King Mswati tried to have sex with a bull

For traditionalists, King Mswati III’s troubled year, the rapid collapse of Swaziland’s economy and the surge in pro-democracy protests has little to do with South Africa’s revision of Southern African Customs Union (Sacu) disbursements late last year.

King Mswati tried to have sex with a bull

It has its roots, instead, in an unfortunate variation in the mystic, and private, Incwala ceremony last December. The ceremony is cloaked in secrecy and marks the king’s return to public life after a period of withdrawal and spiritual contemplation.

Among its highlights is a symbolic demonstration by the king of his power and dominance in a process involving his penetration of a black bull, beaten into semi-conscious immobility to ensure its compliant acceptance of the royal touch. The royal semen is then collected by a courtier and stored, for subsequent inclusion in food to be served at Sibaya – traditional councils – and other national forums.

But last year’s selected bull, according to a recent account from a whistle-blowing Incwala initiate, objected strongly, and threw off Africa’s last absolute monarch. The symbolism was not lost on those who witnessed it. Mswati survived popular attempts to remove him, and the near-collapse of the Swazi economy in 2011 – but does not intend to risk another year like it.

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According to a report by the Johannesburg-based Swaziland Solidarity Network (SSN), the regime is honing the combat skills of the shadowy paramilitary police corps known as the Operation Support Services Unit (OSSU) by upgrading its training and re-equipping it with new versions of the R5 assault rifle.

SSN says that the weapons are being supplied by Israel, though there is no independent confirmation of this.

The upgrade meshes with the regime’s decision to increase military spending for next year by R64-million (US$8-million), on top of the estimated R324-million (US$40,5-million) spent annually on the 3 000-strong Umbutfo Swaziland Defence Force (USDF).

The government has also been working overtime to source more funds to help pay for this and the monthly public servants wage bill of R356-million (US$44,5-million). Keen at all costs to avert mass strikes by public workers, Mswati’s main concern is to be able to continue to pay the public wage bill. The government says it has enough money to do so until February next year, but is casting around for new sources of cash.

In addition to possible deals with private investment firms on the sale of state assets at knock down prices to accumulate R1,4-billion (Vol 29 No 28), the regime has been borrowing from some of the country’s 30 parastatals, including most recently R50-million (US$6,3-million) from the Swaziland National Provident Fund.

There are no signs that Mswati has any intention of negotiating with the pro-democracy opposition, despite some perfunctory overtures in this direction several months ago.

He intends to stifle opposition voices even further by pushing through the much delayed Public Service Bill, which will among other things prohibit civil servants from taking part in any political activity. This is a direct challenge to the Swaziland National Association of Civil Servants, a mainstay of the pro-democracy movement, and portends a more confrontational stance in 2012.

These measures are unlikely to stave off Swaziland’s implosion for long, though they may enable the government to limp through the first quarter of 2012. In most respects it faces a far more precipitous new year than at the beginning of 2011.

Then, it was weighing its options for trying to make up for the 60% drop in revenue due to long-awaited cuts in payments from Sacu. It had the IMF’s “fiscal adjustment roadmap” to follow, and the possibility that, if it did, it might get the green light for a loan from the African Development Bank.

This alone would not have been enough to save the situation, but it could have conceivably contributed to a gradual turnaround had the country been under a wholly different dispensation.

But, hardwired for meltdown, the government has continued to prioritise unneeded vanity construction projects – the R8-billion (US$1-billion) second airport at Sikhuphe, the R800-million (US$100-million) Royal Science and Technology Park – and lavish stipend bonuses on the royal household and cabinet ministers.

Though the government set up the Swaziland Revenue Authority to improve tax collection, and has imposed heavier road taxes and traffic fines, Mswati continues to resist taxing the floridly opulent royal investment firms Tibiyo Taka Ngwane and Tisuka Taka Ngwane.

Tibiyo also controls the government’s shares in Swazi MTN, the Royal Swazi Sugar Corporation and the Royal Insurance Corporation, and the king refused to use them to raise loans, as was suggested by the IMF.

Instead, Mswati decided to try lobbying neighbouring South Africa for bailouts (see Vol 29 No11 and Vol 29 No 17) and, at one point, on the sidelines of the 11-12 June SADC summit, haggling for whatever he could get (Vol 29 No 18).

Mswati was happy to allow South Africa to administer a loan, but he was unwilling to sign up to the conditions on democratic reform that Pretoria attached to the R2,4-billion (US$300-million) loan it was eventually offered at the end of July.

He left the loan agreement to gather dust, despite an apparent initial softening towards the pro-democracy movement that suggested he was entertaining at least part of the democracy dividend entailed by the loan.

State funds had run dry in June, and from then until October Mbabane resorted to perilous borrowing from the Central Bank of Swaziland, threatening already depleted international reserves and the lilangeni’s parity with the rand.

The desperate measures being taken by the regime at the year’s end will hardly give it a new lease of life. The dire situation facing Swaziland’s population of just 1-million souls heavily compounds the government’s financial crisis.

Blighted by 70% poverty, mass unemployment, lack of food security and the world’s highest levels of HIV and TB, Swazis are enduring drastic cuts to healthcare that have impacted disastrously on access to anti-retroviral treatment, HIV testing and nearly all forms of specialised health care.

Average life expectancy is about 31 years, due to the combined effects of the HIV pandemic and burgeoning poverty and malnutrition. About 50% of the population is under 16 years of age, and an estimated 200 000 young people are classified as orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs), whose social welfare support has been cut by some R80-million (US$9,5-million).

Even if the government is able to muddle through for a little longer, the country’s social collapse renders the situation untenable. Much depends on whether in 2012 the pro-democracy movement, rooted in the trade union movement and loosely grouped around the banned People’s United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO), will be able to seize the initiative to bring about change.

The Practice- vs on Mswati

The strike by High Court lawyers protesting the removal of Judge Thomas Masuku and the imposition of stringent practice directives is over (see Vol 29 No 27). The dispute continues to attract unwelcome international attention for King Mswati III.

American Bar Association (ABA) president William T Robinson III has written to Swazi Justice Minister Mgwagwa Gamedze slamming the treatment of Judge Masuku, fired in June amidst a flurry of vague accusations, including sexual harassment and insulting the king.

Masuku was subsequently paraded before the Judicial Services Commission, presided over by his chief accuser, Chief Justice Michael Ramodibedi, but had no chance to defend himself. The JSC failed to pursue most of its initial charges and Masuku remains off the bench.

Members of the Swaziland Lawyers’ Association view the whole matter as a clumsy exercise by Mswati to remove a relatively independent-minded judge, and therefore a potential opponent, from the judiciary.

The ABA also criticises the introduction of a practice directive by Ramodibedi forbidding direct or indirect civil law suits against the monarch.

The ABA states that both issues contravene international law in terms of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, both acceded to by Swaziland. The ABA calls on the Ministry of Justice to ensure that Masuku receives a fair hearing by an impartial tribunal or that he is restored to office, and that it reviews practice directive No.4/2011.

The ABA’s letter keeps Mswati under an unfavourable international spotlight. Earlier, Judge Masuku’s treatment was roundly condemned by a number of international legal bodies, including the International Commission of Jurists, the Southern Africa Development Community Lawyers Association, and the Southern African Litigation Centre. SouthernAfricaReport.com

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