Swaziland@Newsletter Extra
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Children. Men of the land. The struggle for democracy. Images of a
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Free elections and democracy now!

Address by Zwelinzima Vavi, COSATU General Secretary, to the
preparatory meeting for the trade union and civil society
international solidarity conference, 15 July 2008.

"International solidarity is the lifeblood of trade unionism" says one
COSATU core principle. And that principle has guided the
federations approach to the situation in Zimbabwe and Swaziland.

Both countries pose a massive challenge to the people of Africa.
Recent developments threaten to roll back the spreading trend towards
democracy in Africa.

Why Swaziland has escaped the international human rights radar for so long?
Swaziland got its independence from Britain in 1968 under King
Sobhuza. However, this was merely a transfer of power from the British
colonial masters to a neo-colonial monarchy, through which the British
sought to re-establish its domination and exploitation.

The nature of this monarchy was defined the King's 1973 proclamation
to the nation:

"Now, therefore I, Sobhuza II, king of Swaziland, hereby declare
that, in collaboration with my cabinet ministers and supported by the
whole nation, I have assumed supreme power in the kingdom of Swaziland
and that all legislative, executive and judicial powers is now vested
in myself and shall, for the meantime be exercised in collaboration
with my cabinet ministers.

"I further declare that to ensure the continued maintenance of
peace, order and good government, my armed forces have been posted to
all strategic places and have taken charge of all government places
and all public services. All political parties and similar bodies that
cultivate and bring about disturbances and ill-feelings within the
nation are hereby dissolved and prohibited."

This decree laid the basis for the current political architecture,
where politics are the exclusive preserve of the ruling royal elite.
In 1978 they introduced a system of called tinkhundla, which sought to
entrench the hegemony of royal supremacy and deepen the semi-feudal
and neo-colonial character of Swazi society. It fragmented Swazis into
competing localities called tinkhundla in the name of "unique and
home-grown democracy", which is directly in conflict with the
universal principles of democracy.

The world has conveniently remained silent about Swaziland and allowed
the ruling royal regime to get away with murder. The world remains
silent, after a regime has been allowed to enforce a state of
emergency for more than 34 years, despite Amnesty International
raising, on several occasions, the issue of extreme police brutality
in Swaziland, in its fact-finding mission's damning report on the
Swazi security forces.

Why does the Commonwealth and Britain apply double standards when it
comes to Swaziland in contrast to its hysterical attacks on Mugabe?
Why does it not apply smart sanctions against the stubborn regime for
refusing to unban political parties and political activities in general?

Why does the Commonwealth support and heap praises on a constitution
that entrenches the power of the ruling aristocracy and to affirm the
state of emergency, yet unequivocally demand clear guidelines for
democracy elsewhere?

Poor people are on the receiving end of the regime's viciousness, with
more and more Swazis being forced to cross the borders into South
Africa in search of jobs, yet the country is well endowed with
abundant natural resources that have become a preserve of a tiny
ruling minority.

Finally, the following conditions obtain as regards the royal "elections":

- Political parties remain banned, with the exception of the royal
broederbond, which is the only legal political force that has monopoly
over the entire political life of our country as an organised force

- The new constitution of the monarchy, itself a direct off-shoot of
the royal decree of 1973, bans political parties and criminalises all
forms of political activity and the basic rights to associate and
organise, not to mention demonstrations and marches

- Parliament is nothing but a rubber stamp and stooge of royal power.
It has no power to determine anything that is not in the interest of
the royal family and the monarchy, aside the fact that it is largely
comprised of royalists and their apologists

- The media and judiciary are extensions and auxiliaries of the royal
establishment, independence is a luxury they cannot afford.

- Political activists are regularly detained for their peaceful
political activities, which are in anyway, illegal even according to
the new constitution proclaimed by the king recently


There are important differences between the situations in Zimabwe and
Swaziland but the end-result is basically the same - the continued
exploitation and oppression of the poor as under colonialism. The
prime lessons from these three comparisons indicate the following
factors:

- The political structures of these countries and their post-colonial
configuration vary, but the fundamentals of parasitic accumulation and
growth path remain;

- The elites that drive neo-liberalism in these countries differ in
the way they developed, with some emerging from the ranks of
anti-colonial struggles, whilst others were off-shoots of surrogate
accommodation with colonial interests, but they all became fully
integrated into the orbit of global capital accumulation and
parasitism as junior partners of the powerful forces of global
capital, transforming them into elites acting to protect their own
interests and those of global capitalism in general.

- Britain as the former colonial power is partly responsible for the
continuing crisis in these countries, cannot just play an innocent
angel or honest opinion-maker on the situation in these countries. In
fact, Britain, through the Commonwealth and on its own accord, plays
double standards, outrightly condemning Zimbabwe, but doing all it can
to protect the Swazi monarchy in Swaziland.

- The ideological arsenal of these different elites take different
forms with some of them resorting to patriarchal, narrow semi-feudal
values in the name of culture and tradition, whilst others resort to
anti-imperialist rhetoric blended with revolutionary phrase mongering.
They facilitate imperialist accumulation in general. The deployment of
reactionary ideologies to demobilise society and destroy organs of
social revolution and intensified patronage have characterised the
essence of all their approaches.

- Finally, the ruling elites are all determined to maintain, whatever
the cost in human and other terms, their power and privileges. In
other words, they are prepared to go to any extent to keep themselves
in power. Phony "elections" are therefore an integral part of renewing
their legitimacy and tightening their hold on the whole of society.
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