Local press under pressure

Under intense criticism from government, the Swaziland press faces the challenge of reporting the country's difficulties without infringing proposed legislative constraints. Reports in recent years have covered issues ranging from the rule-of-law crisis to criticism of plans to buy the king a multimillion dollar jet amid grinding poverty, a largely unchecked HIV/AIDS epidemic and widespread food shortages. This has angered the authorities, who plan legislation that some fear would gag the independent press. "The image of Swaziland is being tarnished internationally, and we have discovered that the source of these [negative] reports is the local media," Minister of Foreign Affairs Mabili Dlamini recently told parliament. In an editorial that took the government to task for "blaming the messenger" the kingdom's only independent newspaper, the Times of Swaziland, said it was the national leadership who should address the human rights abuses, spending priorities and governance issues being criticised in international media. "We are now being discussed in the same breath as Zimbabwe, and we either have to live with it, or try to bring back the good image of this country," commented the newspaper. The editor of the Times' Sunday edition accused the foreign minister of double standards. "It is not surprising that His Majesty the King brought him back here [from an ambassadorial post in Malaysia], because he is from the school of thought that what is bad must be shoved under the carpet, but if it will glorify either him or his job, then it's okay to print it." Although press freedom was included in a draft constitution written by the palace, which has been in the works since 1996, the king has the power to revoke constitutional laws. Information Minister Themba Msibi said new legislation to raise the standards of journalism would be tabled before parliament this year. The draft of the proposed bill includes a ban on foreign ownership of a media outlet, raising fears that it is aimed at the Times because its publisher is not a Swazi national. On several reported occasions, cabinet ministers have gone to the Swazi-TV studios to obtain withdrawal of a news story they deemed embarrassing to government, or which gave publicity to political opponents of royal rule. But government officials deny any interference with journalists employed by the state-owned media. The information minister is currently conducting an investigation to determine why Swazi-TV aired an interview with Musa Hlope, secretary general of the Swaziland Federation of Employers. Hlope, now an official of the Swaziland Concerned Civil Organisations - an umbrella group of pro-democracy, human rights and labour organisations - urged Swazis to embark on a symbolic protest over the lack of an independent legislature in Swaziland, after King Mswati forced House Speaker Marwick Khumalo to resign. "Msibi wanted to know what is being done in terms of disciplinary measures against the [Swazi-TV] officers who granted Hlope such a platform," the Times quoted a government source as saying. The kingdom's traditional authorities said anyone observing Hlope's protest would be punished, while the Times reported that instructions to investigate the airing of Hlope's comments had come from royal authorities. The Swaziland National Association of Journalists (SNAJ) has expressed dismay over the ongoing refusal of government officials to cooperate with the press by routinely withholding information, and then condemning the press for incomplete or erroneous reports. "They like to set up the press by withholding information, and then producing information only after a story is printed, to show us as incompetent or untrustworthy," alleged a former SNAJ official.