SWAZILAND@NEWSLETTER 36
PUBLISHED BY SOUTHERN AFRICA CONTACT (DENMARK)

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1. Drastic fall in employment. No end in sight to job losses. IRIN, 8 June
2006.

2. Sharp rise in food and transport prices - overall inflation at 5.54%.
Business in Africa (BiA Online), 20 June 2006.

3. Swazi orphans' education threatened, 21 June 2006, Sapa-AFP.

4. AIDS slows down school building efforts in rural areas. IRIN, 19 June
2006.

5. Change in women's role in society troubling for men. IRIN, 15 Jun 2006.

6. Global climate change and land tenure system leading to increase in
desertification. IRIN, 12 June 2006.

7. International community urged to impose sanctions on royal elite in
Swaziland. 23 June 2006, ANDnetwork.com (Johannesburg).

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1. Drastic fall in employment. No end in sight to job losses. IRIN, 8 June
2006.

Sugar production and textile manufacturing in Swaziland are on their way
out, taking tens of thousands of jobs with them.

Just how far Swaziland's employment figures have deteriorated is evidenced
in research being carried out by the International Labour Organisation
(ILO). "We are surveying all private businesses, and we estimate there are
20,000 formal-sector jobs in all of Swaziland. This is down from 65,000
jobs in 2002," said Happiness Dludlu, National Project Coordinator for the
ILO in Swaziland.

Vincent Ncongwane, Secretary-General of the Swaziland Federation of
Labour, estimates fewer jobs have been lost: "I would think the number of
jobs would be higher - closer to 30,000 - but that is still less than half
of what we had four years ago."

The new data confirms what people like Musa Matsebula, an electrician in
Swaziland's manufacturing sector, see daily. "The [number of] people
wanting jobs just gets bigger all the time. Anyone can see that things are
getting harder for the worker in this country," Matsebula said as he
watched crowds of unemployed people swarm the factory gates at the
Matsaspha Industrial Estate just outside Manzini town, in Swaziland's
commercial heartland.

According to Ncongwane, the sharp drop in employment could be explained by
ongoing retrenchments throughout the economy, and the closing of
labour-intensive factories in the garment industry in particular.
Economists and union leaders, like Ncongwane, are also wondering whether
the 2000-02 rise in jobs, when Asian garment manufacturers set up shop in
Swaziland and created tens of thousands of employment opportunities, was a
temporary blip.

"The clothing-makers came to Swaziland from Taiwan to take advantage of
Swaziland's preferable trade benefits with the US under the African Growth
and Opportunity Act. Since then, Swaziland's status under the act has been
uncertain and the Swazi currency has also doubled in strength against the
dollar. This made Swazi garments expensive overseas, and put further
pressure on Asian-owned businesses here," said Robert Maxwell of the
Swaziland Exporters Association.

The ensuing rise of cheaply priced Chinese garment exports throughout the
world saw the closure of several large Swaziland-based clothing
manufacturers.

Mduduzi Gina, Deputy Secretary-General of the Swaziland Federation of
Trade Unions (SFTU), said the government had miscalculated in promoting
growth in one industry - garments - by one national investor - Taiwan.
"We need a variety of investors. We should never befriend investors solely
for political reasons," said Gina.
Swaziland is one of the few countries with diplomatic ties to Taiwan, but
does not recognise the People's Republic of China. Taiwan returned the
favour by encouraging its garment-makers to invest in Swaziland.

Swaziland's sugar cultivation and processing industry has also been
shedding jobs. Sugar is the top export product, and until last year, the
top export revenue earner.

Thousands of Swazi workers were laid off in 2005 and several cooperatives
failed because of declining profits, after currency appreciation and
cheaper Brazilian sugar made the local product uncompetitive
internationally.

According to Mike Matsebula, CEO of the Swaziland Sugar Association, the
European Union (EU) purchases about one-third of Swaziland's sugar output,
and will do so again this year. But the price the EU pays is expected to
decline by 37 percent next year, putting further pressure on the industry
and its jobs.

