(Fwd) Update on semi-close SA-Swazi relations
Patrick Bond
- 21 Oct 2013
- The Mercury
- Titus Gwebu
Princess priced up for Khulubuse
KHULUBUSE Zuma, the nephew of President Jacob Zuma, presented Swaziland’s King Mswati with 100 head of cattle yesterday as lobolo for his fiancï¿œe, Princess Fikisiwe Dlamini, the king’s niece.
Khulubuse Zuma paid lobola for Swazi princess Fikisiwe Dlamini at a ceremony at the royal palace at the weekend.
Mswati was said to be delighted with the cattle, which conform with the number now needed to acquire a woman from the Swazi royal household. In June Mswati raised the stakes from 60 to 100.
“They do not appear to be sickly and one can tell that you chose the best,” Mswati told Zuma at a ceremony at Ludzidzini Royal Residence. The two men, in traditional attire of animal pelts, danced traditional celebration steps together.
The cows presented for Fikisiwe, 31, are worth more than R400 000.
Ten cows are earmarked for slaughter as part of the wedding celebration. Ten were given as “compensation” for the removal of the bride from her homestead and are customarily handed to the bride’s mother.
Both the princess’s parents are dead, but the royal family insisted on the tradition being followed.
The Zuma family delegation was headed by Ray Zuma, chief of the Zuma clan in Mpendle, near Bulwer. His resemblance to his brother Jacob confused many at the palace, who thought he was the president. Adding to the confusion was the presence of the president’s wife, Nompumelelo Ntuli Zuma.
The ceremony, held in the grand room of the palace because of wet weather, concluded with Zuma and his fiancï¿œe performing a traditional dance with Mswati. – Mercury Foreign Service
Khulubuse Zuma pays lobola of 100 cattle for Swazi princess
President’s nephew pays lobola for king’s niece
President Jacob Zuma’s nephew, Khulubuse Zuma, has paid a herd of 100 cattle as lobola for his Swazi princess.
The lavish ceremony took placeï¿œat Swazi King Mswati’s Ludzidzini Royal Village outside Mbabaneï¿œyesterday.
Zuma’s fiancï¿œe isï¿œFikisiwe Dlamini, the king’s niece.
She is the daughter of Mswati’s late brother, Prince Phiwokwakhe Dlamini.
Fikisiwe has severalï¿œboutiques in Swaziland. She runs several boutiques in the country’s major cities.
The bridegroom’s entourage and emissaries from KwaZulu-Natalï¿œarrived in Swaziland on Fridayï¿œafternoon.
Among the group was President Zuma’s daughter Duduzile, her husband, Lonwabo Sambudla, andï¿œZuma’s cousin Deebo Mzobe.daughter Duduzile and her husband Lonwabo Sambudla.
At about noon yesterday, a fleetï¿œof luxury cars started arriving at eLudzidzini for the festivities.
Khulubuse was dressed in a loincloth and a traditional Zulu headband, with a brown-and-whiteï¿œblanket draped around him.
The two families held negotiations behind closed doors before they went to the kraal to presentï¿œthe cattle to the king, who seemed very pleased.
King Mswati announcedsaid he would slaughter six cattle for his in-laws.
The Zuma family will spoil their in-laws with gifts today. City Press spotted furniture, blankets and grass mats.
***Swazi loan pulled to 'save face'
The South African government withdrew its R2.4-billion loan offer to Swaziland to save face amid the backlash that followed news of the bailout plan, the DA said yesterday.
The government was criticised for considering a bailout request from the struggling kingdom, whose king and the vast royal family enjoy a luxurious lifestyle as most of the citizens endure acute poverty.
Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan this week confirmed that the loan fell through when the monarch did not agree to its preconditions, which included political reform in a country that forbids political activism.
The loan was meant to help South Africa's neighbour to avoid an economic meltdown.
"This loan was another example of President Jacob Zuma bowing to diabolical dictatorial leaders such as [Zimbabwe president] Robert Mugabe ," said DA MP Alf Lees.
"I'm very pleased no funds were transferred. South Africa should no longer be making funds available to the world's last absolute monarchy."
Responding to a parliamentary question from Lees this week, Gordhan said South Africa had refused Swaziland's loan request despite a memorandum of understanding signed in 2011.
"These measures were designed to help guide Swaziland to a position of financial health," said Gordhan.
When the South African government did not release the first R800-million instalment, Swazi Finance Minister Majozi Sithole said it was "not a train smash". The monarchy would survive, he said.
Swaziland has banned political parties, angering the international community, and Swazi King Mswati III lives a life of ostentatious luxury as most of his subjects live in poverty.
