Politics-Swaziland - The Swaziland Solidarity Network would like to appeal to the president of South Africa, and all Southern African leaders who hold democracy to heart, to put the issue of Swaziland at the center of discussions in the forthcoming SADC troika summit, and most importantly, to take a strong resolution against its continued human rights abuses and lack of democracy. The SADC as an organization was founded on the platform created by the Frontline States, a group of states who courageously sacrificed their economic development and internal security for the liberation of South Africa from the indignantly racist Apartheid regime.

The frontline states therefore admittedly left shoes that have proven to be difficult to fill for the now decades old SADC.

With apartheid now gone from our shores forever, the SADC’s key challenges as outlined in its own documents include development in all its different aspects. The consolidation of democracy has thus been identified as one of the principal pillars upon which development can occur.

It is therefore a sore thumb that sticks out of the corner of South Africa’s Eastern borders and Mozambique’s West, Swaziland. It is a coincidence that this troika summit occurs at a time when the President of Mozambique, H.E. Mr Armando Emilio Guebuza, will be handing over the chairing of the Organ for Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation to the South African president, H.E. Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma.

Between the two of them these leaders could change the fortunes of many Swazis in a matter of days as long as they have the will to do it.

Southern Africa’s black sheep and an island of vile atrocities cannot, and should not, continue to be the region’s monument and a museum of post-colonial African dictatorship. It is a documented fact that a majority of Southern African states went through this hurdle of one party dictatorships.

The dictatorships of Hastings Kamuzu Banda, Mobuthu Sese Seko Major General Metsing Lekhanya are still fresh in the minds of many Africans even today.

Rather than adopt the spirit and the ethos of the leaders of the Frontline States who swore that their liberation was incomplete without the liberation of South Africa, these very same nations have chosen to turn a blind eye to the misery and helplessness of our Swazi brothers and sisters.

The tyrannical Swazi government has been treated with the utmost respect and generosity. So deliberate has this attitude within the SADC organization been that instead of isolating the country and putting pressure on it, the SADC has rewarded it with key leadership positions in, ironically, Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation – the same position to be filled by the South African president.

This question has to be posed to all Southern African nation states: “In having allowed this bastion of African oppression to sit at the high seat of this troika, are Southern African nations stating that Swaziland’s deplorable human rights record and disregard for democracy are what they aspire to?”

If H.E. Jacob Juma assumes the post once handed to Swaziland, is he gesturing that his commitment to democracy is at a comparable level to the king’s?

There is so much more that can be said about the double standards of this regional body but this appeal is not primarily meant to poke holes in an already sinking ship. This appeal serves as memo of the breaking of Swazi people’s threshold.

All people have a limit to the amount of oppression that they can bear. As South Africa recently commemorated the massacres of Sharpeville and Langa, this fact was once again put in the spotlight.

Swazi people have chosen to rise against their oppression on the 12 of April 2011. The world has been abuzz with news of this uprising. Swaziland’s government, as expected of an oppressive government, has responded by training a thousand police to brutally oppose this peaceful protest.

This is not an uprising of bandits and criminals. It is the uprising of the masses long ignored and marginalised. The prime catalyst for it is the collapse of the Swazi economy and its models are the North African uprisings.

Swaziland’s economic collapse has resulted in salary cuts and job losses to an already economically stressed population while this Pharaoh that the SADC leaders continue to hobnob with lives a charmed life of opulence.

As intelligence agents from Southern Africa states will have reported to their leaders by now, this is not a CIA backed uprising. It is the uprising of the ordinary Swazis, the wretched of our continent. There is therefore absolutely no reason why it should be viewed with suspicion or even ignored.

Swazis are not asking for anything that the rest of Southern Africa do not already have, a democratic government founded on the principles of equality and the right to self-governance.

Most Southern African states, having taken a tortuous path to the democratic freedoms that currently enjoy, should not wish that path upon the defenceless Swazis and ought to use this opportunity to open up doors for them. That is what the now forgotten spirit of Ubuntu demands of them.

National sovereignty must never be used as an excuse for turning a blind eye on the blatant abuse of state power to inflict harm on the minds and bodies of fellow Africans.

Swaziland Solidarity Network/30/03/2011