The one-million Swazis haven't stopped gossiping since the arrival of 35 smart French soldiers at the local City Inn Hotel...
WHAT ARE THOSE FOREIGN MILITARY DOING IN AFRICA?
What is going on here? The Americans are all over Africa, training the military, such as this sturdy American bloke from the AFRICOM command training some really frail-looking soldiers in Uganda. Now there's word that the military commander of the French forces in the Indian-Ocean region has arrived in Swaziland over the weekend to train the tiny Swazi army. The 35 French specialist-soldiers landed in Swaziland to train local forces, ostensibly for the formation of an African Brigade for the African Union...
Oct 12 2008 -- Journalist Sisho Magagula of the Swazi Observer writes that 35 French soldiers raised quite a stir in the tiny mountain kingdom yesterday when they arrived at the local airport, purportedly to help train the local military.
The Frenchmen set off a spate of rumours among the Swazis after they landed at the Matsapha international airport and boarded an army truck to the City Inn Hotel in Mbabane.
There was widespread speculation amongst members of the public ranging from them being there to protect the absolute-ruler King Mswati III'... to investigate the 'recent spate of bombings in the country;'... to 'providing protection during the opening of parliament'....
Bombings Lozitha Swaziland:
Last month, a local lawyer, Musa ‘MJ’ Dlamini of the Swaziland Solidarity Network and Jack Govender of the People’s United Democratic Movement were killed by a bomb. Apparently they had blown themselves up when a bomb exploded prematurely before it could be planted under the Lozitha overhead bridge, the police claimed. The local Swaziland Times published the gruesome pictures of the two men to provide the proof that they had blown themselves up before the bomb could damage any part of the infrastructure.
http://www.times.co.sz/index.php?news=1959
African Brigade:
However, the French military unit's leader - who also just happened to be the top Officer-commanding the French forces in the entire Indian Ocean region, commandant Bruno de Bourdoncle de Saint-Salvy -- quelled all these rumours by saying that their visit to the country was 'in line with their mission to establish an African Brigade under the auspices of SADC and the African Union." Their central command post is located at Reunion island, where the French have a large military force.
He added that this was a 'multinational exercise and each African country from the different African regions must contribute to the African Brigade." "The local army force invited us to train the local soldiers and equip them with the necessary and modern skills of military operations. "We will share experiences with the local soldiers," he said.
He said all 35 French soldiers are 'experts in different fields of military training' and promised that the Swazi soldiers would 'gain a lot from this exercise'. "Vigorous training begins at once at the Mdzimba Mountain,' he said, adding that the training would last six days.
Strangely, the local Swazi army spokesman Khanya Dlamini didn't know anything about the French soldiers at all - referring all inquiries to the ministry of defence. He probably didn't read the memo...
The Frenchmen set off a spate of rumours among the Swazis after they landed at the Matsapha international airport and boarded an army truck to the City Inn Hotel in Mbabane.
There was widespread speculation amongst members of the public ranging from them being there to protect the absolute-ruler King Mswati III'... to investigate the 'recent spate of bombings in the country;'... to 'providing protection during the opening of parliament'....
Bombings Lozitha Swaziland:
Last month, a local lawyer, Musa ‘MJ’ Dlamini of the Swaziland Solidarity Network and Jack Govender of the People’s United Democratic Movement were killed by a bomb. Apparently they had blown themselves up when a bomb exploded prematurely before it could be planted under the Lozitha overhead bridge, the police claimed. The local Swaziland Times published the gruesome pictures of the two men to provide the proof that they had blown themselves up before the bomb could damage any part of the infrastructure.
http://www.times.co.sz/index.php?news=1959
African Brigade:
However, the French military unit's leader - who also just happened to be the top Officer-commanding the French forces in the entire Indian Ocean region, commandant Bruno de Bourdoncle de Saint-Salvy -- quelled all these rumours by saying that their visit to the country was 'in line with their mission to establish an African Brigade under the auspices of SADC and the African Union." Their central command post is located at Reunion island, where the French have a large military force.
