The brutal assassination of the widely respected human rights icon, Thulani Maseko, on 21 January shocked the world and inspired a sense of deep moral outrage. Maseko was gunned down in his house while watching television with his wife and children hardly hours after King Mswati III – the last absolute monarch in Africa – had made an incendiary speech threatening to “deal with the mad people … [in] his country,” a chilling reference to democracy-seeking activists across the kingdom.
At the time of his assassination, Maseko was the indefatigable chairperson of the Multi-Stakeholders Forum (MSF) in Swaziland, a broad coalition of progressive groups that have been advocating and pushing for substantive political changes and the introduction of multi-party democracy in Swaziland.
Thulani’s courageous activism, his gentle tenacity, and his firm stance on principle undergirded the collective calls – made by the MSF – for a national political dialogue and to end the monarchy’s absolute rule. For this, Thulani paid the ultimate price and triggered a tidal wave of regional, continental, and global condemnation of his assassination; his death has also served to spotlight the iron-fisted rule of King Mswati III, who has been front and center in inflaming political tensions in the kingdom.
Mswati is on record calling political opponents “dagga smokers” and encouraging a deadly “eye for an eye” policy by members of his armed forces. He has incessantly stoked a false narrative that peaceful domestic activists are “terrorists,” resulting in countless extrajudicial killings of innocent citizens by security forces.
Thulani Maseko died at a watershed moment in the history of the struggle for democracy in Swaziland. Indeed, it has come at a time when when the Southern African Development Community (SADC) has finally realized how important it is to ensure that the political crisis is permanently fixed. It is a time where it has become clear to all and sundry that the present political system, known as Tinkhundla – a system of royal supremacy and dictatorship where political parties remain banned and all powers of state rest firmly in the King’s grip – has dismally failed to deliver on the social contract and is unsustainable going forward.
The spectacular flaws of Tinkhundla were manifestly unmasked at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021, which catalysed seismic public protests of unprecedented proportions, which resulted to the infamous June Massacre that saw mass killings and the complete decimation of the peoples’ confidence in the monarchy. Two years later, Maseko is dead, hundreds are in prison and droves of activists are fleeing to exile for fear of their lives as the King steps up the heat on proponents for democracy and freedom with impunity.
Of concern to the democracy campaigners in the country has always been the bizarre and unholy union between King Mswati’s regime and the constellation of democracies of the world who claim to stand for the ideals and human rights that liberal democracy represents: freedom of association and assembly, equality before the law, equitable distribution of wealth, good governance, and the rule of law. What is palpably clear is that global democracies such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Israel, Taiwan, South Africa, and the European Union bloc of countries have all remained in full support of King Mswati – this, despite decades of draconian rule and the suppression of fundamental rights and freedoms. This must come to an immediate end.
This week, the European Union Parliament issued the strongest set of resolutions on Swaziland to date, threatening to suspend financial support for its programs on account of the regime’s deplorable record on human rights. This must not be an empty threat. There must be tangible action, including clear accountability measures to ensure that Swaziland urgently transitions to a full democracy.
The United States, and other aforementioned democracies, can ill afford to remain ambivalent in the face of the recurring atrocities in Swaziland. It is time for them to align the values they profess to be their guiding compass with what they actually do by leveraging all the tools at their disposal to bring an end to absolute monarchical rule in Swaziland. The coordination of efforts to apply pressure on the Tinkhundla regime – using robust instruments to isolate and suffocate autocracy – must urgently be undertaken. The U.S., in particular, should convene and support a global coalition of partners to ensure that a process of mediated political dialogue takes place in the country, leading to the first multi-party democratic elections under a new constitutional framework that recognizes political rights and freedoms. In this regard, Swaziland’s planned and upcoming elections must be halted – what is needed before any electoral process is for political prisoners to be released, exiles safely welcomed home, and the total unbanning of political parties.
It is time. We owe this to Thulani Maseko, and those countless others who have lost their lives due to their principled commitments to democracy and peaceful coexistence.
Velaphi Mamba is a respected democracy and human rights campaigner from Swaziland. He is a Mandela Washington Alumni and currently a MPA Candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School.
DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of Vanguard Africa, the Vanguard Africa Foundation, or its staff.