SEEING THROUGH AIRPORT FANTASY

I see we are being buttered up with excuses about why King Mswati III’s great fantasy - Sikhuphe International Airport - won’t be finished on time.

Readers playing the Fantasy Watch game with me will know that airport is expected to be completed and ready to receive its first flight in March next year (2010).

Now we are told this deadline is ‘unrealistic’ and was only set so that the airport could be used to transport passengers for the FIFA World Cup being played in South Africa next year.

The airport, a vanity project for King Mswati, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, is nowhere near finished and the Swaziland Government is still trying to find E1.5 billion (about 200 million US dollars) to complete it (this works out at about E1,500 for each man, woman and child in Swaziland, in a kingdom where 70 percent earn less than one dollar a day).

This week Swaziland Senator Moi Moi Masilela started on the excuses.

He said the target of 2010 was unrealistic. ‘As a result of the pressure we will end up building an airport that is not up to standard, something that would result in the tarmac collapsing when flights land.’

He told the Minister of Economic Planning and Development Prince Hlangusemphi during a Senate Portfolio Committee debate, ‘Let’s not rush the airport in the name of meeting deadlines but we should take our time to avoid having a structure that’s of poor standards.’

There are also doubts that the new airport will meet standards demanded by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO). If the ICAO doesn’t license the airport, planes will not be able to use it.

Senator Masilela needs to be careful. It was King Mswati himself who only last month announced that the airport would be ready in March 2010. The king told an audience in Kuwait, ‘The completion of Sikhuphe International Airport in March 2010 will further improve our [Swaziland’s] standing.’

Whoops. Of course, the airport was never (is never, will never) going to be completed in 2010 and since no organisation is prepared to fund the airport’s completion it’s a fair bet it never will be finished.

As I said before, the whole Sikhuphe International Airport is just a sad fantasy of King Mswati and the people around him who are too self-interested to tell the king he is wrong.

WHO NEEDS FRIENDS LIKE THESE?

I see Swaziland’s Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Minister Lufto Dlamini is off on his travels again.

Last month (October 2009) he was with King Mswati III, in the Middle East – remember that very embarrassing poem he wrote saying Mswati was sent from God.

I didn’t mention it at the time but I wasn’t the only one struck by the fact that the king and his hangers-on only seem to visit places with appalling human rights records.

This time Dlamini is in Cuba at the invitation of that country’s government. Anyone who follows any of the Swaziland media will know Dlamini is being hailed as a respected friend in Cuba.

The reason is simple: Swaziland supports Cuba at the United Nations so that makes King Mswati, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, a pretty good fellow in their eyes.

By a coincidence of timing days before Dlamini landed in Cuba, the New York-based Human Rights Watch reported that Cuban president, Raúl Castro, has crushed dissent and continued repression in the country since taking over from his brother Fidel in July 2006.

The government has even introduced a new law that allows the state to punish people before they commit a crime on suspicion they may do so.

Since coming to power Raúl has kept up repression and kept scores of political prisoners locked up, Human Rights Watch said.

He tightened repression with greater use of a provision in the criminal code which allows people to be convicted for ‘dangerousness’, defined as behaviour which contradicts socialist norms.

It documented more than 40 cases in which individuals were jailed for ‘dangerousness’, including such things as handing out copies of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, staging rallies, writing articles critical of the government, and trying to organise independent unions.

The report said fear permeated the lives of dissidents in Cuba. ‘Some stop voicing their opinions and abandon their activities altogether; others continue to exercise their rights, but live in constant dread of being punished.’

So Dlamini must feel right at home with the Cubans. Dlamini can teach them a thing or two about how he and the government he serves treats the Swazis.

RULE OF LAW SWAZI STYLE

Zwide Nxumalo has defied a court order to stop being chief of the Ezikhotheni area in the Shiselweni region of Swaziland because he was appointed to the post by King Mswati III.

Magistrates told him he couldn’t go ahead with a sibhimbi ceremony that officially introduces a new chief to his subjects because of a dispute about whether he had been correctly chosen as chief.

So he went with the ceremony anyway.

Now he is being accused by some of his subjects of contempt of court.

Nxumalo told the Swaziland High Court in a written affidavit to mind its own business. He was he says chosen by King Mswati (sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch) and that to him is the end of the matter.

SWAZI SNAPSHOT: MARRIED WOMEN

Married women in Swaziland are the property of their husbands, despite what the Swazi Constitution may say.

And that’s not only women in isolated rural areas: it’s wives in the sophisticated towns and cities as well.

The constitution says ‘women shall have equal opportunities as men in political, economic and social activities,’ but try telling that to the banks. It’s Section 28 (1) guys; go look it up.

Women, including those with independent jobs and incomes, cannot get bank loans without the consent of their husbands.

Among the banks discriminating against women is the South African-based Standard Bank, which has branches across the world, including in the United Kingdom.

A consultant at the bank, when contacted by the Times Sunday, an independent newspaper in Swaziland, said if a woman is married she definitely has to provide her husband’s contact details and identification.

The bank will then contact the husband to make sure the wife is telling the truth on her application for a loan. The bank also asks for the husband’s consent. No consent: no loan. And it doesn’t matter how much the woman earns, or if the money she wants is for her own personal use.

If the husband allows his wife to take out a loan with the bank, the bank gives him the right to revoke the agreement at any time he likes.

Another South African bank, First National Bank (FNB) also demands women give details of their husbands so FNB can confirm the woman isn’t lying.

Editor’s note: King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, who himself has at least 13 wives constantly tells the international community that Swaziland is on its way to becoming a First World nation.

