Southern African leaders have urged Eswatini to “urgently initiate” its delayed national political dialogue and to “conduct a swift, transparent and comprehensive investigation” into the recent murder of prominent human rights lawyer and political activist Thulani Maseko.

Maseko chaired Eswatini’s Multi-Stakeholder Forum, a group of opposition political parties and civic organisations which had been assembled to articulate the demands of democrats in the national political dialogue that King Mswati had agreed to in 2021 but which he has not yet launched.  

Kenyan human rights defenders stand around a portrait during a candlelight vigil held in solidarity against the murder of Swaziland human rights defender Thulani Maseko, in Nairobi, Kenya, 28 January 2023. The Kenyan activists called for justice on the murder of the human rights defender and lawyer Maseko who was gunned down on the evening of 21 January 2023, in his house outside the capital of Eswatini (formerly Swaziland). (Photo: EPA-EFE / Daniel Irungu)

The regional leaders discussed the crisis in Eswatini at a special summit of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in Windhoek on Tuesday. They met as the troika of the SADC’s security organ which deals with security crises in the region. 

The organ is currently chaired by Namibian President Hage Geingob. Ramaphosa and Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema, the other members of the troika, attended the meeting, as did SADC chairperson Felix Tshisekedi, president of the Democratic Republic of Congo. 

Swazi Prime Minister Cleopas Dlamini, Lesotho Prime Minister Samuel Matekani and Mozambican Defence Minister Cristovao Chume also attended, as the situations in their countries were on the agenda. 

Kenyan human rights defenders hold lit candles and flowers during a candlelight vigil held in solidarity against the murder of Swaziland human rights defender Thulani Maseko, in Nairobi, Kenya, 28 January 2023. The Kenyan activists called for justice on the murder of the human rights defender and lawyer Maseko who was gunned down on the evening of 21 January 2023, in his house outside the capital of Eswatini (formerly Swaziland). (Photo: EPA-EFE / Daniel Irungu)

In calling on Eswatini to urgently initiate the national dialogue, the regional leaders went further than Geingob had in a statement he issued on Maseko’s murder on 25 January. 

In that statement Geingob had said: “SADC reiterates the need for peaceful resolution of the political and security challenges affecting the country. When dialogue fails, people go to war. Therefore, we propose that national and inclusive multi-stakeholder dialogue takes place.”

After their summit on Tuesday, the SADC leaders “urged the Government of the Kingdom of Eswatini to urgently initiate the process of the National Dialogue and urged all stakeholders in the Kingdom of Eswatini to remain calm and participate peacefully in the National Dialogue.”

Relatives and friends comfort Tanele Maseko, the wife to the late human rights activists during his funeral. (Photo: Supplied)

The summit “reiterated SADC’s condemnation of the killing of Mr Thulani Rudolf Maseko, a leading human rights lawyer and political activist in the Kingdom of Eswatini, who, at the time of his death, was chairperson of the Multi-Stakeholder Forum, and urged the government of the Kingdom of Eswatini to conduct a swift, transparent and comprehensive investigation into the killing of Mr Maseko”. 

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Maseko was shot dead through a window of his home near Manzini on the night of 21 January while watching TV with his family. The murder appeared to be an assassination, as the killer or killers did not enter the house and nothing was taken. 

Eswatini has been in a state of simmering crisis since mid-2021 when violent protests and riots erupted after attempts by the authorities to clamp down on citizens expressing complaints to their members of parliament. The security forces violently suppressed the protests, killing scores of civilians. 

This prompted an intervention by SADC, which sent several fact-finding missions to Eswatini to meet the government and pro-democracy forces to seek a solution to the crisis. 

In November 2021, Ramaphosa, then chairperson of SADC’s security organ, visited Mswati in Eswatini and persuaded him to launch a national political dialogue to resolve the crisis. 

The dialogue was supposed to start early in 2022 but got bogged down in disagreements over the format and participants. Maseko and other opposition leaders accused Mswati of deliberately stalling.

Tuesday’s SADC summit in Windhoek also discussed other security crises in the SADC region, including the Islamic State-affiliated insurgency in northern Mozambique, and the continuing warfare in eastern DRC.

The leaders’ communiqué tacitly acknowledged the difficulties which the SADC intervention force in Mozambique, Samim, is experiencing in trying to defeat the insurgency. The leaders “reiterated the call for member states to urgently respond to requests for critical capabilities to enhance the operational capability of the SADC Mission in Mozambique”.

Military analysts said they believed that the leaders were referring to the lack of important equipment such as attack helicopters, which has previously been identified as hampering the SADC mission. 

The SADC leaders also addressed a video clip that circulated on social media earlier in January, purporting to show Samim soldiers disrespectfully tossing dead bodies onto a pile of burning rubbish. The video showed what seemed to be a South African National Defence Force soldier in Samim casually photographing the events. 

“Summit noted the ongoing investigations being undertaken by Samim leadership following a disturbing video clip circulating on social media depicting what appears to be Samim personnel burning deceased people, and reiterated that the public will be informed once the investigations are completed, as communicated by the Chairperson of the Organ in his statement issued on 11 January 2023,” the communiqué said.

The regional leaders also obliquely addressed a concern previously raised in private by SADC officials and analysts; the lack of coordination between SADC forces and those of the East African Community, in addressing the continuing violence in eastern DRC.

Soldiers of SADC member states, South Africa, Tanzania and Malawi have been deployed in eastern DRC since 2013 as members of the United Nations Force Intervention Brigade to help DRC government troops fight armed rebels.

Last year, apparently without consulting SADC, the East African Community, which the DRC had recently joined, decided to send its own military intervention force into eastern DRC to fight the armed rebels. 

The SADC leaders appeared to be alluding to this lack of consultation on Tuesday when they “resolved to initiate dialogue amongst the Member States of different Regional Economic Communities that have deployed forces in the DRC with a view to establish and implement mechanisms for the effective coordination of their interventions in the DRC”.

And the SADC leaders also adopted the draft African Union Declaration on America’s proposed “Countering Malign Russian Activities in Africa Act”, a bill which would impose sanctions on entities like Russia’s controversial Wagner private military company for its activities in Africa. 

The bill could also be used against African governments and entities which do business with the likes of Wagner. Though the bill was passed overwhelmingly in the US House of Representatives, it has not been passed by the Senate and appears very unlikely to be, according to Congressional sources. 

South Africa has led the African charge against the bill, condemning it as unwarranted meddling in the right of African countries to do business with whomever they choose. 

And in the same paragraph, the SADC leaders “reaffirmed the stance of non-alignment on conflicts outside the continent and the region at multilateral fora”, – a clear endorsement of the abstaining by South Africa and other SADC countries from resolutions at the United Nations General Assembly last year, condemning Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. DM