Evictees return to ancestral lands

The community of Macetjeni in Swaziland's eastern lowveld has returned home more than four years after being evicted from their ancestral lands.

In October 2000 about 200 people were rounded up by security forces and abandoned in a field 100 km away, without food or shelter. They had refused to recognise the authority of King Mswati's older brother, Prince Maguga Dlamini, who assumed the chiefdom of the area, replacing the popular Chief Mliba Fakudze.

The internally displaced population became a human rights issue, and in 2002 the Swazi Court of Appeal ordered the government to return the evictees to their homes. The government refused, sparking the en masse resignation of the appeal court justices.

The judges agreed to resume work this week, on condition that their two-year-old ruling was executed.

Despite their relief on being returned, the people of Macetjeni remain uncertain about their future. "I cannot say I am happy to be back home, because I don't know where I will be tomorrow - this is Swaziland," Chief Fakudze told reporters.

Foreign investment has plunged in Swaziland because of investor worries about doing business in a country with a non-functioning judiciary.

Political observers told IRIN that a resolution of the "rule of law" crisis did not depend on the royal government accepting the judgements in two appeal court cases while it still retained the power to ignore court rulings.

"No judge's ruling can be superior to the king's decision. The two systems are incompatible," said a source with Lawyers for Human Rights.

Another appeal court ruling has not been honoured. The court ordered that Police Commissioner Edgar Hillary be jailed for contempt after he repeatedly obstructed the return of the Macetjeni refugees, but the sentence has never been carried out.