SADC DISAPPOINTS ONCE AGAIN

For some strange and inexplicable reasons, those of us – that is emaSwati who thirst and hunger for change that will make this kingdom a better country for all – were placing all our trust and hopes on the Southern African Development Community (SADC) at the wake of Cyril Ramaphosa, the South African president and current chair of SADC’s Organ Troika, dispatching a special envoy to these shores in the midst of a first of its kind political uprising to resolve the impasse.

But were we all not massively disappointed when this all turned out to be a huge farce with no discernible outcomes whatsoever? Hopes were raised when President Ramaphosa, who all along had been deafening with his silence while South African opposition leaders were calling for interventions, was finally reluctantly moved to act when, in his capacity as chairperson of the SADC Organ on Defence, Politics and Security Cooperation – ordinarily referred to as the Organ Troika – he appointed a special envoy to intervene in the kingdom’s political uprising. The special envoy, former Cabinet Minister Jeff Radebe, and his team came, saw and had separate audiences with His Majesty, Cabinet and leaders of the progressive movement pushing for multiparty democracy, but in the end did absolutely nothing.

Report

Sadly, the outcome of the special envoy’s mission was a damp squib and not different to that dispatched by President Ramaphosa’s predecessor in the Organ Troika, Botswana President Mokweetsi Masisi, that also delivered nothing. The report of that earlier mission was never made public but only shared with the King, according to President Masisi in his brief to regional leaders during the Lilongwe, Malawi, summit in mid-August.

Thereafter, SADC conveniently forgot the problem perhaps with the hope that it would go away once the Eswatini security establishment had successfully dealt with the situation on the ground that was giving the region a bad name. Atrocities were being committed even as President Ramaphosa’s special envoy and his delegation were having photo opportunities with the King and his government entourage, as if this was a happy occasion. The scale and scope of the violence and brutality, not to mention the alleged murders, have paralysed emaSwati with fear, panic and trauma.    

Anger

Then came the bombshell, President Ramaphosa’s post-Special Envoy Radebe briefing statement that left many emaSwati not only seething with anger but gobsmacked and shocked. It emerges from the statement that Radebe and his team were told that there was nothing that could be done right now as the King was proceeding to seclusion for the Incwala season.

Only after the Incwala ceremony would the King summon the nation to Sibaya for dialogue. This message was later relayed to emaSwati by Indvuna Themba Ginindza at Ludzidzini. The sum total of President Ramaphosa’s statement is that in the meantime it has extended a licence to the authorities to continue with the violent purge of unprotected proponents of multiparty democracy.  

As I see it, by the time the Incwala ceremony is concluded, which could be anything between five to eight months from now, the voices of dissent would have been permanently silenced through systemic attrition, coercion and other means to render any genuine dialogue irrelevant and democratisation a pipe dream. You certainly cannot leave the fate of the mice to the cat because only one thing is certain in that scenario, the mice will end up in the cat’s stomach. That is exactly what President Ramaphosa and his band of SADC merry men have done and will certainly achieve. This will deliver an enabling environment for discourse with no opposition that perfectly suites the authorities.  

In the end the like-minded will discourse among themselves at Sibaya, which means affirming and endorsing the obtaining polity of the oppressive tinkhundla political system from which superficial peace would be restored. But even assuming the security forces do not abuse or intimidate all proponents of multiparty democracy into silence or conformity, Sibaya is the last place on earth they would want to be. This is the venue where some 10 years or so ago emaSwati initially demanded political reforms leading to an elective prime minister after having earlier passed a vote of no confidence on the incumbent, the late Sibusiso Barnabas Dlamini.

Parliament also had a bite later by also passing a vote of no confidence on the same PM but, contrary to the dictates of the Constitution that the political establishment occasionally falls back on, King did not sign off resulting in a constitutional conundrum. The vote was later reversed by a Parliament that was not quorate, yet marking another one of those perennial breaches of the Constitution and the law. That episode on its own is enough to nullify Sibaya as anything but a platform that allows the King to continue to rule by decree in the name of the people and still appoint the PM.   

Submissions

But assuming the impossible, that is proponents of multiparty democracy flooding Sibaya, their submissions would be muted and not considered but only serve baKaNgwane to promote it as a melting pot of ideas and accommodating all of emaSwati with diverse views and opinions. But the likelihood of that happening is remote for two reasons; Sibaya is seen and considered a farce and hostile venue by proponents of multiparty democracy and have no business wasting their time and effort by attending and; the process is controlled by loyalists and confidantes of the royal family to ensure that Mangololo-minded people are given unfettered access to the microphone to sing praises of the obtaining polity while demonising multiparty democracy as a foreign concept. But for now, we may well be witnessing how genocide unravels, all courtesy of SADC and the rest of humanity.

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