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Swaziland 'will live without' R2.4bn loan from SA
Swaziland can do without a 2.4-billion rand loan that South Africa agreed to extend to the landlocked kingdom, its finance minister said.
The loan was agreed in 2011 as Swaziland grappled with an acute funding crisis. South Africa was due to release the first tranche of the bailout last year but the money never materialised.
"It would seem that it's not working out," Finance Minister Majozi Sithole told Reuters, citing additional conditions set by South Africa.
"If we can't get it because of any complications it's not a train smash for Swaziland. We will live without it."
South African Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan told parliament in August that Pretoria would release the first 800-million rand subject to its neighbour meeting certain fiscal and technical conditions.
The deal had initially hit problems when Swaziland – Africa's last absolute monarchy – objected to Pretoria's demands for political and economic reforms in the southern African kingdom, criticised internationally over its ban on political parties.
The budget crunch, triggered by a sharp decline in receipts from a regional customs union, caused unprecedented protests against Swaziland's King Mswati III, who has at least a dozen wives and a personal fortune estimated at $200-million. – Reuters
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NEHAWU
ￜￜￜￜￜￜￜ National Education Health & Allied Workers Union
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OFFICE OF THE SECRETARIAT
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E-Mail: Secret...@nehawu.org.za
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ￜￜￜￜ NEHAWU House
ￜￜￜￜ 56 Marshall Street
ￜￜￜￜ Marshalltown
ￜￜￜￜￜ P.O. Box 10812
ￜￜￜￜￜ Johannesburg, 2000
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ￜￜￜￜￜ Tel: (011) 833-5614
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MEDIA STATEMENT-FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
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TUESDAY, 24 SEPTEMBER, 2013
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NEHAWU CALLS ON THE ANC LED GOVERNMENT AND SADC TO PUBLICLY SUPPORT THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY IN SWAZILAND
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NEHAWU staged a successful international solidarity picket on the 20 September 2013 at Jeppe’s Reef border post in Swaziland. The picket was attended by more than 200 members and shop-stewards of the union joined by the leadership and members of the Alliance components, the ANC, SACP, COSATU and its affiliates including various progressive youth formations.
We were also joined by the revolutionary forces of Swaziland namely ,People’s United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO), Communist Party of Swaziland (CPS) and Trade Union Congress of Swaziland (TUCOSWA) also with its affiliates and youth formations including the National Public Servants Association Workers Union (NAPSAWU) and Swaziland Youth Congress (SWAYOCO).
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The picket arose from the union’s 10th national congress held in June this year which noted the despotic regime’s brutal grip on political power characterized by high levels of repression, state violence and anti-union posture. This was demonstrated by the regime’s refusal to recognize TUCOSWA as a trade union federation contrary to the 1948 ILO convention.
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We have also seen the continuation and consolidation of the 1973 Royal decree currently on its 40th year, which empowered the regime to ban political parties and thus suppress all basic political freedoms. In its desperate hold on power and the continued subjugation of the Swazi people, the regime is acting in a state of panic as evidenced by mounting arrest of political prisoners on a massive scale, the latest being the CPS Deputy General Secretary, Cde Musa Dube and many others including Cde Amos Mbedzi.
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The union is pleased that the picket managed to draw the attention of the world on the undemocratic sham elections that were organized by the regime on the same day. There can be no free elections when political parties are banned and political activists arrested daily especially when the very candidates for the elections are imposed by the royalty.ￜ
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Despite the fact that the country faces mounting challenges such as the collapsing economy and a sick health system, the royalty continues to live large. The royalty’s avaricious greed is the main cause of the economy’s collapse.
NEHAWU calls for the immediate release of all political prisoners and the unbanning of political parties. Independent political formations should be allowed to craft the country’s constitution.
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We continue to be concerned by the deafening silence of SADC and the international community on the current atrocities and plight of the ordinary people of Swaziland. Accordingly we call on SADC to speedily pay attention and intervene on behalf of the poor people of Swaziland.
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Our union as mandated by the 10th national congress will as part of intensifying our solidarity work engage the Tripartite Alliance in particular its leader the ANC, to be true to its 53rd National Conference resolution of ensuring a consolidated Alliance solidarity programme on the Swaziland question.
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We will continue with these pickets on all the borders posts with Swaziland culminating in a week long border blockade that will guarantee the collapse of the regime. We will also monitor and stage pickets whenever Mswati and his cronies visit our country’s private health facilities as they run away from their collapsing health system. We call on our members in the health sector to monitor these vultures when they come to South African hospitals.
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Issued by NEHAWU Secretariat Office
For further information, please contact: Sizwe Motha (NEHAWU Mpumalanga Provincial Secretary) at 082 455 2897
Visit the NEHAWU website: www.nehawu.org.za
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‘Not Another Cent for Mswati!’
