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WIDOWED WOMEN NOT FREE TO PARTICIPATE AT SIBAYA – MSF

08/02/2022 08:30:00 Stanley Khumalo

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MANZINI – “The rules of Sibaya do not allow for widowed women to participate and also has strict dress code and body appearance rules that are obstructive to the full and meaningful participation of women in the dialogue.”

This is one of six concerns raised by the Multi-Stakeholder Forum (MSF) through its chairman, Thulani Maseko. In a press statement, which is a reaction to the Speech from the Throne, the human rights lawyer said MSF was reiterating its stance for emphasis that they were rejecting the call that Sibaya was the proper forum for the national dialogue. Maseko said all the parties to the dialogue should be of the same mind regarding what role Parliament and Sibaya would play in the process. This, he said, was despite that the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) Organ on Politics Defence and Security, through its Chairperson, South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa, stated that the process towards the national dialogue would take into account and incorporate structures and processes enshrined in the Constitution of the Kingdom of Eswatini, including the role of the Parliament of the kingdom, and the Sibaya convened by His Majesty King Mswati III.

Dialogue

The MSF chairperson claimed that a dialogue process could never be led and determined by one party. Such, he supposed, was not a dialogue but a monologue. “It has been shown over the past many years that Sibaya is indeed a monologue, where the proponents of the tinkhundla regime populate Sibaya to make the loudest noise about how good the Tinkhundla System is,” claimed the MSF. Maseko said Sibaya was a creature of Swazi law and custom and, therefore, it was a traditional structure. He said the rules of engagement, conduct and behaviour were the precepts of custom, tradition and culture – all of which were designed to entrench the power and hegemony of the King and the royal family.

The human rights lawyer said it was significant to note that the crisis the country was in was not a predicament to be resolved by traditional practices. He said they were for all intents and purposes challenges of a political nature and Sibaya was supposedly incapable of earnestly addressing political issues. The MSF statement further pointed out that Sibaya, by virtue of being a traditional structure, was convened by the King as Ingwenyama and it, therefore, lacked checks and balances. This, he claimed, meant it was predominantly convened, managed and conducted by the Ingwenyama, while he (King as Ingwenyama) purportedly had extra-ordinary powers that could not be challenged and were immune from legal challenge.

Autocratic

“This makes the process to be without any form of checks and balances and cannot be objective or fair to all role players. It is an autocratic exercise from the very beginning and does not meet the litmus test for an all-inclusive externally mediated dialogue process that the mass democratic movement is calling for,” reads the statement in part. Furthermore, the MSF claimed that the set- up inside Sibaya was not conducive for any meaningful engagement and participation by those who did not subscribe to its concept. “We refuse to be denigrated and dehumanised under the disguise of respecting culture and tradition. The democratic future of this nation should never be subjected to the dictates of tradition which is abused and manipulated to perpetuate the status quo,” reads the statement.

Also, the MSF statement claimed that in recent history, the chairmanship of Sibaya had been delegated by the King to the Attorney General, Sifiso Mashampu Khumalo, not in his capacity as such; but as one of the King’s governors. The chairperson of MSF said the fact that it was the AG who presided over the Sibaya meeting, did not take away the reality that he so chaired the meeting on delegated authority of the Ingwenyama. “We in the mass democratic movement have indicated that we want a dialogue process under an independent and impartial chairperson accepted by all sides. We have welcomed the intervention of the SADC to help us broker the impasse.”

Degrading

On the rights of women, Maseko purported that Sibaya was generally hostile to the free participation of the people. He claimed it was particularly oppressive to women as it allegedly subjected them to inhuman and degrading rules. Maseko supposed that save for women who were under the regiment of Lutsango, they could be perhaps be used to such. He said the rules of Sibaya did not allow widowed women to participate and also had strict dress code and body appearance rules that were obstructive to the full and meaningful participation of women in the dialogue. “We demand a non-sexist environment that would allow for women delegates to participate fully and freely in the national dialogue process rather than being hindered by cultural and traditional rules and norms,” reads the statement in part.

He further raised the concern of recording of minutes, decisions and implementation which it was said, was not done by an impartial secretariat, but somebody called the ‘secretary to the nation’. It was said the secretary to the nation had never reported to the people, not accountable to the people and who had never been agreed upon as the secretary. Maseko said like the chairman of the meeting, he served at the behest of the King. “Fundamentally, the whole Sibaya arrangement is skewed against those who are legitimately challenging the tinkhundla regime and the unrestricted exercise of power by the King,” reads the statement. Consequently, he said, they stood firmly on the basis that the only legitimate national dialogue process that they would participate in and or recognise was one that was an outcome of engagements by both parties to the conflict.

Maseko said this was mostly the reason why the two sides needed to meet to find common ground as to the nature of the dialogue before an engagement on the process, talk about the rules and terms of engagement, the issues to be dialogued on and the general management of the entire process. He said the King and government could not be the player and referee of the dialogue at the same time.