What do you think of when you hear about Swaziland? Sugar monarchy, right? But
could you tell me where it's located? Many will say: somewhere south of the African continent.
So the fact that looking at a map we can't immediately be precise about its exact location
tells us that we are looking at a very small state (just 17,363 sq. km. in area), if not the smallest
in southern Africa and with few inhabitants (about 1.16 million). Its territory is landlocked
and shares borders almost entirely with South Africa and minimally to the east with Mozambique.
We can divide it into four distinct regions, locally called Veld (Afrikaans for "fields"),
the mountainous High-Veld in the northwest (where the two capitals Mbabane and Lobamba are located),
the hilly Middle-Veld in the center, the flat Low-Veld in the south, and the Lubombo region
in the east. The territory is crossed by many rivers and streams, which provide the country
with one of the most abundant water supplies in southern Africa. Swaziland, or rather eSwatini,
so named by the ruler Mswati III in 2018 on the occasion of his birthday, isn't only part of a
territory of very ancient formation geologically, but its population history is also ancient,
as artifacts and human remains dating back more than one hundred thousand years have been found.
The Swazis were part of the great migratory wave of Bantu-speaking Nguni peoples who,
during the 14th and 15th centuries descended from the headwaters of the Cross River in Cameroon,
through Kenya and Tanzania, to an area between the Lubombo Mountains and the Indian Ocean,
near Delagoa Bay in Mozambique. And it was in that area that, in the last decades of the 16th
century, Portuguese sailors shipwrecked off the coast of Mozambique came across them, claiming
that the inland areas beyond Delagoa Bay were well populated and that a brisk ivory trade was taking
place along the coast. When clans broke away from the mother group, they took the name of the clan
leader, and one of the first to do so was that of Dlamini, the ancestor of the present Swazi royal
family. His immediate successors incorporated many of the other clans along the Lubombo
Mountains and began to spread south and west, eventually settling near what is now Nhlangano,
in the southwestern part of present-day eSwatini. The kingdom then experienced a major expansion
thanks to the fighting king Mswati II, who was in office from 1839 to 1865 and who, taking advantage
of the peaceful relatio ns his father Sobhuza I had established with the belligerent Zulu people
from South Africa, was able to extend his holdings almost undisturbed, incorporating territories such
as present-day Nelspruit, Barberton, Carolina, Ermelo, Piet Retief and Mkhuze. But then came the
turn to reckon with European settlers, and I am referring to the Boers of the Transvaal Republic
who, in an attempt to free themselves from the British and desperate for an outlet to the sea,
expanded eastward, trying to wrest land from the Swazis by hook or crook. Until, with the Pretoria
Convention of 1881, the Boers succeeded in forcing the then Swazi ruler Mbandzeni to accept that at
least half of the original Swazi territory would fall under Boer hands. At that point,
the lion of Swaziland, King Sobhuza II, in office since December 1921 was the only one who tried
to reunite the people divided by those boundary decisions and cancel the country's existing land
property model. It, in fact, didn't grant the Swazis any control over the economic destiny of
the nation, because by granting Boer and Afrikaner concessionaires mineral deposits and land areas,
it effectively stripped the country of sovereignty over those lands. Sobhuza II,
in order to have that property model dismantled, led a delegation to London in 1922 to meet with
King George V, but the British government declared that it was unwilling to reopen
the issue of African land partition. Of the same opinion were the Privy Council judges who said
that the measure under which the Swazi land had been expropriated had the same status as an act
of state and as such couldn't be challenged. The only solution was to set up a public fund,
the "Lifa Fund" to try to slowly buy back the land previously taken by Boers and Afrikaners.
This necessity failed when the United Kingdom finally granted independence to Swaziland in 1968.
Then, once independence was achieved and the land taken away from the concessionaires,
it remained to adjust the borders with South Africa. For the sake of brevity, I will not
go into detail and simply tell you that this wasn t simple and involved several authorities:
Buthelezi, leader of the Kwazulu-Natal province, the historical home of the Zulus; Pieter Koornhof,
South African minister for cooperation and development; and the Organization for African
Unity, which was formed in 1963 to eliminate all forms of colonialism in Africa. It all revolved
around the unification of Swaziland with two strategic regions to which Sobhuza II aspired:
Kangwane and Ingwavuma, the latter in particular guaranteeing control of the port city of Khosi Bay
and thus an important outlet to the sea. Today's borders do not correspond to those so desired by
Sobhuza II, because the two regions today are part of South Africa. What interests us is that the
king decided to remain part of the Commonwealth and adopted a form of constitutional monarchy.
