EFF statement on the spiteful utterances of despotic King Mswati against pro-democracy activist

13 January 2022

The EFF condemns the provocative remarks made by King Mswati referring to pro-democracy activists as children of witchcraft and that all the citizens of eSwatini and their lives are properties of the King.

The monarch has gone berserk and the level of obsession with himself and his ruling family of the Dlamini is dangerous. The Dlamini ruling family of the monarch has now achieved all features of tyrants prone to genocidal conduct like King Louis XVI, Nicholus Ceausescu and King Leopold of Belgium.

The King has unleashed his mere 6 000 national army members and 13 000 police force against a population of 2 million citizens. The King and his family should realise that such a small military and police force can easily be wiped out and the safety of members of the ruling family seriously jeopardised.

The EFF will soon and at appropriate time announce a different approach to its solidarity with the struggling people of eSwatini and in the meantime, we call on the immediate re-opening of schools which have been closed since June 2021 due to the pro-democracy protests. We further call for the removal of soldiers on the streets and soldiers to be treated with respect by the King as against making them his hewers of wood and workers of his vast farm plantations. The lives of black children matter most and cannot be left to whims and caprices of the king who want to produce a generation of illiterate and uneducated society protecting his seat of office as a dictator.

The EFF will soon call on the Generals and Commanders of the army and police in eSwatini to arrest the King and his enablers of undemocratic regime before the rising masses do it with brute force. The police and the army should be protectors of citizens in a free and democratic society. A new democratic dispensation is inevitable soonest and those on the side of the brutal and violent junta maiming pro-democracy activist and fighters for a regime change will have themselves be visited by anguish and anger of vengeance of the free people of eSwatini. In the meantime, the EFF calls on the army and police to refuse instructions and orders of the King to kill, arrest and brutalise pro-democracy activist

We support the call of EFF in eSwatini for the boycott and disruption of the iSibaya monologue where the masses and activist are reduced to children insulted by the king and his praise singers.

The EFF has called on SADEC to appoint former President Thabo Mbeki as a peace facilitator in a neutral place other than the palaces of the king. We call for all progressive forces to discard their egos and pride but unite behind a banner of a genuine Patriotic Front. We call on senior members of the ruling family to reign on the king before it is too late because their silence is complicit, least they too become collateral of the coming revolution.

The King has declared his birthday a national holiday, a clearest demonstration of drunken power. The EFF gives the king an ultimatum of 18 April 2021 to engage in meaningful dialogue of face the consequences. In the meantime, the King should totally cease and desist from detention, arrest, torture and harassment of pro-democracy activist. For the peace of the King and his ruling family, the EFF peacefully calls on the junta to release all those arrested and detained for demanding a change on government system and a new democratic dispensation.

EFF South Africa openly associates itself with the militant struggle of EFF eSwatini and its alliance partners in the Political Party Assembly. The solidarity with the struggling people of eSwatini in forms of statements, peaceful protest on the borders inside South Africa and peaceful calls for the King and his ruling family to relinquish power to a democratic government stops on 18 April 2022. The King has a choice to peacefully engage for a democratic dispensation and not his witchcraft Tinkundla system or violently abdicate his throne.

Issued by Vuyani Pambo, National Spokesperson, EFF, 13 January 2022