Thulani R. Maseko: Political Unrest in eSwatini/Swaziland and Intervention of International Community

Blossom of Thought

Thulani Rudolf Maseko is my guest in this episode, and we discuss the intervention of the international community in Swaziland amidst the country’s political unrest. He also gives a high-level constitutional opinion and on the democratization of the country.

Thulani is an experienced human rights lawyer with a passion for the rule of law. He holds a Master’s Degree in Human Rights and Democratization in Africa from the University of Pretoria, Centre for Human Rights. He holds a Hubert Humphrey Fellowship in Leadership from the American University Washington College of Law where he obtained a Master’s Degree in International Legal Studies. He holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Swaziland.

Thulani is a founder member of Lawyers for Human Rights (Swaziland) and has worked for the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) for several years as a consultant based in Swaziland.

He has worked as an attorney in private practice for the last twenty-one years focusing mostly on human rights and constitutional litigation. In 2018, he was elected to be the Secretary of the Law Society of Swaziland for a period of two years. He has represented a number of the pro-democracy activists who constantly face prosecution and persecution by the State in the courts of Swaziland. He, himself, is a victim of abuse of power and authority, spent two years in prison before he was acquitted on appeal.

On 18 March 2014, Thulani was jailed for contempt of court after criticizing Swaziland's judicial system.

In August 2014, Maseko wrote to US President Barack Obama from prison, seeking his intervention ahead of the 2014 United States–Africa Leaders’ Summit.

Maseko was released from prison on 30 July 2015. He had been declared a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.

Some highlights from our conversation:

• Whether trust should be placed on the international community to intervene and help Swaziland to democratize.
• Southern African Development Community’s fact-finding mission in Swaziland.
• Swaziland political groups and civil society’s submission to SADC Troika:
• The king and government must ensure that the process of dialogue includes all the players in Swaziland; a commitment to total unbanning of political parties; consideration for setting up an interim government; the process must give results to an adoption of a new democratic constitution; and the new constitution must ensure, going forward, the country is governed under a multiparty dispensation grounded on the rule of law.
• Historical background of the drafting process of the constitution and the intent of the drafters on the powers of the king.
• Everything that Swazi’s do is informed by the wishes and whims of the monarch.
• The constitution was not intended to bind the king – a fundamental problem faced by all Swazis.
• For the people to merely elect their own prime minister without fundamentally changing the structure of the organs of the state would not give Swazi democracy.
• Human rights perspective on the king’s speech, in particular: “Everything thing in Swaziland belongs to the king.”

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