Mntfwana,

 

I am very pleased to address you in that Swazi traditional manner because the address of Your Majesty has been overused and overplayed by position seekers against the edicts and advice of our ancestors who were great psychologists in these matters. The address of Mntfwana (The Child) for instance was used well beyond the period of a young king.

 

a) Do not take advantages.

b) All things, including positions of state are held by the King in trust for the nation.

c) All advice and expertise is welcome, with or without remuneration.

 

That meant that no serious decisions would be taken thought the collective advice of the elders of the nation after mature considerations of all angles in any given matter. In their tested wisdom, the traditional Swazi knew that misuse of office is not only very easy but the first deadly cancer in any body politic or national state. Example, when the Catholic Church sank to low depths before reformation, bishops were appointed at age 14 and cardinals at age 21 instead of the present 45/50 to 70 years. So it is that the appointment of Sir George Mamba together with his children and distant cousins to very senior government and semi government positions opened those historical wounds and shocked both the nation and the political world. It was an error that should be corrected without delay and should never be repeated.

 

They talked a lot but behind your back. Morale in the nation sank very low both inside and outside the civil service. The outside world told us (and not thought) we were clowns. Inefficiency in the civil service went up, armed hold-ups increased, corruption in the police force went up and there was a general feeling of helplessness in the land. We were also informed that the general feeling of helplessness in the land. We were also informed that the young King Mswati III wears tailor made quality suits with Cartier watches to match and, together with Sir George Mamba’s eldest son, drives modern sports cars. We were also told that Sir George Mamba’s eldest son, drives modern sports cars. We were also told that Sir George Mamba had bought a very big farm at Shiselweni. As if all that was not enough, we were further told that meanwhile there was nothing but wailing and tears at the old palace of King Sobhuza II because you are so mean that you do not care a dime for the old queens and the other princes and princesses. So mean that you gave one young prince a cheque for only R7.00 (seven Rand) = £1.40 and he put a zero at the end to change the sum of R70.00 (seventy Rand). You called the police “to lock up the criminal”. That is despite the fact that you have built yourself an open sky-roof disco with a royal blue swimming pool at your new thick carpeted palace. Your six queens compete in high quality fashion dresses, lipsticks and there three inch high heels. So you are running a mad-house, aren’t you? King Sobhuza would turn in his grave.

 

And are you surprised Sir George mamba, perhaps with your encouragement, was and is NOT interested to see me back in Swaziland? Even when my mother lay sick demanding to see me in her deathbed in September 1990, when she died. Sit George Mamba told me over the telephone that he could do nothing because he had already reported the matter to you and the Queen Mother. We call that playing with fire on a very windy day. Do I blame you in all this? NO. For your majesty, but as a child. Secondly, to me you are not a king but a lonely child who needs help and guidance from the traumas of the death of your father, the dramatic events that followed under the Ligogo Government, the humiliation of the Swazi royal family in the person of Queen Regent and the very psychological shock of becoming King. Many people see only the good side of becoming King (the goodies), I happen to know the other side.

 

King Sobhuza shed tears and cried like a little child in my presence. Fortunately, the only other person present was Princess Mnengwase at the Embo State House in 1975. He admitted that his Ministers had failed him. The question is whether you are prepared to take advice. I understand you are very stubborn and you have no respect for time. I hope you will prove them wrong.

 

But before I get to the question of advice I will tell you something else. The day my mother died that September in 1990, the mystic and prestige of the Swazi Royal family died with her in the eyes of the nation. At that very moment I dozed off during mid morning and somebody shot down the Ligwalagwala (lourir) flying very high in a clear sky and it fell on my hands. I jumped up in a loud cry sweating like a pig! I hope you do know that I am a spiritualist medium for our ancestors – all the kings and queen mothers of Swaziland. They speak to me like I am talking to you now.

 

My first physical encounter (they literally woke me up and started talking though my own voice without the control of my own tongue) was in prison in 1977-80 where I was detained without trail. That’s how angry there were with King Sobhuza for having locked me up. Where did he think I got the power to fight for independence from Britain? Was it not from them etc? King Sobhuza panicked because by then the ancestors were no more responding to his sacrifices. (“Where are they BEKUNENE? Why have they forsaken me?”) Jesus Christ cried the same way on the cross because it is and can be very cold up there. You constantly need a higher force to sustain you in orbit.

 

They said you cannot talk to this and that, Mswait or Mbandzeni, you are up against the collective “WE”. The newly dead are still in “quarantine” with no rights of direct say for at leasy 80-100 (one hundred) years. The principle of reincarnation was confirmed and I was grateful to be told that my “spiritual ghost” (term first so used) was 7,000 (seven thousand) years old. For that reason (spiritual age) they regarded me as their equal. King Sobhuza is also very old at 5,000 (five thousand) years. Their quarrel with him was that he loved money and women and he did not listen to what they said. So that is what you are up against as well. This is their kingship and this is their country. Nothing is going to happen here without their say so. Whoever does can get away with it only for a little while, and no more. What are you going to do?

 

 

 

1. What is the meaning of the shooting down of the Ligwalagwala? That means that the people laughed. They had been laughing first before but they laughed even louder this time, not at me the victim, but at you, your Majesty.