In 2002, 66 percent of Swaziland's 1.1 million population lived below the
poverty line, and current unemployment is estimated at 45 percent. No
recent data is available to show how many more families have plunged into
poverty in the wake of the formal-sector job losses since 2002.

Khabo Dlamini, Principal Labour Officer of the Ministry of Enterprise and
Employment, commented, "There is not a lot of new job activity in the
country - we haven't seen big companies opening with a large number of
employees."

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2. Sharp rise in food and transport prices - overall inflation at 5.54%.
Business in Africa (BiA Online), 20 June 2006.

Swaziland’s inflation rate for May 2006 stood at 5.54 percent, according
to a Central Statistics report.
The report said consumer price index (CPI) was 0.49 higher than in April.

Central Statistics said, “This rate of inflation is due to higher annual
rates of change reflected in May 2006 in the price indices for food, whose
rate is 14.99 percent. The rate of transport and communication is 10.19
percent, while that of alcohol and tobacco stands at 7.47 percent."

Power and fuel increased by 2.01 percent and education by 2.86 percent
said the report.
Inflation in the country has ranged between 4.28 and 6.34 percent since
last May.

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3. Swazi orphans' education threatened, 21 June 2006, Sapa-AFP.

Mbabane - More than 69 000 orphaned or poor children in Swaziland may have
to give up school because the government has not paid their fees, the head
of a national teachers' association said Wednesday.

The southern African kingdom had allocated 60 million emalangeni (about
R58-million) in its last budget to support the education of 69 500
destitute pupils and orphans, including those who have lost their parents
to HIV and Aids, but had not paid the money so far, Charles Bennett said.

"If the money is not paid by Friday this week we told the pupils that they
must not bother with coming to school on June 26 because the schools can
no longer afford to operate efficiently without their share coming from
government," he said, adding: "We can no longer operate like this."

Bennett said schools were being sued by suppliers of teaching aids and
other items for debt.

There are approximately 450 000 students spread across 800 schools in
Swaziland, Africa's last absolute monarchy.

Swaziland's King Mswati III has attracted criticism for his lavish
lifestyle in a country where more than half of the 1, 1 million population
lives below the poverty line and some 40 percent of adults are HIV
infected, the highest rate in the world.

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4. AIDS slows down school building efforts in rural areas. IRIN, 19 June
2006.

Deaths of parents from AIDS-related illnesses in rural Swaziland has
slowed the rate of school construction, school officials told Prime
Minister Themba Dlamini during a visit to the north of the country.

"Construction of our high school was financed by parents. Unfortunately,
most of these parents have passed away and everything has stopped,"
Phindile Magagula, a community leader in Ludzibini, in northern Hhohho
region, told Dlamini over the weekend. At 33.4 percent, Swaziland has one
of the highest HIV infection rates in the world.

The government does not construct schools, leaving it to the communities
to determine their needs. Tuition fees cover basic school upkeep,
electricity and water charges. The Ministry of Education provides the
teachers, and recently began paying for school textbooks for primary
students.

Magagula said each household in Ludzibini was required to contribute about
US$29 annually for the construction of a school building, which began in
2001. But by 2003, too many parents had died, and the children left behind
were unable to cover the construction costs.

During his daylong visit to the region, Dlamini heard similar stories in
other villages. Each with a population of a few hundred, the villages
reported they were burying two parents every week.
"The parents are dead, but the children ... require education. It is no
longer enough for government to agree to pay school fees for orphans. The
children also need places to go to school," said Gugu Maziya, a teacher in
the Hhohho region.

However, the government's commitment to assist orphans and vulnerable
children by paying their school fees has been trumped by the reality of
limited resources. The UN Children's Fund estimates there are 70,000
orphans out of a national population of 1.1 million, and expects the
number to rise to 120,000 by 2010.

Tens of thousands of orphans are now halfway through the school year, but
last week principals vowed to expel all children who had not managed to
pay their fees.

Education minister Constance Simelane said she was unable to resolve the
crisis, and urged the principals to reconsider. Prime Minister Dlamini
echoed the sentiment when he spoke to Ludzibini community members. "We
need to nurture and protect our children, and I therefore call upon
teachers not to turn back those owing pupils ... Every child should be
given an opportunity of going to school."

