LUNGA MASUKU, Mbabane, Swaziland | Thursday
SWAZILAND’s former colonial master, Britain, registered its concern on Wednesday about the perceived erosion of the independence of the kingdom’s judiciary and media.
Outgoing British High Commissioner to Swaziland, Neil Hook, said that a contentious decree published at the weekend had disappointed both political and business observers in the southern African kingdom of roughly one million people.
Decree 2 of 2001 effectively places Swaziland absolute monarch King Mswati III above criticism by making it a criminal offence to insult, ridicule or impersonate the king and other senior members of his ruling Dlamini dynasty.
It also reinstates an unconstitutional law prohibiting bail for serious criminal offences, strengthens the government’s powers to ban or proscribe the media, and makes it impossible for courts to question any matters being considered by the king.
”We are disappointed that Swaziland felt it necessary to issue this kind of decree, which effectively interferes with the independence of the judiciary and freedom of the press. We feel the decree sends the wrong signal to foreign investors interested in Swaziland,” Hook said.
Hook stressed that Swaziland’s foreign affairs ministry had failed to brief any of the international diplomatic missions to Swaziland on the decree.
”It is therefore difficult to understand what the government hoped to achieve,” he said.
South Africa’s High Commission first secretary Thando Dalamba said diplomats were currently forced to rely on Swaziland’s two surviving newspapers for news on the decree and its consequences.
”We don’t know anything other than what has been published in the local press, but we are watching developments very closely while we wait for Swaziland to officially communicate with us,” said Dalamba.
”We are obviously concerned, and if what we read is true, then this would be an issue for serious discussion by the South African government.” United States Embassy public affairs manager Bruce Lohof confirmed the embassy is also ”deeply concerned” and has requested urgent guidance from the US government in Washington DC.
”We’ve been promised a policy directive on Friday, and will only be able to comment then,” said Lohof.
International condemnation of the decree meanwhile continued on Wednesday, with the Media Institute of Southern Africa (Misa) calling on the government to lift the effective state-of-emergency created by the decree and restore the rule of law.
”[We are] also alarmed at the reinstatement of the Non-Bailable Order – whereby bail is refused arrested persons – which was recently declared unconstitutional by the Appeals Court and the decree that no person or institution, including the courts, may challenge any matter pending before the king. These powers are excessively severe and are in contravention of Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” said Misa South Africa national governing council member Raymond Louw.
The umbrella Swaziland Solidarity Network (SSN), representing banned political parties, labour unions and multi-party democracy activists, have also condemned the decree.
”This barbaric decree … has served to reinforce the legalised and institutionalised reign of political terror in the kingdom under the tyrant rule of the king. It shall be born in mind that the people of Swaziland had been living under a perpetual state of emergency for 28 years, which was declared in 1973,” SSN said.
All political parties were banned in 1973, when rule by royal decree was instituted by Mswati’s father just five years after independence from Britain.
South Africa’s largest labour union, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), Swaziland Human Rights Association (Humaras), international media watchdog Reporters Sans Frontieres, and a range of other regional human rights groups have condemned the decree and called for the kingdom’s diplomatic isolation.
Swaziland’s Prime Minister Sibusiso Dlamini and Attorney General Peshayad Dlamini have both publicly attempted to defend the decree, insisting that it merely emphasised and strengthened the existing royal decree of 1973.
Both denied that it was designed to silence mounting media and judicial criticism of government policies or indefinitely lock up pro-democracy activists charged under the Sedition and Subversive Activities Act, and dismissed local newspaper headlines such as ”Unleashing A Reign of Terror” as alarmist and sensationalist reportage. – African Eye News Service
The king is always right June 26, 2001
Swazi king declares state of emergency June 25, 2001
New ban on two Swazi newspapers May 24, 2001
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