Because of this he encountered opposition from supporters of absolutism, so much so that in 1973,
after a long series of clashes, he was forced to dissolve parliament and political parties,
restoring the traditional regime. From there on, until the ascension in 1986 (April 25) of
the current ruler Mswati III, the triumph of absolutism would be overwhelming. And any popular
demands about greater democratic openings would sometimes be bloodily suppressed and sometimes
silenced with promises that were never kept. Prominent among these were the tensions and unrest
triggered during 2021 by the killing by security forces of student Thabani
Nkomonye while participating in a pro-democracy demonstration. The ruler was accused of hiring
foreign mercenaries for the occasion, while the overall toll of the crackdown was 80 deaths over
the course of the various riots. But when you hold absolute power, it s easy to crush dissent,
especially if the people continue to remain attached to the monarchical institution and
the values of unity and social peace they believe it represents. Another example of how risky it is
to challenge the crown's choices is provided by a 2014 episode. The sentencing to two years in
prison of journalist Bheki Makhubu and human rights lawyer Thulani Maseko, who were guilty
of daring to publish an article in a national newspaper questioning the administration of
justice in the country. An attitude so unwelcome to the top leadership that they also charged
them with contempt of court, causing them to be subjected to pre-trial detention for three months.
On the day of sentencing, Human Rights Watch publicly reported that the full exercise of
human rights in eSwatini was in steep decline, as political parties aren t allowed and the judiciary
is severely compromised, pointing the finger at the indifference of neighboring South Africa
and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), of which eSwatini is a part.
The same article states that "the government also (allegedly) abused the repressive tools
contained in the 2008 anti-terrorism law to target independent organizations,
accusing them of being 'terrorist' groups, and crush civil society activists through
abusive surveillance and illegal searches of homes and offices." And on the press freedom
side? Worse than ever! Broadcaster licenses aren t recognized except in rare cases, and the two main
daily newspapers are related to the government elite-such as The Eswatini Observer, wholly
owned by the omnipresent national investment fund Tibiyo Taka Ngwane, which among other
things is the major shareholder in the sugar giant Royal Eswatini Sugar Corporation. We ll return to
this in a moment. Another phenomenon that has plagued the country for quite some time is not
political but health-related, namely the very high incidence of HIV among the population. According
to available data (UN agency UNAIDS) more than 27 percent of adults are living with the disease,
and in 1999 King Mswati III officially declared the spread of the virus a national disaster.
A first move was to enact the recently abolished Chastity Law, which imposed virginity for women
until the age of 24. Efforts were also made to raise funds for prevention, care and treatment,
but the resources set aside between 2013 and 2014 were no more than $33 million, less than one-third
of the total figure of $100 million allocated by various international entities. And now we come
to talk about eSwatini from an economic point of view: we are facing one of the poorest countries
in the world, with a national GDP of $3.9 billion (2020 data) that places it at the bottom of the
world ranking, 160th out of 197. Despite this, GDP per capita (at $3415 again in 2020) is not
among the lowest on the African continent, taking into account that it has almost halved from 2012
values ($5,719) and that more than half of the inhabitants live below the poverty line.
