Swaziland

“The monarchy is a luxury that Swazi’s cannot afford. It is like a blood-sucking parasite that has sucked its host dry”, says Swazi activist Bheki Dlamini.

The resolution, passed on Saturday, also called for an end to the systematic harassment, intimidation and incarceration of political activists and the unconditional release of political prisoners and return of exiles, as well as for the isolation of Swaziland until these demands are met.

‘We are not masters of our political fate, but slaves of circumstance.

“At the moment the king regards us as people who want to destroy the country, but once we have talked with him he will know what the people want”, says president of the People’s United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO), Mario Masuku.

Imagine you’ve started your first job after a year’s unemployment and an endless number of job applications, after finishing your engineering degree.

The Africa Judges and Jurists’ Forum (AJJF) has followed with keen interest and concern the recent events involving the arrest of former Minister of Justice Sibusiso Shongwe, High Court Registrar Fikile Nhlabatsi and Judges Mpendulo Simelane and Jacobus Anandale; and the continued siege at the re

Are you tired of reading books, reports or articles by middle-aged, middle-class professors, authors, NGO-employees or journalists (like me) about how poverty-stricken Africans feel about, or should react to, their poverty?

There are not enough books coming out of Swaziland to describe what is, after all, a unique culture and society that is, in its present absolute-monarchy-dictated form, in many ways brutally detrimental and stifling to its population.

‘When we are talking about gay issues in Swaziland, people are uneasy. They know we are there but they deny it,’ says Sibusiso Masango, Secretary General of Swazi Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) organization, House of Our Pride (HOOP).

Swaziland's elections have started, elections that many people in the small absolute monarchy jokingly refer to as “selections”, not elections.