Dlamini urged the education ministry and school principals to seek a
compromise, but did not offer a plan to finance the education of orphans
and vulnerable children.

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5. Change in women's role in society troubling for men. IRIN, 15 Jun 2006.


A group of men took to the streets in protest this week after a number of
well-publicised incidents reported attacks by women, but some analysts say
the real scare is the changing role of women in society.

"Get a wife and hang yourself," read a placard waved by a Swazi man in his
thirties at the offices of the Swaziland Action Group Against Abuse
(SWAGAA).
"There is a double standard - violence against women gets all the
headlines; violence against men is treated as a not serious thing, because
SWAGAA has not condemned these acts," said Julius Malambe, one of the men
who delivered a petition to the action group's offices.

The 17-year-old NGO, located in the commercial hub of Manzini, 35km east
of the capital, Mbabane, introduced the subject of violence against women
and children in a country where domestic violence had been ignored by
police and denied by traditional authorities. SWAGAA offers medical and
legal assistance and psychological counselling to victims of abuse, most
of whom are women.

But a number of recent media accounts of men being victimised by women
have sparked anger. One front-page story showed the life-threatening burns
of a man who was doused with gasoline and set alight by his
daughter-in-law. In another story, a man was arrested by police after his
ex-wife falsely accused him of abusing his daughter.
"When women are victims, the men are locked up," said political activist
Mphandlana Shongwe, who delivered the petition.

SWAGAA condemned the petrol attack, both in print and in the electronic
media, and SWAGAA's public relations officer, Hlobsile Dlamini, said they
were actually delighted that men were now engaged in the subject of
domestic violence.

Dlamini said the men's petition would be taken seriously and SWAGAA would
meet with them for discussions. "In fact, we were thrilled to see them at
our door. We have been trying to get men to take this seriously for years.
Now they come to us, not as an organisation but just as random men who are
alarmed at the way violence is escalating in our homes," Dlamini told
IRIN.
SWAGAA has begun fundraising for a campaign to raise awareness of domestic
violence among men, and the Canadian NGO, Crossroads International, has
reportedly agreed to help with financing.

Some social analysts felt Swazi men were less concerned about random acts
of violence by women against men than the evolution of women's role in
society. Women have been guaranteed equal rights since the new
constitution was signed by King Mswati, and international observers have
praised the gender rights clauses as the constitution's most progressive
element.

"Swazi men may still legally practice polygamy, and they were brought up
in a patriarchal society. Gender rights are seen as a foreign concept
imposed on Swazis by white Europeans who wish to emasculate the African
man. Not all Swazi men feel this insecure, but many do," said Gloria
Ndlovu, a graduate student in sociology at the University of Swaziland.

"The cases of violence by women against men you read about in the
newspapers are real, but they are also used as symbols by Swazi men. They
represent the unleashing of evil, the opening of a Pandora's box, when
women step out of their traditional, subservient roles," a psychiatrist at
Manzini's National Psychiatric Centre told IRIN.

Dlamini agrees: "Times are changing, and men are freaking out. What is
important is that the talk is out in the open - we can channel that anger,
using education and outreach programmes." The goal is to instil an
acceptance that "two wrongs don't make a right", and an understanding that
violence and psychological abuse against anyone is unacceptable.

"Out of 100 domestic violence cases handled by us, five concern men who
have suffered physical or other abuse at the hands of women - 95 percent
of cases are women and children who have been victimised by men - but all
forms of violence must be condemned and extinguished," Dlamini said.

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6. Global climate change and land tenure system leading to increase in
desertification. IRIN, 12 June 2006.

Swaziland says global warming is the key culprit in encroaching
desertification, which is causing habitable areas and croplands to
disappear and exacerbating the impoverished country's food security
crisis, rather than looking closer to home for the reasons.~

"We are told that because of climate change, semi-arid areas like in the
lowveld region of Swaziland will become even more dry. Hence, the need to
develop coping strategies for these changes," said environment minister
Thandi Shongwe at a rally the capital, Mbabane, on Friday.

