SOME EMASWATI LYING ABOUT ESWATINI

First and foremost, I would like to join hundreds of individuals and entities that have condemned, in the strongest possible terms, the coup that failed to take shape in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), our true friend and partner with Eswatini in the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Sorry DRC!

The failed coup, masterminded by Christian Malanga, has also been condemned by political parties in Eswatini, a clear indication that they aware that the unconstitutional change of governments is in plain contravention of the African Union (AU) Declaration. I do hope that there would be no more effort to change the Government of the Kingdom of Eswatini unconstitutionally. However, that is a subject for another day. Claims that the failed coup was planned in Eswatini do not only lack overwhelming evidence but exposes the level of thinking at which they are. I am not happy with the quality of thinking in this country.

As portrayed by City Press, with the backing of a political activist in the country, the reports created an impression that the thwarted ousting was engineered by the State. As members of the State, the reports implied that Christian Malanga had the support of emaSwati in its attempt to overthrow the DRC Government. How would a sovereign State like Eswatini dispatch a group of 50 men, armed with two substandard military weaponry to fight a country that has 80 000-100 000 strong army?  Let us be fair and objective here. I do not think that any member of the royal family would even release E50 to support an army of fists against the trained and experienced military of DRC, which has survived more than three coups.

I honestly doubt that any sane person could sponsor a coup that would be live streamed on Facebook. If the coup had posed massive danger to the DRC’s sovereignty and peace, the soldiers would have killed all the 50 people. Many of them were armed with second-hand rifles with a few bullets.

Overwhelming

While he was carrying a weapon, Malanga was live on his Facebook page. Then you say he had the support of emaSwati to play the fool. EmaSwati are not fools. We are not.
If you think we are simpletons, you are mistaken.   The only pseudo-evidence paraded as overwhelming is a video clip, systematically doctored, to portray a bad picture of the country in the diplomatic space. DRC is not a fool as well, and cannot detest a sovereign State or treat it as its enemy on the basis of a video clip that does not have the beginning and end.
Where the country has ‘intentionally’ done wrong, we would stand up and condemn it, but I cannot pull my country into pieces to legitimise a narrative that seeks to undermine the integrity of my country of birth.

I cannot lie about my home country just because I want to get 100 Facebook likes and 230 comments. If the failed coup was planned in Eswatini, a landlocked country, where did they pass with the guns on their way to DRC? Which route did they take after the planning? How did they plan it? Malanga, the mastermind, has visited several countries, and met high profile politicians in the USA, Mozambique, Sierra Leone and others where he was advocating for a New Zaire, which was to be democratic and founded on rule of law and human rights. He spoke a language that was tempting to understand. In his visits to all of these countries, records that I have seen indicate that he never talked about a coup.   

In 1981, we had a very serious breach of military protocol as a country but we were never condemned by Seychelles for being negligent. Seychelles understood that we had been sold a dummy by a group of warlords led by Mike Hoare, a fierce guarilla fighter in the 1980s. Hoare hijacked the country’s Fokker F28 and flew to Seychelles Islands to overthrow that country’s former president. That happened in 1981.

Hoare, the mercenary, boarded the scheduled Fokker 28 on November 25, 1981 with a group of 43 mercenaries led by him at Matsapha International Airport to Mahe in the Seychelles in an attempt to overthrow the Seychelles’ then President France-Albert Rene. He also wrote a book titled ‘The Seychelles Affair’. Customs at Matsapha International Airport thought the bulging bags contained sportswear. On arrival in Seychelles, they were exposed as they passed through customs when an alert Seychelles official discovered a dismantled AK-47 in one of the mercenaries’ luggage.

A shootout at the Seychelles airport ensued, with bullets being fired at the Eswatini’s airline. It was damaged in the ensuing firefight between Seychellois officials and the mercenaries.
Of note is that after this incident, the Eswatini airline ceased flights to the Seychelles. Hoare wrote a book about this spectacle. The full version of his book was released by Paladin Press on December 14, 2012, after the first version was published on July 1, 2008. Seychelles Island is located to the northeast of Madagascar and about 1 600km east of Kenya.
In 1981, Seychelles exiles in South Africa, acting on behalf of ex-President James Mancham, had begun discussions with officials concerning a coup attempt to be launched in Seychelles in 1978.

