Embassy Row

Swaziland’s lament

Stung by a national U.S. magazine that named the king of Swaziland one of the world’s top 10 dictators, the prime minister of the tiny southern African nation came to Washington to defend his country’s honor.

Absalom Themba Dlamini, prime minister since November, told Embassy Row that his government is trying to correct some of the mistakes of the past and praised King Mswati III for his support.

“We will do everything in our power to improve the image of Swaziland,” Mr. Dlamini said.

That task is daunting. The State Department’s human rights report faults the country for “serious abuses” that include police torture, violence against women and children, and limits on free speech. The list goes on.

To make matters worse, Parade magazine in February introduced Swaziland to 37 million readers in 344 newspapers nationwide by including King Mswati among some of the most brutal leaders. The 35-year-old king, who ranked 10th, was named with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il at No. 1 and Cuban dictator Fidel Castro at No. 9.

“Though educated in England, Mswati has shown a liking for certain Swazi traditions,” the Sunday supplement said of Africa’s last absolute monarch.

“In September 2000, he watched thousands of girls and young women dance bare-breasted in the annual Reed Dance, then chose one to be his 10th wife.”

Her mother accused King Mswati of abduction and filed a lawsuit. He responded by forbidding the courts to issue rulings that limit his power, the magazine said.

Student and labor unrest in the 1990s “have pressured the monarchy to grudgingly allow political reform and greater democracy” in the nation of 1 million bordered by South Africa and Mozambique, the CIA’s World Factbook says.

Mr. Dlamini, a former business executive, said that among his top goals are reforming the judicial system by increasing the number of judges and eliminating a law that allows criminal suspects to be detained without bail for long periods before trials.

“It must be revoked so people are not kept forever and ever as suspects,” he said on his visit here last week. “We need a fair, just legal system that is the voice of the voiceless.”

Mr. Dlamini promised to impose fiscal discipline on his government and improve laws against corruption and money laundering.

He called the Parade article a “distraction,” adding, “If you don’t refute these things, people will believe them.”

“We believe we are a fair nation,” he said.

Equatorial election

The foreign minister of Equatorial Guinea promised Washington last week that the results of legislative elections in his tiny West African nation “will reflect the vote.”

The results were released late Tuesday. President Teodoro Obiang Nguema’s Democratic Party and other parties that support him won 98 of the 100 seats in the new single-chamber legislature. His supporters won all but seven of the 244 local positions in the April 25 elections.

Foreign Minister Micha Ondo Bile promised last week that the vote would be free and fair, but observers from Spain, the former colonial power, complained about “irregularities.”

Teodoro Biyogo Nsue, the country’s ambassador to the United States, said this week that the foreign minister met with Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and State Department human rights officials.

“The visit was very productive because it enabled the minister to discuss the recent coup attempt in our country and the next steps in prosecuting the coup plotters in a manner that is consistent with international and Equatorial Guinean laws,” the ambassador said.

In March, 70 suspects were arrested in Zimbabwe and accused of planning to fly to Equatorial Guinea to overthrow the government.

• Call Embassy Row at 202/636-3297, fax 202/832-7278 or e-mail jmorrison@washingtontimes.com.