Swaziland: PM boasts about breaching human rights

Opponents of dictatorships often assume they're being monitored by the authorities. But few dictators boast about it, as Swaziland Prime Minister Sibusiso Dlamini has done.

He told Parliament recently that the regime was keeping files on people who say negative or critical things about Swaziland, and that these files would be used against them in future. The implication was that the files would be used in court cases for sedition or other crimes, or in the fake elections due to be held this autumn.

This is unlikely to worry critics like the leaders of the banned Trades Union Congress of Swaziland (TUCOSWA), who make their criticisms entirely openly, either at home or in evidence to international bodies like the International Labour Organisation (ILO) which recently yet again condemned Swaziland for its breach of international workers' rights obligations.

Swaziland is the last feudal dictatorship in sub-Saharan Africa, and its appalling human rights record has left the population immiserated and disempowered, with the highest rate of HIV/AIDS infection in the world.