According to a new report by the Swaziland Environmental Authority, about
10 percent of the southern Shiselweni and eastern Lubombo regions have
become marginalised since the 1990s, due to persistent drought, population
pressure on available land and water resources, and an overabundance of
grazing cattle - all factors that have contributed to land degradation and
soil erosion for decades.

Shongwe said the country was suffering the effects of pollution by
industrialised nations, while tiny Swaziland, with 30,000 registered motor
vehicles for a population of one million and negligible industry, was not
a large contributor to greenhouse gases.

"What I want to point out is that prosperity built on destruction is not
prosperity at all, but rather a temporary reprieve from tragedy; without
major policy changes we face a future filled with danger," Shongwe said,
calling for talks between developing nations and the developed world to
reverse the effects of global warming on countries like Swaziland.

Some environmentalists felt other factors contributing to desertification
in Swaziland could be dealt with immediately, but said government lacked
the political will to do so.

The king holds all land in trust for the nation, which is allocated as
communal land by traditional leaders. "Chiefs settle their new subjects in
inappropriate places. The population is growing so much that people are
located in marginal land unsuitable for farming: they destroy the soil
with repeated mono-cropping of maize, and eliminate all the forests and
indigenous trees for firewood," Amos Nsibandze, an environmental activist,
told IRIN.

He said the government has also been unwilling to put limits on the large
number of cattle roaming the countryside. "The traditionalists say cattle
are sacred in Swazi culture, and you cannot interfere with a Swazi man's
cattle."

Swazi cattle are not confined to feedlots, but are found in small herds
tended by small-scale farmers on Swazi Nation land. According to a
Swaziland Central Bank report, the cattle population of 800,000 greatly
surpassed grazing capacity, which could only support an estimated 600,000
head of cattle...

Construction has begun on a pipeline to carry irrigation water from
relatively full dams in the north to relieve chronic drought conditions
the south, but environmentalists caution that this will not mitigate soil
erosion until farmers are taught proper cropping techniques and
environmental awareness is instilled in the countryside.

Nsibandze pointed out that "we also need to find alternative fuel sources
to indigenous trees, before those are all gone".
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7. International community urged to impose sanctions on royal elite in
Swaziland. 23 June 2006, ANDnetwork.com (Johannesburg).

The Danish delegation which recently visited the Kingdom to assess the
country's political climate has urged the
international community to impose sanctions on the royal elite in
Swaziland.

Patrick Mac Manus, spokesperson of Southern Africa Contact (SAC), said
increased pressure is required to push for democratic change in the
Kingdom. Mac Manus said Swaziland is facing unremitting crisis and without
urgent democratic renewal, the country will face further decline and
desperation.

"Throughout the years, SAC has supported the democratic movement in
Swaziland, both in material and political terms. As the successor
organisation to the Danish Anti-Apartheid Movement, we feel such
involvement natural."

"In Swaziland the great majority of the people must submit to a status of
second-class citizenship, deprived of political rights by an authoritarian
regime, employing an oppressive interpretation of Swazi culture to
legitimise the rule of the royal clan," said Mac Manus.

King Mswati III, the last African absolute monarch has been under fire
from various sections of the international community to allow political
democracy in the tiny kingdom.

SAC said governance is in deep crisis in Swaziland and the crisis must be
brought to a head by a mass democratic movement which seeks to make the
country ungovernable, not least in the rural areas.

"Without deep political, social and economic transformation the very
survival of the nation would seem to be at stake," Mac Manus added.

The Foreign Minister of Swaziland, Mathendele Dlamini, said the government
will only respond when SAC takes action.

"I have just arrived from the far-east, I don't know of anyone calling for
sanctions against us. We can only comment on the implications if when they
act," said Dlamini.

In May the European Union convened a meeting with civic groups in
Swaziland to collect views about their participation in the new
constitution. The EU intended to collect the opposition's views on their
participation within the Kingdom's new constitution.

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SWAZILAND@NEWSLETTER is published by Southern Africa Contact (SAC,
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