject to citizen does not happen overnight. It requires a fundamental shift in thinking that must be developed and the people must be educated in. Again, there is masterly inaction on behalf of the government on this. We hold deep reservations about the ability of the Tinkhundla system to support an internationally recognisable democracy, and to promote proper citizenship, especially in relation to elections.

The candidates put forward by the Tinkhundla system are not those with the most to offer, the highest energy, the best minds, the vision of a successful, prosperous and happy nation and the will and skills to bring these about through inspiring, leading and listening. Its candidates do not reflect the wealth and wisdom of this great country. The offerings to the people of this corrupt, petty, and self-serving system are, in the main, the loyal, the blind, the mediocre and the second rate. We need better than that and we deserve better leaders. The Tinkhundla do not serve emaSwati, they can only serve a small section of us. Prince David had the arrogance to call the people of Swaziland stupid for electing the current set of MPs. Let us remember that he was the chair of the Constitutional Drafting Committee that enshrined the system of their selection. As Democrats, we contend that the people can not be stupid – they are certainly not as stupid as the system that rejects what every African country has accepted as right, proper and normal – multi-party politics. We in civil society will be rolling out as large a programme of civic and voter education as we can gather resources for in time for the expected elections in 2008.

The rule of law debate and the tensions between the ‘traditional’ and ‘democratic’ systems of governance continue to go on. We welcome the final burial of Mizkayise Ntshangase in accordance to the court orders. But we continue to note that there are factions amongst the traditionalists who still felt that they could publicly state that the orders would be defied. We of course, are delighted at the belated insistence of the Prime Minister and the Governor of Ludzizini that the court orders must be followed and the actions of the Police to ensure that this happened. We fervently hope that this remains the rule and not the exception.

All in all, 2007 has not been a good year for Swaziland, the terrible effects of HIV/AIDS, drought, poverty, unemployment, corruption and poor governance continue to unnecessarily kill far too many people and to sap the ability of the country to perform. Our ‘unique’ system and style of governance wastes time, effort, resources and energy that could be better spent on really tackling the issues rather than paying court to labadzala. We say to the democrats in government, reach out, respect diversity of opinion and pluralism, embrace civil society and work with us in partnership. The present system has failed and can only continue to do so. Talk to us, we are listening. Stop being busy doing nothing and wasting your time defending the indefensible. Let us roll up our sleeves and work together to improve the lives and conditions of all of the Swazi people, not just the few.

May you all have a happy and prosperous New Year.

Bishop M B Mabuza

Chairperson SCCCO

Dec 9 SD 2007

Bitter-sweet or bitter-bitter?

Unlike South Africa, the government of Swaziland is bent of starving the poorest of the poor to fuel the richest of the rich. Fidel Castro warned of this madness shortly after the capitalist/industrialist media told us he was on his death bed. Seems Castro is wiser awakening from anesthesia than the whole lot of pirating profiteers!

SA excludes maize from biofuels policy
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleId=327032&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__business/

More than three million people in the world condemned to premature death from hunger and thirst

http://amadlandawonye.wikispaces.com/More+than+3+million+condemned%2C+Fidel+Castro+Ruz%2C+Granma


A bitter-sweet energy
George Monbiot
Mail & Guardian Business
08 December 2007 11:59
It doesn’t get madder than this. Swaziland is in the grip of a famine and receiving emergency food aid; 40% of its people are facing acute food shortages. So what has the government decided to export? Biofuel made from one of its staple crops -- cassava.

Several thousand hectares of farmland have been allocated to ethanol production in the Lavumisa district, the place worst hit by drought.

Surely it would be quicker and more humane to refine the Swazi people and put them in our tanks?

This is an example of a trade described by Jean Ziegler, the United Nations’s special rapporteur, as “a crime against humanity”. Ziegler took up the call for a five-year moratorium on all government targets and incentives for biofuel: the trade should be frozen until second-generation fuels -- made from wood or straw or waste -- become commercially available.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation recently announced the lowest global food reserves in 25 years, threatening “a very serious crisis”. Even when the price of food was low, 850-million people went hungry because they could not afford to buy it.

The cost of rice has risen by 20% in the past year, maize by 50%, wheat by 100%. Biofuels aren’t entirely to blame -- by taking land out of food production they exacerbate the effects of bad harvests and rising demand -- but almost all the major agencies warn against expansion. And almost all the major governments ignore them.

They turn away because biofuels offer a means of avoiding hard political choices. They create the impression that governments can cut carbon emissions and keep expanding the transport networks. New figures show that British drivers puttered past the 500-billion kilometre mark for the first time last year.

The law the British government passed recently -- that by 2010 5% of United Kingdom road transport fuel must come from crops -- will, it claims, save between 700 000 and 800 000 tons of carbon a year. If you count only the immediate carbon costs of planting and processing biofuels, they appear to reduce greenhouse gases. When you look at the total effect, you find they cause more warming than petroleum.

A recent study by the Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen shows that official estimates ignore the contribution of nitrogen fertilizers, which generate a greenhouse gas -- nitrous oxide --296 times as powerful as carbon dioxide. These emissions alone ensure that ethanol from maize causes between 0,9 and 1,5 times as much warming as petrol, while rapeseed oil (the source of more than 80% of the world’s biodiesel) generates 1 to 1,7 times the effect of diesel.

Last year research group LMC International estimated that if the British and European target of a 5% contribution from biofuels were to be adopted by the rest of the world, the global acreage of cultivated land would expand by 15%. That means the end of most tropical forests. It might also cause runaway climate change.

The biofuels industry is punting jatropha, a tough weed with oily seeds. This winter Bob Geldof arrived in Swaziland as “special adviser” to a biofuels firm. Because it can grow on marginal land, jatropha, he said, is a “life-changing” plant that will offer jobs, cash crops and economic power to African smallholders.

It can grow on poor land and be cultivated by smallholders. But it can also grow on fertile land and be cultivated by largeholders. Biofuel is not a smallholder crop; it is an internationally traded commodity that travels well and can be stored indefinitely.

If the governments promoting biofuels do not reverse their policies, the humanitarian impact will be greater than that of the Iraq war. Millions will be displaced, hundreds of millions more could go hungry. -- © Guardian News & Media Ltd 2007

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=327142&area=/insight/insight__economy__business/