35years-enough is enough

Yesterday marked the 35th anniversary of Sobhuza's notorious April 12 Proclamation of 1973. Perhaps many subscriber to this forum know the history in fine detail but i had to do some digging to come to a better understanding. If any are interested, below i've posted a bit of the information i was able to find in academic journals and textbooks.

VIVA PUDEMO!

The Swaziland Progressive Party (SPP), under the leadership of John Nquku, was founded in 1960. It’s manifesto had four points: democratic enfranchisement for all persons irrespective of race, colour, or creed, opposition to the incorporation of Swaziland by South Africa; adoption of the United Nations declaration of human rights; and complete integration to eliminate racial discrimination. Due to questions about Nquku's leadership that party splintered and eventually another party, the Ngwane National Libratory Congress (NNLC) was formed in 1963. Around this same time two other but much less significant parties also were born - the Swaziland Democratic Party (SDP) and the Mbandzeni National Convention (MNC).

Seeing the British would go ahead with the June 1964 elections, Van Wyk de Vries, one of Sobhuza’s legal advisors and a “prominent member of the South African Broederbond" encouraged him to hold a referendum and then form his own party. The Imbokodvo* National Movement (INM) was formed one month before the election. INM won 85.45 percent of the vote and NNLC was the only party to gain any support – 12.3 percent. The MDC and SDP now aligned themselves with INM as did the white settlers United Swaziland Association (USA). The king's party again won all twenty-four seats in the April 1967 election but the NNLC had won 20 percent of the popular vote - that would change in five years.

In the 1972 election, the NNLC won three of the twenty-four seats in Parliament. Dr. Ambrose Zwane, Thomas Ngwenya and Mageja Masilela had gained all three seats from the eastern constituencies of Mphumalanga – the same region which had experienced the huge labour strikes of May 1963. One eighth of the seats did not pose an immediate political danger but Sobhuza would not tolerate these members. This was significant because the three had been elected in the “constituencies containing large numbers of sugar plantation workers who were disgruntled with the government over their working conditions”. Additionally, “the NNLC had enjoyed significant popular support among non Swazi Africans”.

Before the drastic action of April 12, 1973 three attempts were made to limit the NNLC opposition. First, Ngwenya was ordered deported on the grounds that he was not a Swazi citizen. Secondly, the Assembly Standing Order was amended so that a Private Member’s Motion “would lapse for the duration of the meeting if there were no quorum when it was either moved or put to the vote”. Thirdly, INM members left the chamber “when NNLC Members rose to introduce a motion”.

Ngwenya was not deported as he challenged the order in High Court and was successful. Immediately an Immigration Amendment Act was introduced to Parliament and passed; so once again Ngwenya was ordered deported. He then challenged this in the Swaziland Appeals Court and won. Sobhuza would not be out-maneuvered by the courts. Parliament passed a motion that the Constitution was “unworkable” and the king was called upon to resolve the crisis. With assistance from Pretoria, on April 12, 1973 Sobhuza declared: the constitution had “failed”; it was the cause of “growing unrest”; it had permitted “undesirable political practices”; there was “no constitutional way” to amend the Constitution; and a new constitution needed to be “created by ourselves for ourselves in complete liberty.” A State-of-Emergency was declared and Sobhuza “assumed supreme power”. The Attorney General then read the decrees that included “Political parties [including his own INM] were prohibited and political meeting, processions and demonstrations disallowed without prior consent of the Commissioner of Police. The King-in-Council was given the power to detain a person without trial for a period of sixty days, which period could be repeated as often as deemed necessary in the public interest. This situation would be reviewed in six months’ time.”

April 12, 2008 is the thirty-fifth anniversary of these decrees; they have never been repealed. Vieceli explains the Swazi people refer to this as the “King’s Coup.”

*Imbokodvo = grindstone


Information compiled by T. Debly of UNBSJ, Canada