KING’S OFFICE CLUELESS ON PPA’S DIALOGUE REQUEST

MBABANE – While the Political Party Assembly harbours hopes of a political dialogue with the Monarch, such expectation appears to be far from reality.

There is a letter that the PPA wrote and addressed to the King but the King’s Office has told the Times SUNDAY that it has no idea about such correspondence because it never reached them.

Copies of this letter form part of the items that were seized by the police during a raid at the homestead of political activist and President of the Swaziland Democratic Party (SWADEPA) Jan Sithole.
The letter was signed by Sithole, Ngwane National Liberatory Congress (NNLC) President Sibongile Mazibuko and Chairman of Sibahle Sinje Sive Siyinqaba Movement Musa Nkambule.

MANDATE OF MEMBERS
In the letter, which is dated November 18, 2019, the three political parties claim to carry the mandate of their members, who are the king’s subjects, and come from all sectors of society.

They list these people as workers from all disciplines (organised and unorganised), professionals and non-professionals, from public and private sectors, the unemployed, the formal and informal business, civil society organisations including people with disabilities, the church, students, youth, women groups, the sick, the healthy, progressives, traditionalists, political and apolitical members.

“The above mentioned political parties agreed to enjoin themselves together, irrespective of their ideological divide, because we all have realised that we have one country, and currently through bad and indecisive governance and political people-insensitiveness, decision making the country is going down in all aspects economically and socially, all due to gravely miscalculated political decisions,” reads part of the letter.

The political parties say it is their take and that of the people they claim mandated them who have reminded them that when King Sobhuza II launched Tinkhundla in 1978, he said it was an experiment and, therefore, considerations to review it should now be made because it is not working positively for the development of the people in Eswatini.

“Following the pathological and perennial decline in the economy, decline in the basic commodity service delivery that has led to total disregard of people’s dignity as espoused by the constitution, we cite these as examples of effects of bad political governance which is not people sensitive, we therefore believe as having been mandated that time to engage seriously into a national political dialogue with the institution of the Monarch represented by their mandated representatives/s is now, hence our request,” further reads the correspondence.

The PPA says it is encouraged that His Majesty, in his national statements, always emphasises on dialogue as a vehicle to resolve conflicts and all they are asking for is an urgent, effective all-inclusive, result oriented national political dialogue.

POLITICAL DIALOGUE

“Your Majesty, it would be irresponsible of us not to spell out that the mandate we have is very explicit in that it is a political dialogue as they have agreed that all issues of social and economic injustices and poor and neglected service delivery to the people are just symptoms of a non-functioning system of government, hence the call for political dialogue,” continues the letter.

According to the parties, previous dialogue requests that were advanced to the King’s Office and all petitions that get sent and  delivered to different ministries including that of the Prime Minister, have never been blessed with acknowledgement, let alone a response.
They say based on this, they have since formally engaged the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to facilitate the dialogue process between the institution of the Monarchy and the political parties.

“We are pleased that governments of the SADC region have ahead of time put structures to assist member states to prevent conflict and preserve peace and tranquillity through dialogue. We do hope and believe that our prayer for dialogue and peace and restoration of the people’s dignity will through this requested dialogue get the attention it deserves,” adds the letter.

SWADEPA Secretary General Mbongiseni Shabangu told the Times SUNDAY that the letter was emailed to the King’s Office and copied to the Prime Minister’s Office but no hard copy was delivered.

“The process of delivering hard copies is underway and it will happen soon,” he said.
Chief Mgwagwa Gamedze, who is Chief Officer in the King’s Office, said he was going to follow up on the issue of the letter to find out if it indeed was sent to them.

“But as of now I am not aware of such a letter. I don’t know who they could have probably sent it to. Let me first do my enquiry and we will be able to discuss it afterwards,” said
Assistant Government Press Secretary Sabelo Dlamini, also said they were not aware of the letter that the PPA claims to have copied to the PM’s Office regarding the request for a political dialogue.