He added that this was a 'multinational exercise and each African country from the different African regions must contribute to the African Brigade." "The local army force invited us to train the local soldiers and equip them with the necessary and modern skills of military operations. "We will share experiences with the local soldiers," he said.
He said all 35 French soldiers are 'experts in different fields of military training' and promised that the Swazi soldiers would 'gain a lot from this exercise'. "Vigorous training begins at once at the Mdzimba Mountain,' he said, adding that the training would last six days.
Strangely, the local Swazi army spokesman Khanya Dlamini didn't know anything about the French soldiers at all - referring all inquiries to the ministry of defence. He probably didn't read the memo...
The gossip is rife: "They are here for the bombings" - public
THE visiting French soldiers were the centre of attraction at the city centre - with hordes of people gathered around them. The soldiers hit town around 2:30pm and paraded around in their bulky luggage before settling at the City Inn Hotel.
General speculation amongst members of the public was that the French soldiers are here in connection with recent spate of bombings in the country. At the old bus rank, a man was overheard announcing that he had received information from "reliable sources" that the country's authorities had secured the services of the French soldiers to assist in the search for the people responsible for the bombings. Asked where he had sourced such information, the man refused to divulge his so-called "reliable sources" and also refused to give his identity.
Nonhlanhla Sibandze, a commuter, said the soldiers were here to ensure that the first sitting of the House of Assembly progresses smoothly today in view of the recent spate of bombings.
http://www.observer.org.sz/main.php?id=47551§ion=main
Vusie Sibandze of Sidwashini, said the soldiers have been recruited to serve as bodyguards to His Majesty King Mswati III. There were other weird speculations amongst members of the public concerning the real mission of the soldiers in the country. For the entire afternoon, the French soldiers were spotted parading around town, chatting to members of the public and shopping.
http://www.observer.org.sz/main.php?id=47547§ion=main
Background:
Landlocked, mountainous Swaziland, with only about 1-million citizens, has only 535 km borders to protect: 105 km with Mozambique and 430km with South Africa. The country has no neighbouring enemies. However, the Swazi king is embroiled in a tribal-land rights dispute with South Africa and has lodged land-claims with the international court of justice in The Hague for parts of Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal. The UK-university educated young Swazi king wants to create a trading corridor to the Indian-Ocean coastline of East-Africa to improve the country's trading opportunities.
Officially Swaziland is described as 'poor' because 70% of the population survives on subsistence agriculture. However these subsistence farmers also sell huge quantities of untaxed export crops which have a very high cash-value: their world-famous homegrown marijuana is smuggled out through the Indian-ocean ports of Mozambique and South Africa and sold at high prices in Europe.
This underground cash-crop culture, together with their long history of working in neighbouring South Africa, keeps the Swazis funded well enough: for instance while the country has 44,000 land-line telephones, its 1-million citizens also have some 500,000 cellphones; and the country spends 4.7% of its annual $2.936 billion GDP on its military expenses and has a proportionally overly-large contingent of civil servants.
Their military, the Umbutfo Swaziland Defense Force which also has a small air wing, is conscripted from the male population from a rapidly-shrinking pool of about 122,000 able-bodied males who are still deemed fit for military service: the country suffers from a high level of AIDS-TB.
SOURCES:
12 Oct 2008 : http://www.sapa.org.za/public/browse.cfm
1 Opinion(s):
Great article. Just one point though. Swaziland isn't officially a poor country it's a 'middle income' country. The problem is the way that wealth is distributed. About 70 percent of the people earn less than one dollar a day. That makes them very poor. It's the small group centered around the autocratic king who are doing well. Forbes magazine says King Mswati III has a wealth of 200 million dollars.
I blog about politics and human rights in Swaziland. Is you're interested come visit
http://www.swazimedia.blogspot.com
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