MAKING THE FUTURE BRIGHTER

Last week I pointed out some few things which have, in the past, been our major downfall as a nation. I pointed that we now have a calibre of politicians who survive by buying votes from the poor.

I decried the fact that such politicians would spend four years after elections chasing their personal wealth instead of serving the interests of their communities. I also pointed to the fact that it is only during the election year that the politicians buy soccer balls for our boys and rotten old blankets for the poor elderly like me in our poor communities.

I ended up with my solemn prayer for a day when my King would consider calling those people who have said they would like to be governed under a multi -party political system, so that he could understand what their motivation is.
Hopefully, if that opportunity would be availed, it is when those who would be invited can avoid the mistakes they made by making preconditions for such a privilege when the Commonwealth had secured an opportunity with the King.

removing of people from ancestral lands

Today, I want to address the removing of communities from their ancestral lands in the name of making way either for what is said to be development or some preservation of our pride such as nature or something to that effect.
I have, in the past, through this very column, said that we must strictly avoid doing things which portrays us as a dictatorship while we are a peaceful country. It is high time that whenever there is a development that is likely to adversely affect the people or communities, those thinking of such development initiatives must learn to first consult the people concerned. The local people should be made aware of the importance of such development; and, above all, they should be made aware of what is in it for them in return that warrants the sacrifices they would be asked to make.

affecting our people

I have always decried the doing of things that adversely affect our people like the forceful grabbing of people’s ancestral land without being informed or consulted because such attracts foreign human rights institutions to take up these cases. Interestingly, our government loses most of the cases which reflects total ignorance of regional, continental or global human rights institutions’ judgments just as it has ignored Judge Thomas Masuku’s judgments which last year was before the UN Commission for Human Rights.

Doing so simply spoils our country’s image in the outside world.
What brings me to this topic is the story published by the Swazi News which was talking about eminent evictions of many families at KaLanga area to make way for the expansion of the Hlane Nature Reserve for the protection of wild life there.  When some of my people there began calling me and asking if I had seen the article, I said I had not, but that I had the paper in the house and was going to read it. After reading it, I was shocked because the story was about what I had always warned against - forced removals of citizens from their ancestral lands without consultations or compensation.

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