The long walk from absolute monarchy to democracy in Swaziland/Eswatini

Unthinkable, a film made by the Swaziland Solidarity Forum that has been widely watched on YouTube. The film strengthened calls for justice.

In November 2021, President Cyril Ramaphosa visited Swaziland/Eswatini as part of the SADC Troika. After the meeting, King Mswati III committed to initiating a national dialogue to discuss the demands raised in the protests. This was yet to happen by early February 2022, and suggestions that it should form part of the king’s traditional Sibaya have been condemned by democracy activists.

Although the 2021 protests were quashed, tensions remain high and the thirst for democracy unquenched.

In early February, several student leaders were arrested and later released. But two of Swaziland/Eswatini’s MPs, Mduduzi Bacede Mabuza and Mthandeni Dube, remain in prison awaiting trial. Activists who spoke to Maverick Citizen allege that the judge presiding over their trial is the king’s sister-in-law whose husband is the attorney-general.

In October 2021, Swaziland/Eswatini’s usually quiescent Commission on Human Rights and Public Administration Integrity tabled its Preliminary assessment report on Civil Unrest in the Kingdom of Eswatini, June 2021. The report (which does not seem to be available online, but which we publish below) concluded that: “Human rights violations and abuses were perpetrated during the unrest…”

The Commission said that in their assessment “lethal force was used indiscriminately on protesters and members of the public who were not even part of the protests.

“This is demonstrated by the death of children and women. Also, the injuries sustained by victims on the upper body such as head, abdomen, and spinal area.”

In addition, the Commission found that “the majority of people arrested were detained for unreasonably prolonged periods without trial. Even though they were eventually afforded their right to bail, the courts often imposed excessive bails and steep fines”.

However, according to Maxwell Dlamini, a local human rights activist, the report has underestimated the number of civilians killed. As a result, says Dlamini, “the civil society and pro-democracy movement has demanded that an independent and international body carry out the actual investigations”.

“The Coordinating Assembly of Non-Governmental Organisations announced that they would be lobbying for an international investigation into the shooting and killing of civilians in Eswatini.”

Nonetheless, a proposal to debate the Commission’s report in the Senate of the Swazi parliament is said to have been quashed.

King’s law or Constitutional law?

In this context, Maverick Citizen has interviewed activists about their experience of the legal system in Swaziland/Eswatini, particularly how amendable the law is to advancing human rights and ensuring justice for those who died last year in protests against Africa’s last absolute monarchy.

The answer is that “it is not easy”.

Anneke Meerkotter, the executive director of the Southern African Litigation Centre (SALC), an NGO based in Johannesburg that assists human rights litigation across the SADC region, says Swaziland/Eswatini is a bundle of contradictions when it comes to the law.

Meerkotter says, on the one hand, “you can do a hell of a lot with the law in Eswatini”. On the other hand, she agrees that land is used for political control, that the judiciary is prone to political influence and that charges of sedition are being used against democracy campaigners (even though the High Court has declared the crime of sedition unconstitutional) to make activists afraid of speaking out.

In a March 2021 submission to the UN Office of the High Commission on Human Rights, SALC noted how:

“The King’s Proclamation of 1973, which disbanded the Constitution and prohibited political parties, continues to create a climate that stifles freedom of association. Even though the Constitution of 2005, which supersedes the Proclamation, allows for freedom of association, there remains a perception that political parties are banned.

“This is reinforced by the designation of PUDEMO as a terrorist group and the continued arrest of persons for belonging to PUDEMO despite them not being involved in any terrorist activities.”

More recently, SALC has warned how the king continues to stifle dissent and how “since independence, the sedition offence has repeatedly been used against activists who criticise the monarchy. Its continued use is not only a disproportionate response to criticism but a sign of a paranoid and desperate State”.

But, says Meerkotter, ironically the country has a good Refugee Act and a good Domestic Workers Act and has recently seen a big mobilisation around a court case seeking to advance the rights of the LGBTI community. Judgment in that matter is awaited.

Maverick Citizen interviewed Thulani Maseko, a veteran human rights lawyer who was imprisoned between 2014 and 2015 (watch him speak on Using the Law to Defeat a King