Regional leaders meet with Mswati

Mozambican President Joachim Chissano and two African elder statesmen met with Swazi King Mswati III on Sunday to reportedly discuss the country's deepening political tensions. "[The] President of Mozambique, Joaquim Chissano, and former president of Botswana, Ketumile Masire, were joined by former Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda, and met with His Majesty Sunday evening at Lozitha palace," a foreign ministry source told IRIN. Chissano, the current head of the African Union (AU), and Masire, had been in Swaziland attending a four-day Commonwealth Global Smart Partnership International Dialogue Summit before leaving on Saturday. They returned to Swaziland on Sunday to join Kaunda, who also attended the summit, for the meeting with Mswati. Palace officials would not divulge the nature of the talks, but the Times of Swaziland reported on Monday that the African leaders discussed the draft constitution Mswati said he would ratify by October, as well as governance issues and an ongoing rule of law crisis in the kingdom, in which the entire Appeal Court bench resigned when the government refused to accept their judgement that the king could not rule by decree. "The meeting shows that the AU is concerned about what is happening in Swaziland - enough to send these three statesmen to confer with Mswati," a source quoted in the newspaper said. However, the newspaper did not report that the statesmen constituted an official delegation from the AU. "The leaders are concerned with the current uncertain political situation in the country... What concerns the leaders most is that the new constitution should be adopted in an environment free of controversy, in particular the rule of law," the Times' palace source was quoted as saying. The "palace insider" said the three leaders chose not to bring up sensitive matters with Mswati during last week's summit, which was characterised by some delegates as a celebration of Mswati's reign. "Nobody wanted to say anything that might upset the king during the summit," the foreign ministry source told IRIN. Although the summit was billed as a problem-solving opportunity to allow people of different points of view to come up with solutions to social, economic and political crises, security forces kept away critics of the king's rule from the summit venue. The police ignored a court order permitting labour federation officials to deliver a petition critical of the political and human rights record of Mswati, sub-Saharan Africa's last absolute monarch.