SWAZILAND NEWSLETTER 20

1. Government suspends university scholarships: 10 students injured in
clash with police. 9 September 2005 (IRIN).

2. The situation of women and children. United Nations Children’s Fund.
Executive Board Second regular session 2005, 28-30 September 2005. Draft
country programme document: Swaziland (Excerpt).

3. Swazi Delegation Says New Constitution Gives King Veto Powers. Shaun
Benton, BuaNews (Tshwane), September 14, 2005.

4. Wal-Mart faces new sweat-shop charges. News Wires, 15 September 2005.

5. March planned to protest new constitution, UN Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (IRIN), 20 September 2005.

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1. Government suspends university scholarships: 10 students injured in
clash with police. 9 September 2005 (IRIN).

MBABANE, 9 September (IRIN) - Diminishing economic resources led to the
suspension of scholarships at the University of Swaziland and a rise in
student activism at start of the academic year this week. Late on Thursday
afternoon, 10 students were injured when police broke up a march by 1,000
undergraduates seeking an audience with Prime Minister Themba Dlamini to
demand the restoration of government scholarships that had always been
available to tertiary students.

"There is a forum to use if you want to make appointments - you don't just
come in such numbers, because that is when you become chaotic," Police
Commissioner Edgar Hillary told members of the Student Representative
Council after police fired teargas at the marchers. The prime minister's
office, overlooking downtown Mbabane, the capital, is close to the city
hospital, where students injured by water cannon and in a resulting
stampede were admitted, treated and released.

Police had told students that the premier was not in his office, but
government spokesman Percy Simelane told the local press that the prime
minister was in his office at the time of the march and its subsequent
dispersal by police. Political observers said the police reaction was
similar to hard-line tactics used to disperse university students
protesting dormitory living conditions and other matters in the past.

The clashes have also exposed a class divide between working-class police
officers and the more privileged university students. According to The
Swazi Observer newspaper on Friday, before firing teargas at the students
assembled at the gate to the prime minister's office, one police officer
said, "They are spoiled brats. They deserve a thorough beating." Several
students were injured while fleeing from the police but reportedly refused
to go to hospital for fear of being arrested.

Angry senators questioned Minister of Finance Majozi Sithole, saying this
was the first time in the University of Swaziland's 30-year history that
government had suspended the scholarships, claiming poverty.


Note. According to Times of Swaziland, 20 September 2005, Minister of
Education Constance Simelane announced at a press conference on 19
September that government would continue to pay student scholarships. She
further stated that for now government would pay half on accommodation and
meals, while personal allowances and tuition fees would be paid in full.
Simelane said the government would pay the remainder of the money in due
course.
---------------------------------

2. The situation of children and women. UNICEF Executive Board Second
regular session 2005, 28-30 September 2005. Draft country programme
document: Swaziland (excerpt).

1. Over the last decade, the earlier impressive progress of Swaziland in
human development has been reversed. The Government’s Smart Programme for
Enhanced Economic Development, launched in 2004, includes a call for
action to address HIV/AIDS, economic stagnation, corruption, youth
unemployment, the care and education of orphans and vulnerable children
(OVCs), and the perilous position of national finances. Addressing these
challenging issues will tax the capacities of
Government, communities and families alike.

2. The ranking of Swaziland as a low middle-income country limits its
access to concessional loans and assistance. The country has one of the
world’s highest Gini coefficients, at 0.61. Ten per cent of its 1.1
million population controls over 40 per cent of the wealth, while 69 per
cent of its
people live below the poverty line at $0.70 per day, up from 66 per cent
in 1997, according to national statistics. Changes in global trade rules
and in regional comparative advantages are hammering the country’s
economic prospects from without, while AIDS is undermining foundations of
social capital from within. Illnesses undermine the productivity and
competitiveness
of the formal sector, while health and funeral costs consume family
capital required for livelihood activities.

3. The economy has stagnated since the early 1990s, and since 2000
progress towards the Millennium Development Goals has been in reverse
gear. Under-5 mortality has risen from 90 to 153 per 1,000 live births
since 1999, while life expectancy has declined from 57 to 35 years in the
last decade, as reported in national statistics. Approximately 40 per cent
of children are stunted, and 12 per cent are undernourished, according to
a 2002 food security assessment. Rural access to safe water, measured at
41 per cent in 2000, has seen little progress in coverage since the 1980s.

4. Drought has affected more than one third of the country since 2001,
deepening poverty and vulnerability, and forcing the Government to declare
an emergency in February 2004. The real emergency countrywide is rooted in
the world’s most severe HIV/AIDS epidemic. HIV prevalence among pregnant
women grew steadily from 3.9 percent in 1992 to 42.6 percent in 2004. More
than 200,000 people are living with HIV (2004), and over 4,000 infections
occur annually in infants.

5. As AIDS decimates an entire generation in the 20-49 age group, extended
family social safety nets are being stretched to the breaking point, and
in some families only the vulnerable elderly and children are left alive.
The number of orphaned children in the country has increased from an
estimated 12,000 in 1999, according to the Joint United Nations Programme
on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) to 69,000 in 2004, as reported by the Central
Statistics Office, and many other vulnerable children are left to the care
of elderly, rural relatives while parents seek urban employment. UNICEF
community surveys consistently find one third or more of children in the
category of OVCs. They are food-insecure, cut off from basic health
services and sometimes from
education and left with parents or relatives who are ill, abusive, or
vulnerable themselves.

