GOVT’S FORKED TONGUE ON DIALOGUE

It took the African Union (AU) and the regional Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) less than a week to suspend Guinea’s membership in response to the September 5 military coup d’état that toppled President Alpha Conde over his manoeuvres to amend the Constitution to allow him a third term.

This was followed this by sanctions, which included freezing of financial assets of coup leader, Mamady Doumbouya, and members of his military junta and their relatives. The swift and decisive actions of both the AU and ECOWAS to the military overthrow of Guinea’s civilian government naturally raises the question if the two organisations would have acted with similar haste had President Conde gone on a cleansing mission of eliminating his opponents – the usual African political script African dictators use to cling on to power.

If experience from elsewhere on the continent is anything to go by, the answer to this question is they would have done nothing, except issue cleverly couched diplomatic messages of regret and subtle condemnation while calling for a stop to the blood letting without taking any further action. To this day President Conde would still be culling his political opponents unhindered.

Tolerance

As I see it, it is such double standards mirrored by indifference and tolerance to the loss of lives of political opponents and ordinary people at the hands of African dictators who make regional organisations and the AU a mockery and irrelevant. For given the track records of these organisations, they are mostly inclined to side with leaders who murder their citizens and plunder the economies of their countries. Had it been President Conde persecuting and pursuing extra-judiciary killings of his opponents and their supporters, both ECOWAS and the AU would not have done anything.

These contradictions by organisations that ostensibly were created to better the lives of Africans across the continent have become a permanent feature of the continent hence its inability to rid itself of despotic and authoritarian leaders in power to serve their interests. Regrettably, Eswatini has recently joined this league of brutal regimes while its leadership enjoys the warm embrace and protection of the regional Southern African Development Community (SADC) and, indeed, the AU itself.

Dozens of unarmed emaSwati have been killed and maimed since the beginning of countrywide protests to demand political reforms. This conscious and deliberate culling of political opponents of the oppressive tinkhundla political system, to which the leadership has turned a blind eye, continues almost on a daily basis. And both SADC and AU have been conspicuous, by their deafening silence, in their condonation of these atrocities.

Stop

As I see it, the tinkhundla regime that has morphed into a brutal and murderous regime has been buoyed by the silence and non-intervention of SADC, the AU and the rest of the international community, including the United Nations (UN), to stop the political culling of its opponents. Hence there is neither any pressure nor interest from the Eswatini leadership to initiate dialogue on political reforms. Instead the leadership is speaking in forked tongues. To diplomats and multilateral organisations they speak the language of dialogue but internally they are dismissing this very thought.

Prime Minister Cleopas Dlamini not so long ago, while deputising for the King, told the UN General Assembly of government’s commitment to dialogue in resolving differences. Then last week in an interview with CNN, while in the United Arab Emirates, he told a different story. Essentially dismissing dialogue as a panacea in resolving the political impasse, the PM said those desirous of political change should wait for elections in 2023 to influence change in Parliament. Not only that, but he and his government had also miraculously worked out the mathematical algorithm that the current system enjoys the support of over 80 per cent of the population hence there was neither the need for dialogue nor political reformation.

Also just recently, the King told the visiting United Kingdom Minister for Africa, Vicky Ford, that dialogue was key in nation building. But last week he summersaulted from this position on the rationale that he could not dialogue with people high from dagga smoking, the same narrative he had alluded to during the Sibaya he had convened in the aftermath of the violent protests that claimed the lives of dozens of emaSwati the government blamed on mercenaries.

Mistakes

In the meantime government continues committing exactly the same mistakes of ignoring and taking people for granted as aptly demonstrated by its actions and utterances. It went ahead to re-open schools without considering the attendant challenges brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic perhaps in the hope that this would douse the flames of nationwide protests that were going on. But instead, this triggered even more protests leading to burning and destruction of many schools. Central to the demands of these protests is stopping the political prosecution and freeing of the two Members of Parliament (MPs), Bacede Mabuza and Mthandeni Dube, whom the state blames for mobilising the pro-democracy movement protests.

Instead of heeding the calls to free the MPs and to initiate dialogue for political reformation, government has continued to bury its head in the sand and responded with something akin to total onslaught using every possible means, to silence the calls for change. Now they are using scholarships, free primary education and other grants financed by the taxpayer to threaten protesting pupils while pointing accusing fingers elsewhere except themselves for the current crises. They have been short on solutions but large on creating more problems, then apportioning blame elsewhere; all courtesy of a forked tongue narrative on dialogue.   

The following words of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr reverberate the length and breadth of the kingdom today: “If peace means keeping my mouth shut in the midst of injustice and evil, I don’t want it. If peace means a willingness to be exploited economically, dominated politically, humiliated and segregated, I don’t want peace.”

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