SWAZI POLICE CHIEF SILENT ON RIGHTS

I’ve written recently about the new Swaziland police commissioner Isaac Magagula and his desire to ensure that his ‘clients’ (that’s ordinary people to you and me) get a good and courteous service from his officers. .

Sorry, but I don’t believe it. The Swazi police are really just agents of King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch.

He and his police FORCE – and no amount of soap soaping about ‘clients’ and ‘service’ will alter the fact they are a state force – have not changed one bit.

The Swaziland Coalition of Concerned Civic Organisations (SCCCO) knows this too. In a media release SCCCO says it welcomes Magagula’s wish to tackle crime. But what about the rule of law and human rights? Not a word, not a breath.

Here’s the SCCCO statement in full.

Press Statement Swaziland Coalition of Concerned Civic Organisations.

For Immediate Release – 13 November 2009

Swaziland Calls on Police Commissioner to Respect Human Rights.

The Swaziland Coalition of Concerned Civic Organisations welcomes the appointment of Isaac Magagula as the new Commissioner of Police. We wish him good health and good judgement in his difficult and onerous task of leading the Royal Swazi Police Force in the 21st Century. We note with concern the rising tide of crime in the country and hope that he and his officers spare no effort in preventing crime and, detecting and prosecuting criminals. We support the police in all of their efforts to keep our families, communities and the country safe and free from harm.

However, we note with the greatest of concern what Commissioner Magagula has not said since his appointment. Not once has he mentioned the police’s role of upholding the law and the rule of law. He has also neglected to mention the RSP’s attitude to the constitution and the Bill of Rights. He has never once made a commitment to respecting the human rights laid out in the constitution and the international treaties that his political masters have signed and ratified.

This lack of concern for our rights has been made clearly obvious in this week that has seen the unlawful interference by the police with worker’s rights to demonstrate at the Manzini Bus Rank and of course of Mario Masuku’s right to address a student body on Wednesday.

The Coalition’s civic education facilitators and other members also continue to be on the receiving end of police harassment when they are exercising their constitutionally guaranteed rights.

We call on the Commissioner to make a clear statement about the RSP’s stance on respect for human, civil and political rights. We further call for a meeting with him so that these ongoing problems with his officers’ in the field can be resolved in a professional and courteous manner.

Finally we extend the offer that we made to his predecessor Senator [Edgar] Hillary that we would like to work with international colleagues to help to arrange training for his officers in policing under a bill of rights.

FANTASY WATCH: SWAZILAND CAPITAL

Congratulations to the Swazi News for pointing out that the ‘hullabaloo’ surrounding plans to develop Swaziland’s capital city Mbabane has come to nothing.

It seems like we’re all playing Fantasy Watch, the game where we expose the myth that Swaziland is a rich kingdom and can afford grand developments for shopping complexes, hotels, business centres, football stadia and an international airport.

The Swazi News, part of Swaziland’s only independent newspaper group, the Times of Swaziland, reports, ‘The sorry site of the country’s capital, Mbabane has remained unchanged despite the hullabaloo when it was announced that there was going to be a corporate centre and co-operative bank.

‘Newspapers were awash with artistic impression drawings detailing how the two would look like and everyone was looking forward to that time when the projects would be utilised. That excitement went to an extent of even naming the people expected to occupy those shops and offices.’

But as anybody following Fantasy Watch will know, nothing has happened.

Over the past few years there have been many claims for development in Mbabane and some building has even started only to be abandoned unfinished when the money ran out. There are two in particular that every visitor to Mbabane knows well: the Corporate Centre (abandoned after a dispute over funding between the two organisations developing it) and the Swaziland Association of Credit Organisations development behind the Mbabane Mall.

The Swazi News quotes an (alas) anonymous economist who says Swaziland’s organisations were not capable of managing projects of this magnitude.

That about sums it up.

TRUTH ABOUT SWAZILAND'S POLICE

Swaziland’s new police commissioner Isaac Magagula is trying to convince the world that the Swazi police aren’t agents of state control – they’re really just cuddly folk who are on the side of ordinary people.

Despite the fact that police officers will now routinely carry guns (just in case), he says, they will respect their clients.

Oh yeah. The Swazi police are the Swazi police and they probably always will be until they stop being agents of King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch.

I was reminded of this by a reader’s letter in the Times of Swaziland, the kingdom’s only independent daily newspaper.

The reader told his own experiences of the cops. It happened on Monday (9 November 2009) when there was to be a mass boycott of a new ‘terminus’ bus rank in Manzini, Swaziland’s main commercial city.

The reader writes, ‘I arrived at the Satellite Bus Rank at around 7am and found the police and warders littered all over the town - 95 per cent of the people were police and warders.

‘They did not allow people to associate together. If you defied that order they would give you only two minutes to disperse or face the consequences.’

The reader went to a nearby park to get away from the police and to relax.

‘Along the way, I found four policemen relaxing with one feasting on potato chips. When I crossed the road near Swazibank offices I heard one policewoman complaining that she is feeling disappointed because the boycott seems to be failing to commence, because she wanted to beat up the bus conductors.’

When the reader arrived at Jubilee Park, he sat down to read a newspaper.

‘A minute later a police officer pounced on me saying I should get out of the park because it was reserved for the police. Imagine!

‘I am not a progressive. I had also been fed up with the lies that political parties are hot heads, idiots, empty vessels and power hungry lots. But from that experience I can safely say the political parties are speaking the truth. They are concerned about our welfare, like it or not. I’ve seen it and heard it. The police are brutal and careless. I may be tempted to join one of the progressives.’

‘How on earth can we be treated like this? What is the constitution for? What are the rights of association and freedom? I was deprived of all this during this day. It is not only me but we are many.’