6. The impact of the epidemic has not yet peaked: among pregnant women
aged 25-29, HIV prevalence in 2004 was 56 per cent, according to a
sentinel survey. The results for children are ominous: expanding school
dropout; deteriorating nutritional status; breakdown of non-formal family
and community institutions; and signs of social breakdown in the form of
violence, rape, abuse, and abandonment of infants. The most vulnerable
have a greater risk of HIV infection. Imaginative and large-scale action
to intervene and establish safety nets can stop such a destructive cycle,
but it is a race against time.


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3. Swazi Delegation Says New Constitution Gives King Veto Powers. Shaun
Benton, BuaNews (Tshwane), September 14, 2005

A delegation representing civic organisations in Swaziland today told
members of parliament that a new constitution produced for their country
places too much power in the hands of the Swazi king and denies basic
rights to the Swazi citizenry.

Addressing the Portfolio Committee on Foreign Affairs, members of the
Swaziland Coalition of Concerned Civic Organisations said that the
constitutional process was flawed and undemocratic itself, as it denied
submissions from political parties and interest groups.

"The constitution-making process has been unilaterally governed by, not
even the government, but the king," a delegate told the committee,
referring to the country's King Mswati III, crowned in 1986.

Bishop Meshack Mabuza of the Anglican church of Swaziland, who led the
delegation, also cited the "profligate spending" of the Swazi government
and/or monarchy as fiscal indiscipline, exemplified by government's
intentions to purchase a private jet for the king worth hundreds of
millions of rands.

The rule of law in Swaziland is also regularly flouted, said the
delegation, citing the example of the resignation en masse of appeal court
judges after a ruling they made was ignored.

Under the new constitution, said the delegation, a citizen cannot seek
redress in court if the king's name is mentioned in legal proceedings,
because of the legal immunity the king enjoys.

Further, the king can "withhold his assent" on bills passed in parliament,
preventing them being passed into law using in what effectively amounts to
a power of veto over all legislation, the portfolio committee heard.

The king is also empowered by the new constitution to disband the 104-seat
(70 seats in the assembly and 30 in a senate, with four seats reserved for
women) parliament, in which he retains a quota of a total of 30 appointees.

"The king is not enjoined to follow advice from any structure," a Swazi
delegate told the committee, adding that government officials have to
swear an oath only to the king and "his heirs and successors", not to
Swaziland as a nation.

And Swaziland's Human Rights Commission cannot investigate charges against
the king or any member of the Swazi royal family, the delegation said.

The "pervasive influence" of the king's powers in the three arms of
government "severely compromises" the notion of the separation of powers,
which is a cardinal tenet of democracy, the group's presentation read.

And this new, undemocratic constitution, according to the delegation,
comes against a background where more than four people in 10 are
HIV-positive, where 69 percent of the population lives on less than US$1
(R6) a day, and where unemployment is estimated at 50 percent.

The Swaziland Coalition of Concerned Civic Organisations comprises the
Federation of Swaziland Employers and the Chamber of Commerce, the
Association of Swaziland Business Community, the Federation of Trade
Unions, the Federation of Labour, the Church, the Law Society of
Swaziland, the National Association of Teachers, Lawyers for Human Rights,
the Swaziland chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa as well as
women's groups and non-governmental organisations.

------------------------------

4. Wal-Mart faces new sweat-shop charges. News Wires, 15 September 2005.

A class-action suit has been filed with the Superior court of the state of
California accusing Wal-Mart of failing to ensure their suppliers'
employees work in acceptable conditions.

The suit, representing workers from six countries across four continents,
conceals the identities of 17 workers from China, Bangladesh, Indonesia,
Swaziland and Nicaragua in addition to four Californians cited as also
representing others from the state.

The complaint accuses Wal-Mart of failing to adequately police garment
suppliers and ensure that workers are not kept in sweatshop conditions,
and that this is in breach of their own Code of Conduct for foreign
suppliers. Wal-Mart counters that they have an extensive programme to
ensure suppliers adhere to their Code of Conduct; that 200 full-time
inspectors are employed to check supplier factories, and 108 factories
have been permanently banned as suppliers. However, this is mainly for
child labor violations.

This is part of an ongoing campaign against Wal-Mart by the International
Labor Rights Fund; a labor rights group opposed to many of the business
practices of Wal-Mart that they claim encourage unacceptable working
conditions and salaries in developing countries.
------------------------------

5. March planned to protest new constitution, UN Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (IRIN), 20 September 2005

The Swazi government on Tuesday warned civil servants, trade unionists and
church leaders that security forces would block a planned march to protest
the new constitution.
Prime Minister Themba Dlamini questioned the mandate of pro-democracy
activists to challenge the constitution promulgated by King Mswati III in
July.

"Those who want to defy it should have at least a certain percentage of
the population to justify their actions," the premier said.
Dlamini's remarks were seen as a reference to the failure of the Swaziland
Federation of Trade Unions to mount a national strike to protest the
constitution in January.

According to The Times of Swaziland, the prime minister allegedly told the
police to "protect the constitution, no matter what".

The Swaziland Council of Churches said it would hold a national prayer
meeting to call for police restraint during the anti-constitution protest,
and noted the use of teargas and water cannon by the security forces last
week to break up a student march to the prime minister's office to seek
university scholarships.
The new constitution retains royal power, and continues a ban on organised
political opposition.

Political observers felt that if the planned march to deliver a petition
to King Mswati next month was successful, it could signal a resurgence of
pro-democracy labour influence.
After fighting off the first real challenge to its leadership, the
executive of the Swaziland Federation of Labour (SFTU) was re-elected
earlier this month.

SFTU secretary general Jan Sithole said the drafting of a fresh
constitution that included "all of civil society", rather than a
palace-controlled process, was among the demands of the protesters.


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