A crime against humanity is underway in the fiefdom called Swaziland

Communist Party of Swaziland

Statement, 16 August 2018

A crime against humanity is underway in Swaziland, and future generations will pose the question; what did the revolutionaries do when the murderers went on a rampage?! More people are dying in Swaziland because public clinics and hospitals have run out of vital drugs and equipment, including HIV testing kits. This will definitely result in the death of more patients, a direct consequence of the undemocratic nature of the tinkhundla system.

It is a well-documented reality that for years many people have been dying in Swaziland due to lack of drugs and equipment. Despite the deaths, Mswati’s regime remains unconcerned. This latest reality is therefore the deepening of the tinkhundla instilled health crisis.

The health crisis has meant that people go to hospitals to die. Patients are often told by helpless hospital staff to purchase drugs from the expensive private pharmacies. These drugs are unaffordable for the majority of the people. 70 percent of the people of Swaziland survive on less than US$2 a day.

Despite the health crisis, Mswati and his cronies have not reduced their spending on lavish projects. According to a commentary by the Swazi Observer, a newspaper wholly owned by Mswati’s government, the Mswati regime will spend “not less than E15 million” (US$1.1 million) to construct a retirement home for the prime minister. Earlier this year, Mswati bought a second private jet for himself worth about E500 million (about US$40.3 million at that time), a wrist watch worth E21 million (about US$1.6 million at that time), and spent more hundreds of millions of public funds on gifts for his extremely large family and friends.

This despite the fact that barely a few months earlier the World Food Programme and Mswati’s government had agreed that over 350 000 of the 1.3 million people of Swaziland were in urgent need of food aid. By that time tens of people had already died of hunger and curable diseases.

The Communist Party of Swaziland (CPS) takes this opportunity to recognise and appreciate the selfless action of nurses who have been protesting in Swaziland against the shortage of nurses and drugs in hospitals. They showed a much developed consciousness of the crisis engulfing the country.

The CPS calls upon democratic forces to close ranks, unite against the tinkhundla regime, and to expose the sham that tinkhundla elections are. Tinkhundla elections will create a puppet parliament which has no power to hold Mswati, who rules Swaziland as an absolute monarch, and his government to account.

The health of the nation can only be assured in a democratically elected government which has a clear mandate by which it can be held to account. The Mswati regime must be overthrown. The CPS is already mobilising for country wide Freedom Discussion Forums to deliberate on the practical ways to overthrow the hated royal regime.

Issued by the Communist Party of Swaziland

Contact:

Kenneth Kunene

General Secretary

+27 72 594 3971

Or

Njabulo Dlamini

International Organiser

Mobile: +2687 603 9844

Email: cpswa.org@gmail.com

Facebook: Communist Party Of Swaziland – CPS

Twitter: @CPSwaziland