Entrusted

I must say that the coup operation was entrusted to the then 58-year-old Hoare himself, who was living in South Africa as a civilian. Among the 53 people selected to join him were some members of the South African Special Forces (Recces), several former Rhodesian (now Zimbabwe) soldiers and ex-Congo mercenaries. Occuring on the shores, Hoare and the 43 mercenaries were disguised as tourists who were rugby players and members of a beer-drinking group called the Ancient Order of Froth-blowers, arriving in the Royal Swazi jet. They landed at Mahé airport carrying their own weapons. It is said that nine members had already arrived on the island as an advance guard. That was a serious and well planned coup.
On the evening of Wednesday, November 25, the coup was detected when a Customs officer spotted an AK-47 in the luggage of one of Mike Hoare’s mercenaries.

The mercenaries then fought a brief gun-battle at the airport and most of the mercenaries escaped aboard an Air India jet (Air India Boeing aircraft Flight 224), which happened to be on the runway. In fact, they hijacked it. One mercenary died during the skirmish. This was then 24-year-old Johan Fritz of Westcliff from South Africa, the son of a general mining executive who grew up on ‘Millionaire’s Row’. Five soldiers, a female accomplice and also Martin Dolinchek (alias Anton Lubic) were left behind. Hoare had been promised E18 million to dethrone the Seychelles president.

In his book, he reveals that Eswatini customs and the police believed that they were rugby players destined for Seychelles for an international tournament, totally unaware that AK-47s were hidden in their luggage. I am trying to illustrate that we are used to coup stories that touch our country. The call for the suspension of one of the royals as he had business links with Malanga does not hold water because he is not the only one who met him. Secondly, there is no evidence that he participated in the planning of the coup or the country supported Malanga.
By profession, Malanga was trained by DRC to be a soldier and his colleagues are soldiers. Seeking advice on military science or being a military advisor, if that is the case, does not mean the advice is sought to strengthen a coup.

Military science is not always all about physical training. Soldiers are also professionals in their own right. They undertake courses in leadership. They are prepared to lead at multiple echelons in both military and civilian sectors. As a result, foundational courses in military science include leadership and personal development, tactical and team leadership, and decision-making. That is why we have nurses and doctors in the military service and we also have political analysts and advisors. Soldiers are not always focused on how to fight in a war. They are also present to ensure the war is prevented.

This is a fact. You can go through the military science courses at the University of Northern Iowa in the USA. Many universities and military colleges offer some of these courses, which are offered to civilians at tertiary institutions. prosecuting. Some soldiers are admitted attorneys. They studied law at military colleges. There is no one who sent me to treat this school of thought, but I do it independently because I am an analyst who is very inquisitive by nature and I am one who is accustomed to ‘prosecuting’ issues before I pass judgment.

In everything I do, I want to be shown some evidence to substantiate the fact I am pursuing or exploring. Eswatini is a country and home to emaSwati, a small nation with very big minds.
The perception that we are a people who can be easily bamboozled into a marriage with lies is not only misleading but exposes those who subscribe to it as professors of cheap politics.
Any political discourse, system or government or its governance founded on deceit and fabrication is fugacious. We cannot, therefore, as a nation, embrace an epidemic of lies as a guiding principle to setting our standards for democractic reforms.

Professionally or ethically, I must point out one more time that I neither support multiparty democracy nor Tinkhundla System of Government. Instead, I support truth and evidence.
Where a lie rears its ugly head, I crush the head. Mduduzi ‘Gaw’zela’ Simelane, Velaphi Mamba, Wandile ‘Mjanceka’ Dludlu, Mlungisi Makhanya and others have, on different occasions, wrote on their social platforms: “ lies have short legs.” I concur with them.

If we lie about own country, we are betraying ourselves, and we are the losers. David Robson, a feature correspondent for BBC, says self-deception can fool us into believing our own lies and even make us more convincing. We always think that if we lie about Eswatini, this act of perfidy will assist in influencing global action against the authorities of the country, and we missing the point. We are lying to ourselves.

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