The rural context occupies the vast majority of the population, and in fact the predominant
economic activity remains agriculture, while only the large plantations of cotton,
tobacco but especially sugarcane are managed on an entrepreneurial basis. Most of the national GDP,
however, comes from valuable mining activities, such as diamonds, asbestos, tin, and coal, largely
controlled by South Africa, while tourism is experiencing some development, attracted by parks
and nature reserves. In fact, these are populated by extremely rich wildlife, and one piece of news
that may not displease animal rights activists is that under the law of the realm, park rangers can
shoot poachers on sight and possibly kill them without incurring any conviction or penalty. But
why is eSwatini referred to as the sugar monarchy. Well simple! because the best, closest to water
sources and most fertile lands have been allocated to intensive sugarcane cultivation. In 2014 there
were nearly (385.4) 400 billion liters of water used by major companies active in the sector to
irrigate the thousands of hectares of plantations located mainly in the Lubombo region. First among
them is the Royal Eswatini Sugar Corporation, which manages nearly twenty-two thousand hectares
and produces over four hundred thirty thousand (437) tons of sugar each year. Its shareholders
are the omnipresent Tibiyo Taka Ngwane fund (53.1%), set up by King Sobhuza II in 1968,
RCL foods (29.1%), the government of Nigeria (10%), the government
of Swaziland (6.5%) and others (1.3%). In second place is Ubombo Sugar Limited, 40%
owned by the usual sovereign wealth fund Tibiyo and 60% by the South African multinational Illovo
Sugar Limited. Its consumption of water resources is no joke either: between 2013 and 2014 it stood
at around (source: Water 2014 Information Request document) one hundred fifty four (153.7) billion
liters. The problem is that water is not only consumed, it's often altered, spoiled by intensive
agriculture that demands much more from the land than it can provide and by the use of pesticides
and fertilizers. But there is little we can do about it, sugar is the country's flagship:
its importance is reflected in exports, GDP and the number of people employed in "agriculture".
Factors, however, that haven t helped to improve living conditions in eSwatini, given that as I
mentioned, GDP per capita is just over $3,000 (World Bank data). Sugar weighs so heavily on
the economy that the crown not only staked land to bolster the sector, but also chose to make itself
fiscally attractive to large multinational investors, mainly The Coca-Cola Company. The
U.S. company's 2013 financial statements in the section on taxes show that Brazil, Costa Rica,
Singapore and Swaziland are four countries that would have reserved tax incentives for it.
Certainly, however, the fortunes of Coca-Cola's income statement have not been matched by those
who inhabit the country and don't own shares in the Tibiyo fund, which still proves to be an all
too sectoral development tool from which very few can benefit. Coca-Cola is also active in the
country today through its subsidiary Conco, which buys sugar from local producers and processes it
directly there to produce the drink concentrate. After that, according to the report "Swaziland:
Southern Africa's Forgotten Crisis" (by Chatman House), much of the concentrate is then shipped
to Coca-Cola's bottling plant in Nelspruit, South Africa. The same report also states that in 2013
Coca-Cola's contribution to Swaziland's economy would have been between 20 and 40 percent of GDP.
As early as 2012, the British newspaper "The Guardian" raised the issue with the
titled article "Coca-Cola accused of propping up notorious Swaziland dictator," and many claimed
that the U.S. giant's profits weren t helping the people of eSwatini as the king grew richer
and richer. The accusation of helping to secure profits for the crown had been answered by Sherree
Shereni, Coca-Cola's Central Africa spokeswoman, by stating that "King Mswati III wasn t receiving
any profits or dividends from Conco Swaziland." From Conco maybe not, but Conco is only one part
of the multinational's branched presence in the country. On the other hand, as far as foreign
trade is concerned, the largest relations are with the powerful neighbor South Africa but 20 percent
of exports are to the old continent, so much so that the European Union has ratified Economic
Partnership Agreements with the country, centered mainly on the tax-free export of several products
including guess what? sugar. You are then familiar with China's strategy of penetration
into Africa. You know that the Asian nation is a major trading partner for many African states,
but still eSwatini remains the white sheep of the flock, recognizing Taiwan's sovereignty. So as a
result of the "one China policy," it renounces diplomatic and trade relations with Beijing.
I remind you of my old video on tense relations between Taiwan and China, catch it up if you
missed it. Things may be changing, however. In fact, it seems that the Swazi crown will sooner
or later want to follow in Nicaragua's footsteps and remove itself from the list of states that
recognize Taiwan's sovereignty, as it moves closer to the China s policies on the 5G deal. What will
become of eSwatini in the near future? Widespread discontent with the crown shows that something
is moving, but how many inhabitants are really willing to accept change? Could it be the close
ties to tradition that prevent the people from opening their eyes to the bitter reality? Well
we are done for today as well, thank you all for your attention. See you in the next video. Ciao!