Vous êtes ici : Accueil » Afrique australe » Swaziland » Swaziland : CPS NEW YEAR STATEMENT - 2013

Swaziland : CPS NEW YEAR STATEMENT - 2013

D 2 janvier 2013     H 22:08     A CPS     C 0 messages


The Communist Party of Swaziland wishes all our compatriots and allies a fruitful New Year for 2013, in which we take significant steps towards the liberation of Swaziland from the monarchic autocracy and the forced impoverishment and degradation of the majority of people in our country.

The CPS ended 2012 with a successful summer school, held in Mpumalanga, which focussed on the development of a dynamic ‘praxis’ among our members and prospective members – the welding of socialist theory to socialist practice regarding immediate tasks.

We believe that if properly applied, such an approach allows for the most accurate and useful means of analysing and applying practical action to the situation in Swaziland.

The Mswati monarchic regime continues to squeeze the failing economy of Swaziland for all it is worth in order to sustain the tinkhundla system and the position of the ruling class. This is increasingly to the detriment of the overwhelming majority of people in Swaziland.

Mass poverty, malnutrition, the pandemic of HIV pandemic and other diseases, inadequate housing and water and sanitation, a stripped down and barely functioning education system – all are persistent realities facing our people. These assaults on the living conditions of our people are accompanied by the most revolting and virulent persecution of women, criminalisation of abortion and the active encouragement of sexual oppression under the guise of cultural singularity.

As the Mswati regime continues to squander the countries precious resources and earnings on keeping a small minority in luxury, the plight of the Swazi people is worsening.

Elections

In 2013 the Mswati autocracy will hold what must be the most absurd and unrepresentative elections anywhere in the world : the tinkhundla elections which are posited as free and fair but in which political parties are prevented from taking part. These elections are being held up as a paradigm of progressive development in Swaziland by international bodies such as the Commonwealth.

The CPS is campaigning to ensure that the people boycott these sham elections, and that the international community, including the UN, EU, SADC and AU, in no way approves them.

We urge all supporters of Swaziland’s pro-democracy movement around the world to lobby their governments to refuse to recognise Mswati’s elections. These elections are nothing more than an exercise in renewing Mswati’s support base.

Towards a provisional government

The CPS will conduct educational work in communities in Swaziland in order to expose to our people the true nature of the tinkhundla elections, on the one hand, and the need for radical democratic change on the other.

We need to prepare our communities for taking power. This requires a solid understanding of how direct democracy works.

The CPS has consistently argued for the formation of a provisional or interim government to oversee the initial phases of revolutionary change and reconstruction in Swaziland. This provisional government must, we believe, involve all sections of the pro-democracy movement and must be steered by mandates from the people organised in their communities.

The preparation of a provisional government should take place through a mass nationwide consultative process – a Conference on Democracy. This would develop a charter of aims that the provisional government would establish as basic policy frameworks.

These would then be further developed by the first democratically elected government, the election of which would be organised by the interim government. As we have argued consistently since our formation, Swaziland must become a republic if it is to have any chance of attaining equality among our people and of moving towards socialism.

We do not believe that it is premature to set the groundwork for a Conference on Democracy, or to begin the discussion and education in our communities on the basics of a democratic revolution. The Mswati regime is on its last legs. We cannot predict when its demise will happen, but the people of our country need to be prepared to take power and to ensure that power is not usurped by unrepresentative groups and individuals intent on self-enrichment.

Revolutionary change

The CPS does not believe that the sorts of plans and blueprints for making piecemeal reforms to the economy or political life of our country have any hope of ending inequality and underdevelopment in Swaziland.

We note especially the Economic Roadmap proposal that emanated from a forum, supposedly of Swazi civil society, organised last June by OSISA and CANGO. The designation of the ‘roadmap’ as a product of civil society has no grounding in reality : Swazi civil society has never been consulted in any comprehensive manner about this sort of initiative.

The roadmap posits economic reforms that are wholly devoid of political context. Nowhere is the question taken up of the monarchic autocracy’s grip on the economy. The thinking seems to be that you can make the Swazi economy work and function well without the democratic revolutionary changes needed to place the economy at the service of the people instead of an aristocratic and financial oligarchic elite.

We note that as the prospects for change in Swaziland appear more likely now that in past years all sorts of quasi-respectable think-tanks, lobbying groups, representatives of this or that movement, and murky business interests are emerging (many with foreign support) to try to divert the momentum for liberation towards a liberal capitalist hegemony.

We need to redouble our efforts to expose the agendas of such groupings, and particularly their mendacity in posing as civil society.

The pro-democracy movement

It is no secret that there are divisions and tensions within the broad democracy movement that have often paralysed solidarity networking and resulted in open sectarianism.

Part of this has been directed against the CPS, and we have evidence of false information being presented concerning the origins of the CPS and its role. An effort has been made to depict the CPS as a band of thugs and malcontents who split away from PUDEMO ; or then simply to ignore it altogether and pretend it doesn’t exist.

We know that such accusations and machinations carry little weight among the grassroots communities in our country and among our allies who are familiar with our campaigning and mobilising work. The aim seems more to sway those further afield against the CPS in particular and a socialist direction for Swaziland in general, and it is part and parcel of an all too familiar anti-communism we have seen down the decades in numerous contexts.

As we stressed in our founding documents, the CPS is committed to building PUDEMO as it is the most representative democratic mass movement of the Swazi people. That commitment stands. Our instinct is to urge people in Swaziland who want to work for democracy to join PUDEMO before joining any other formation.

The role of the mass democratic movement is crucial in carrying forward the momentum for democracy. And the work of its key networking component, the Swaziland Solidarity Network, is crucial in attracting broad support for the Swazi struggle, in particular internationally through the setting up of sister organisations in various countries.

Such broad based work to attract as much support as possible around the world and locally to oust Mswati is crucial to the success of the liberation of our country. We do not feel that the sniping at the CPS by some individuals in the mass movement does anything to further the cause of democratic revolution that Swaziland needs so badly. But neither in the long run is it all that important. The CPS believes that such petty sectarianism can be easily swept aside and forgotten amidst the more pressing and powerful momentum for the liberation of our country.

The CPS is willing and able to work with any formations that serve the interests of the mass democratic movement and espouse the aims of PUDEMO for democratic change. That is our bottom line.

Happy New Year 2013 to all organisations and individuals working for democracy and freedom in Swaziland !

ALUTA CONTINUA !

Contacts

Felix Mabaso

International Organiser

Email : felixmabaso@yahoo.com

Mobile : +2774 922 8277

Kenneth Kunene

General Secretary

Email : ken.manze@gmail.com

Mobile : +2772 594 3971