While the Swazi constitution provides for freedom of speech and the press, this is completely nullified by a clause in the constitution allowing the king to suspend these rights at any time. The country has only one independent newspaper – the Times of Swaziland – and journalists face reprisals if they criticise the monarchy or government. By MANQOBA NXUMALO.
The media in Swaziland operate under difficult conditions characterised by state-induced fear and censorship by a government that tolerates neither criticism nor different political ideologies. Although the constitution provides for freedom of speech and of the press, these rights may be waived by the king at any time. In addition, while there are no laws banning or restricting criticism of the monarchy or other officials, journalists have been warned that publishing any such criticism could be construed as treason, terrorism, sedition or fall foul of the many laws that govern the media environment in Swaziland.
The turn of events at the country’s much-vaunted yet farcical Smart partnership dialogue in May 2010 illustrates the environment in which journalists operate. The annual event, held at the Mavuso Trade Fair in Manzini, the hub of Swaziland, had coincidentally come at a time when the country was experiencing renewed pressure from local civil society groups and banned political parties. They were calling for a reform of the country’s system of governance, which bans political parties and allows King Mswati III to rule as an absolute monarch with a puppet government and rubber-stamp parliament.
The event also occurred at a time when senior royal insiders had begun to flirt openly with the idea of holding political dialogue with the country’s underground political parties so the country could usher in democracy peacefully. At a Q&A session between journalists and King Mswati III (including his government and senior royal figures), the ruler was asked if his country was ever going to engage in political dialogue with the banned political parties, since the country seemed to be at a crossroads.
No one had anticipated that such an honest question would result in the country's leadership raining down hatred on the journalists gathered at the press conference. In a fit of rage, Prince Mahlaba, the king’s right-hand man and a senior member of his advisory committee, shot up to answer the question and went on a vacuous bluster, accusing journalists of selling the kingdom to “our enemies”. He accused journalists of everything under the sun and even threatened that those who wrote bad things about the country would die. As if that were not enough, Prime Minister Sibusiso Dlamini, accused news columnists of tarnishing the name of Swaziland and ordered the stunned editors to do something about this.
This was not the first time journalists, and columnists in particular, had come under attack. In 2008, the attorney-general forced the Times group of newspapers to remove Mario Masuko, president of opposition party the People's United Democratic Movement, as one of its columnists. The government claimed that the paper was supporting terrorism by publishing Masuko. In the same year, the government enacted a vague and internationally condemned Anti-Terrorism Act, under the guise of fighting terrorism. As noted by many observers, including Amnesty International, the law was so vaguely worded that any legitimate criticism of the government could be seen as a call to terrorism. In addition, the law sought to make any person guilty until proven innocent (government can proscribe people or groups as terrorists at its whim and discretion and the onus to prove otherwise lies with the “victim”).
These examples demonstrate how an undemocratic and largely autocratic leadership views journalists in Swaziland and media freedom in general. In a report compiled by the Media Institute of Southern African and submitted to US state department, where it was included as part of a report on human rights in Swaziland in March 2010, it was noted that the case of media freedom in Swaziland was still a struggle far from being won.
An extract from the report reads: “The king may suspend the constitutional right to free expression at his discretion, and the government severely restricted freedom of expression, especially regarding political issues or the royal family. Individuals – and family members of individuals – who criticised the monarchy risked exclusion from the traditional regiments (chiefdom-based groupings of Swazi males dedicated to serving the king) patronage system that distributed scholarships, land and other benefits. Traditional chiefs were obliged to punish offenders when matters were brought to their attention. During the year the prime minister warned journalists against making statements that could be interpreted as seditious.”
Journalists in Swaziland continued to be threatened, harassed and assaulted, and most of this treatment passes without condemnation by the authorities, as can be shown by the numerous Misa reports on the state of media freedom in Swaziland. For example, on 12 January 2009, after being pressured by police and government authorities, former cabinet minister and Times of Swaziland columnist Mfomfo Nkambule publicly apologised to the king for a series of articles that criticised the monarchy. Prime Minister Sibusiso Dlamini had threatened to charge Nkambule and other media commentators under the 2008 Suppression of Terrorism Act. Nkambule, who at one point had been ordered to buy between four and six cows as a fine to appease the king, reported in his newspaper column that failure to pay the fine could result in the eviction of his family from their homestead. On 27 April that year, the Times of Swaziland stopped publishing Nkambule's articles.
Journalists have been called to the offices of the king, prime minister and senate subcommittee for their reporting on political events or the royal family. State-owned media only carry reports that have been checked and approved by the government. Independent journalists find it extremely hard to access official information, let alone exercise their right to keep the government in check, transparent and accountable.
Criticising the king is simply inconceivable. King Mswati III, who plays a large part in the country’s politics, is so powerful no journalists dare question his autocratic leadership style, or his family’s obsession with looting the economy and living in opulence amid poverty and the deadly scourge of HIV/Aids. Today the government has lost legitimacy in the eyes of many of the people Swaziland - a country facing an already collapsed economy, and a besieged and deeply divided royal family, but the blame for the situation still goes to the already maligned journalists in Swaziland.
Today, it is up to the country’s young journalists to fight for media freedom and, to a large extent, democracy. Indeed, it is a nightmare being a journalist in Swaziland. Atrocities that would cause uprisings and revolutions in many countries happen in Swaziland every day and are largely ignored by the Western media, making the fight for media freedom an ever-harder struggle. FAM
Manqoba Nxumalo is a senior investigative reporter for the Times of Swaziland [http://www.thetimes.co.sz], the country's only independent group of newspapers. He is also an activist, with particular interest in issues of human rights and media freedom.
Photo: Swaziland's King Mswati III waves as he arrives for celebrations marking his 40th birthday and the country's 40th year of independence at the Somhlolo national stadium outside Mbabane September 6, 2008 REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko
The text of this article by Free African Media is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 South Africa License. Note that this does not include photographs or images, which may be encumbered by copyright. For more information, see our reuse page.
