By James Hall
JOHANNESBURG, Apr 22 2003 (IPS)

-With the fall of one tyrant from the world scene, former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, how are some African heads of state who are accused of violating democratic principals faring?

"They are reading the writing on the wall, and they are reacting with hysteria," concluded South African human rights activist Alicia Dhlamini of Human Rights Watch after hearing of Swaziland’s King Mswati condemnation of democracy as "ungodly" at the weekend.

"With Saddam gone, there’s one less despot in the world. The remaining ones are feeling less secure. Times are changing," said Swazi journalist Desmond Mtetfwa.

Palace sources say Swaziland’s ruling family has closely followed the results of national elections held in nations formerly ruled for decades by a single leader.

"The Boers of South Africa used to point out that once an African nation held elections, it produced a strongman who would use his power to rig future elections, and stay in office forever. ‘One man, one vote, one time,’ they said. It was a way to justify the continuation of the minority white rule of the apartheid days," said the source.

He said Swaziland’s leaders noted the falling from power of King Mswati’s godfather, Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, and more recently Daniel Arap Moi of Kenya, following national elections.

"The lesson to be learned was clear: Don’t hold an election you can’t win. If you can’t win, don’t hold an election at all," he said.

But the coalition forces overthrow of Iraqi’s strongman has shown that not only internal elections but external force can be used rid a nation of an undemocratic government.

King Mswati’s supporters argue that the Swazi monarchy is legitimate because it did not come into power illegally, but has ruled for centuries with the popular mandate of the Swazi people.

Holding a different view are opposition groups, who have been banned for 30 years this month, since the time Mswati’s father, King Sobhuza, junked the democratic state bequeathed by the nation’s Independence constitution, and seized power for himself. They feel Swazis would like to see a popularly elected government, but have been cowed into silence by a state of emergency, and security forces pledged to defend the king.

The palace is not willing to test its claim of a popular mandate with a referendum. "Who ever heard of a referendum for a king?" the palace source said.

Small and relatively insignificant, Swaziland has not attracted the attention of Zimbabwe, a larger, more populous and resources rich nation where President Robert Mugabe has become increasingly dictatorial, according to media reports.

Amnesty International and the United States State Department in their annual reviews of nations that abuse human rights catalogue the Mugabe government’s oppression of political dissent, including the jailing of journalists and the torturing of political opponents by the state security apparatus.

During the final week of Saddam Hussein’s government, Mugabe grew more defiant. According to press reports, he boasted at a meeting with supporters, "They call me a Hitler. Well, Hitler was a man who did what was needed to preserve his people and his country, so I am proud to say that I am a Hitler!"

A Western diplomat stationed in Swaziland told IPS, "Never before has a national leader dared to say he was a second Hitler, a man who is universally vilified as one of history’s great villains and mass murderers. But Mugabe is a wily old fox. He chose the one person most offensive to Jews, while his government spread the view that the War on Iraq was conducted for the sake of Israel. He was also defying the Iraq War victors, America and Britain, Israeli allies who defeated Hitler and who are critical of Mugabe’s regime."

More sinister, some political observers say, was Mugabe’s identification with Hitler the genocidal mass murderer. If Mugabe believes genocide is an acceptable policy, they fear, attacks against Zimbabwe’s white minority and political opponents belonging to other tribes and ethnic groups may become even more bloody.

King Mswati’s pronouncements this week also sounded extreme, but seemed to fit an agenda to retain power as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, at a time when South African President Thabo Mbeki and other progressive African leaders are insisting that democracy become the uniformed continental political philosophy.

"On the matter of Swaziland, we have initiated a dialogue with them (about human rights and press abuses)," Mbeki told 130 editors assembled in Johannesburg last week for the All African Editors Forum.

He said the African Union, which Mbeki heads, has not discussed Zimbabwe, because that nation’s crisis is being dealt with by the 14 member states of the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

Behind the scenes diplomatic pressure – "quiet diplomacy" the South African foreign ministry calls it – is being applied on Swaziland. But King Mswati is seeking further justification for his grip on power, post-Saddam. This week, he invoked the dogma of Divine Rights of Kings.

"Although the whole world is preaching democracy, it does not mean we have to follow them," Mswati said. "Democracy is not good for us because God gave us our own way of doing things. Democracy is just a passing fashion," he told pastors at an Easter service.

Several prominent local pastors told the Mswati that the Bible condemns majority rule. One minister said citizens of the world’s democracies, "no matter how many they are," will be going to hell because the Bible only recognizes kings, not presidents.

"Such thoughts have no place in the modern world," said Jan Sithole, a unionist who is the president of the Swaziland Solidarity Network. "But neither do unelected governments." (ENDS/IPS/MM/AF/SA/IP/JH/SM/03)

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