Meanwhile, in the inventory that was submitted before court, law enforcers also disclosed that from Sithole they also took copies of letters to the SADC seeking facilitation of a political dialogue between the monarch and political parties in the Kingdom of Eswatini.

One of the letters is addressed to the SADC Executive Secretary titled ‘Re-urgent request for SADC intervention,’ claim to have been collectively approached and mandated by Eswatini civil society to be their collective voice in raising with relevant organisations regionally, continentally and internationally, but starting with SADC, the call for urgent intervention in facilitating a political dialogue in the kingdom.

“It is our wish that Swaziland (Eswatini) should find space in SADC agenda for countries that need intervention by facilitating a political dialogue as proposed in the dossier. We want to categorically state that we are available for any clarification. We thank you in advance and expect your office to facilitate channelling the concerns of the people of Swaziland(Eswatini) into forums that can give urgent attention,” reads the letter. The other letter is addressed to the Chairman of SADC and is similarly asking for intervention.

Just as with the letter to the Executive Secretary, the PPA states that it knows and understands SADC to play, among other roles, pro-activity in conflict prevention and conflict management in aspiring for peace, social justice and tranquillity in the region. The political parties say it is also their belief that when the citizens of each of the SADC countries raise an alarm and red flag, this should trigger SADC into action for solution seeking.

ATTENTION BY SADC

They therefore ask that Eswatini be given similar attention by SADC.
“We appreciate the work that has been done by SADC in conflict resolutions in countries such as Madagascar, Lesotho and Zimbabwe and hope SADC will accept our most genuine request your Excellency,” states the letter.     
On the other hand, besides the letters that the police took from Sithole during the raid, they also confiscated from him a poster with his picture advertising SWADEPA.
The inventory further reflects that from Sithole, the police also took a placard with inscription demanding the unbanning of political parties.
Per the inventory, some of the items that were taken from the president of SWADEPA include; two laptops, two Samsung tablets, Samsung Ipad, two flash drives, seven CDs and DVDs and an Apple iPhone 5.
In their application for the release of their items, Sithole and the other applicants (Musa Nkambule, Sibongile Mazibuko and Wandile Dlamini) contended that the matter were urgent because their rights to privacy was allegedly being violated on a continuous basis as they had been dispossessed of their gadgets.
“It goes without saying that in the world of technology we are being greatly inconvenienced as we are unable to access our mobile telephones, laptops, tablets for purposes of running and managing our lives including banking facilities,” argued the quartet. They also argued that since it was the end of the year, they were being greatly inconvenienced in that they were unable to be in contact with friends, associates and relatives. The applicants submitted that the alleged unlawful infringement of a fundamental human right and freedom triggered a degree of urgency.
“We respectfully state that we will not be afforded substantial redress at a hearing in due course if the matter is not heard on an urgent basis. The respondents seek to use our gadgets for purposes of persecution and harassment,” contended the applicants.
They emphasised that the law enforcers were likely to formulate criminal charges and haul them before a court of law on the basis of information unlawfully obtained.
“Once we are charged, our right to a presumption of innocence will be infringed as we will be charged with criminal offences that have no basis in law and given the unlawfulness of the search warrants,” alleged the applicants. The quartet is also challenging the lawfulness and validity of the warrants of search and seizure which saw a contingent of police officers descending at their various homesteads, where they conducted raids with the hope of finding incriminating material.
The police took a number of their belongings. In their application they submitted that given the haste in which the searches were conducted, there was a high likelihood that the police intended to have them arrested for no crime save for expressing themselves on the government of the country.

DEALING WITH MATTER
Judge Nkosinathi Maseko who heard the matter said he would not allow a situation where he would hear that the applicants had been arrested while he was still dealing with the matter.
“In the interim while the matter is still pending before court and to protect the integrity of the court process, no action should be taken against the applicants at this stage,” ordered Judge Maseko.
The matter is still pending in court and it will be argued on January 8, 2020.  The applicants are represented by Human Rights Lawyer Thulani Maseko while appearing for the State is Assistant Attorney General Mbuso Simelane.

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