16 October 2013
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The Communist Party of Swaziland is making its Red October Campaign for the period 2013-2014 a call to cut all funding for the despotic royal family and absolute monarchy, headed by King Mswati III. The title slogan of the campaign is ‘Not another cent for Mswati’.
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The CPS is using the campaign to highlight the fact that the money hoarded, stolen and otherwise dubiously channelled to sustain Mswati III, his 13 (soon to be 14) wives and the countless ‘royal’ parasites that make up his dynasty must be made available for the reconstruction and development of Swaziland to put an end to decades of systemic abuse and neglect of the Swazi people.
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Mswati must not receive another cent from the state or from the funds he is supposed to be “holding in trust for the Swazi nation” – the euphemistic term that is a smokescreen to hide Mswati’s corrupt seizure of national wealth. Mswati’s predecessor, Sobhuza II, created the funds in the 1970s to sustain the absolute monarchy into the future.
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There is no accountability concerning these funds, no parliamentary oversight of them, and none of them figure in the national budget or in any official information on state resources.
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The largest such fund, Tibiyo Taka Ngwane is an investment fund with shares in companies, industry, real estate, and tourism. It has 50% ownership of Ubombo Sugar Limited, the Swazi branch of the Illovo Sugar Group. It also has shares in Nedbank Swaziland, Swazispa Holdings Ltd., the Swaziland Development and Finance Group, the Royal Swaziland Sugar Corp., and Bhunu Mall.
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Tibiyo is estimated to be worth USD 2 billion.
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The second source of Mswati’s illicit income is Tisuka Taka Ngwane, which is a residential and commercial property developer.
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Both funds account for some 50% of the Swazi economy.
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If we bear in mind that Swaziland is classified by the UN as a middle-income country, but that it nevertheless has the world’s worst levels of HIV-AIDS and TB, mass poverty and drastically low levels of life expectancy; it is easy to see where the cash resources should come from to put an end to the humanitarian catastrophe afflicting our people.
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That poverty and disease are such blights on the lives of the Swazi people is directly and incontrovertibly linked to Mswati’s sources of income.
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“We think it is high time that everything held in trust for the Swazi nation is now handed over to the people,” says CPS general secretary Kenneth Kunene. “Mswati has done a bad job at holding it in trust for us. The country needs its wealth back, and the CPS is calling on people to demand what is theirs.”
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The Red October Campaign also demands that the R400 million given to the royal family each year from the state budget be immediately cancelled. And that the roughly R200 billion that is estimated to comprise Mswati’s ‘personal wealth’ be expropriated for the Swazi people.
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“Mswati and his family are no different than an organized crime syndicate,” says the CPS leader. “And the way you deal with organized crime is to cut off its access to ready cash. That way it will shrivel up and die. And that’s what we want to see happen with the Mswati regime.”
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Kunene points out that the royal family also has other income sources, such as from its share in MTN, and skimming of cash from Swazi parastatals. Businesses wanting to operate in the country also have to supply the monarch with bribes and shares of profits. “All these practices must be halted too”, says Kunene, “but it is the main sources of wealth that we want to target with the Red October Campaign.
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The Campaign will focus on making people in Swaziland aware of the vast drain on the country’s finances in order to sustain the Mswati autocracy. It will hold meetings, distribute campaign materials, issue regular press releases on the conduct of the campaign and what new information it has on Mswati’s finances. And it will lobby businesses in South Africa and other countries that have operations in Swaziland to refuse to pay any revenue or bribes to Mswati.
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The Party will investigate the operations of Tibiyo and Tisuka in detail, and examine how Mswati’s cash greed and depravity is destroying the country.
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The CPS will also expose the links between Mswati’s wealth and the degradation and impoverishment of the people of Swaziland. It will point out what the money Mswati gets each month could do if directed to social, health and education needs – all vastly underfunded – and how a strategy to provide free ARV’s and TB treatment for all could be funded from Mswati’s ill-gotten millions.
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The broad context of the campaign is the demand that only a democratic Swaziland will be able to ensure that the wealth of the country is properly used for the good of the Swazi people. Putting an end to Mswati’s illegal plundering of the country is a crucial component to creating a free and democratic Swaziland.
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Not Another Cent for Mswati!
Pull the plug on Mswati’s cash lifeline!
Spend Mswati’s millions on eliminating poverty and disease in Swaziland!
Forward to democracy, freedom and socialism!
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Contacts:
Kenneth Kunene
General Secretary
Mobile: +2772 594 3971
Email: ken....@gmail.com
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Felix Mabaso
International Organizer
Mobile: +2774 922 8277
Email: felix...@gmail.com