poachers
James Hall Swazis’ cultural antipathy toward snakes has prompted the Swaziland Senate to rally to the defence of three poachers who were arrested for killing a 3m-long python. Senator Simeon Simelane raised a motion last week calling for the minister of justice to release the suspects. Other senators in their submissions depicted the poachers as heroes and fulfillers of God’s will for “ridding the kingdom of deadly snakes”. There has never been a reported case of a python harming anyone in Swaziland, according to the Big Game Parks of Swaziland’s founder, Ted Reilly. Three teenage boys in the southern Shiselweni District spotted the python and set about beating it to death with sticks and stones, although they later admitted to investigating officers that the snake posed no danger. Their motive was profit. They took the carcass to a highway and displayed it to passing motorists, with a sale price of R800. Unfortunately for them, a photographer turned up, and they made the front page of the Times of Swaziland, holding the python aloft. They were arrested for contravening a colonial-era Game Act. In Parliament senators appeared confused about the law, mistaking the Game Act for a 1992 Anti-Poaching Act that has virtually rid the country of poachers and is credited by nature conservationists with having saved Swaziland’s rhino population. Senators felt poaching laws only applied within game parks. They were unaware that a protected animal cannot be killed at any location. Nor did they know that the python is protected by national law and international conservation accords to which Swaziland is a signatory.
Senators were not set straight by the Senate Deputy President, Reverend Abednego Dlamini. He used the opportunity to rail against all snakes as damned creatures: “I wish to bring to your attention that we are what we are today, exiles from paradise, because of a snake. A snake sinned before God, and God instructed that it should be killed whenever seen.”
Dlamini demanded the release of the poachers who, he said, were merely executing God’s will. Other senators concurred. Senator Patson Khumalo complained “we would be jailed even for killing a deadly mamba snake in our garden”. Dlamini’s sermon outraged conservationists, and had biblical scholars scratching their heads. “If God wanted snakes obliterated, why did he command Noah to include two on the arc?” wondered Reverend Jabulani Dlamini.
“God condemned Satan, who had taken the form of a snake, and He commanded that satanic influences and evil be wiped out. The literal-minded reverend should take a refresher course on theology.” Admitting that the conservation message has failed to penetrate Swazis’ anti-snake predilections, the Big Game Parks has mounted an advertising campaign to highlight the beauty and value of snakes, such as their role in vermin control, and urging anyone who feels threatened by a snake not to kill it but to call game rangers for removal to a protected area.