 

That title is sweet music to a vain ambitious older man, but it can even be devastating in the ears of a youngster like yourself. Pay no attention to it, it’s a meaningless sound intended for the psychic submission of your mind. They do not love you, nobody loves you, they love themselves. You are there to serve a purpose, the purpose of our ancestor, the purpose of your own existence, pray you serve it well, the only thanks you will get is insults. No matter how hard you try. That is the hard fact about being Kind. Forewarned is forearmed.

 

2. That is where care advice counseling, listening, studying the facts and comparing comes in. Stubbornness does not pay and shall never pay. In the olden days a stubborn prince simply lost any following he might have had, and hope you know the old English saying that while Kingship is given, respect must be earned. That means you must be seen not only to be self denying for the good of all, but also fair and just.

 

So far you have seceded in neither of all these qualities. I have already told you above what your own brothers and sisters think of you. What they say is how the nation sees you.

 

3. Detention Without Trial. This brutal law of oppression was imported from South Africa by King Sobhuza II when he felt politically threatened in the elections of 1973 when the NNLC won the East (Lubombo) throwing out Prince Mfanasilili and the Imbokodvo even though I had left for my studies abroad at the time. The king opened a special Ministry of Commerce for Mfanasibili and later appointed him Chairman of the Civil Service Board. We now know that after the King’s death the Queens Regents “holy” EMATINTA were to be torn from her at gun point and the country sold the Nigerian hustler, Mr. Fernandez for nothing. So both those decisions led to disaster. Your strong and decisive stand against the Ligogo was excellent, particularly the trying of Mfanasibili in a Court of Law for his crimes, but it was wrong to place Princess Mnengwase and other princes and princesses under detention without trial. Since the ligogo had already so greatly misused the law to detain all those who objected to their misrule, showing that any law which is subject to misuse at the expensive of individual citizens is not a good law. South Africa has just announced its repeal! Princess Mnengwase and others should have been tried by Swazi Law and Custom and fined heavily. You cannot afford to be seen to slap your own father in the face in public. As for me, I am not going to put in Swaziland until that oppressive and humiliating law is repealed in a Government Gazette. For that did something else. It immediately surrendered all political power to the police. Not matter how many elections you care to hold, Swaziland remains a Police State. Who regulates the Police? – the reason for their corruption.

 

You need to set up a Police and Army Complaints Authority to monitor the police and the army against the misuse of power against ordinary citizens. Headed by a legal man and composed of a cross section of the society, the Authority must have real teeth, including its own investigators and powers to subpoena defendants and witnesses alike.

 

4. Concerning my return to Swaziland, in the last two years, for instance, the ancestors laughed as they told me that I would rot in jail while you went round the country protesting your innocence, just like King Sobhuza did until they intervened. People confirmed that you do like to be followed around without any decisions being taken, even some projects by donor countries were in danger because of this.

 

5. Type of Advice. The main problem, as I see it, is that you are getting a lot of good intentioned uninformed advice, from people who want to curry you favour or please you as Your Majesty and to boost their own egos. Some claim to have been with King Sobhuza and are pleased to see you wear the same jacket. That cannot do. You want to take the country forward and not move round in a vicious circle of indecisions and blunders. So when I said even Christ cried at the cross I did not mean to go on feeding on uninformed advice behind the image of Christ. I was merely making a comparison. Good

Government is a science with very well known facts as to what constitutes a good government. You have to build and nurture those institutions yourself i.e., a free and independent judiciary, a free press, an efficient and impartial civil service, an effective and impartial police force, army etc. You cannot play politics with the police or any of these arms of government without playing with nationally and internationally.

 

King Sobhuza was very well liked and respected as a gentlemen. Yet his refusal to accept our advice against the likes of Mfanasibili and Polycarp as early as 1963-68 was later to cost the country very dear indeed as everybody now knows. By contrast and a great twist of facts, I was branded the “enemy number one” of the King (meaning their stomachs) by the police and other neo colonialist agents of oppression and exploitation of African labour simply because I called for a fair wage as well as housing. e.g. Big Bend and Havelock Mines in the 1963 general strike. The judges and the independent reports agreed with me, so I am more than a brother, I am your father (uncle). Even beside the ancestors, I can tell you exactly what I feel or want.

 

It is, therefore, not strange at all that some of the local whites and their agents are the loudest in singing this nonsense about me being the enemy of the King (ulwanebuklozi).

 

6. My claim against the Swaziland Government. I wish I could exclude you that legal and political mess of the Ligogo Government, but I cannot, legally that is. They acted on behalf of a legally constituted Government of the Kingdom of Swaziland. Moreover, you have not helped yourself in that front because you have turned the office of Prime Minister into nothing more than a Palace Guard by making him spend hours waiting in queue to see you, and by insisting on attending some Cabinet meetings. That places the Swazi Monarchy in danger of having an imprint in every government decision, including mistakes. Ministers of State must stand on their own as politicians and NOI lean on the King for support. That’s what parliament, the cabinet and the political arena are for. The Ligogo constitutional crisis was the direct result of King Sobhuza refusing our advice as well as that of the British Administration at the time, namely, that the Government must be allowed to govern while the King rules i.e., the principle of the separation of powers as already stated. You have good men there, hard working and loyal, but you do no allow them to breathe.

 

The philosopher tells no lies and the King who does what he likes belongs to the land of fairy tales.

 

 

 

Kindest regards,

 

 

Clement Dumisa Dlamini