SADC leaders agree to King Mswati’s request to pull Eswatini from security organ’s agenda

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has officially removed crisis-ridden Eswatini from the agenda of the SADC Organ Troika, following a request by King Mswati III.

A summit of the 16-member SADC made the decision in Harare, Zimbabwe, on Saturday, 17 August.

In a 44th SADC Summit Communiqué, the regional leaders “noted the positive progress regarding the political and security situation in the Kingdom of Eswatini, as presented by the Government of the Kingdom, and endorsed the request for the Kingdom of Eswatini to be removed from the agenda of the Organ Troika”.

The bloc further “applauded” Mswati, his government and the people of Eswatini “for this milestone”.

Eswatini was placed on the agenda of SADC’s organ on politics, defence and security — which deals with threats to regional stability — in 2021 after the country was gripped by violent pro-democracy protests. The then chair of SADC’s security organ, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, had met with Mswati and persuaded him to institute a national dialogue about democratic reform.

However, SADC was ineffectual, failing to follow through on its promised intervention after Ramaphosa travelled to Eswatini to meet Mswati in November 2021.

Ramaphosa passed on the chair of the security organ to the late Namibian president Hage Geingob, and Eswatini appeared to slide off the agenda.

Read more: Eswatini democratic reform process hangs by thread as absolute monarchy reigns

In a press conference on Monday, 12 August, South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation (Dirco) spokesperson Clayson Monyela said the SADC Summit in Harare was expected to receive a report from the SADC security organ about the engagements with roleplayers in Eswatini and what progress had been made.

In a statement on Saturday, 17 August, the Eswatini government said Eswatini had “formally submitted a request to be removed from the SADC Organ Troika agenda”, following last year’s submissions by Mswati to SADC leaders, “to the effect that the issues leading to the June 2021 unrest had been addressed and the situation normalised”.

Taking Mswati at his word 

Piers Pigou, the head of SADC research at the Institute for Security Studies, said removing Eswatini from the SADC Organ Troika would not resolve the issues in the kingdom, but “contains a situation that is likely to manifest in more trouble down the line”.

He said the situation in Eswatini had been raised at the SADC Summit in Luanda in August 2023, where Mswati had asked that the kingdom be taken off the organ’s agenda. Pigou said an agreement was reached to monitor the situation in Eswatini over the following year.

“Given that SADC has limited bandwidth and was struggling to access Eswatini itself, it raises questions about who it talked to in Eswatini and how it was monitoring the situation in [the country] during the past 12 months.”

“[SADC] should’ve been reaching out and engaging with a range of civil society actors and vice versa; civil society actors should’ve been proactively engaging with the SADC Secretariat.

“I think we’ve not seen much of either in the last year, which is a reflection of the weaknesses of SADC in terms of its own strategising and capabilities, but also a reflection of the weaknesses and divisions within civil society and opposition groups in Eswatini itself,” said Pigou.

He added that it appeared SADC had largely taken Mswati and his government’s words at face value, “and not on the basis of a thorough and proper independent assessment of conditions in Eswatini.

“There’s a kind of choreography we’ve seen from the Eswatini government to which SADC has been unwittingly complicit in terms of the Secretariat. If it had the proper bandwidth within the Secretariat it would take what Mswati’s government was saying and test that with a range of different actors on the ground. I don’t think that has happened,” he said.

‘SADC should be ashamed’

The decision by SADC to remove Eswatini from the SADC security organ agenda comes on the back of calls from pro-democracy activists for SADC to take “decisive action” to deal with the festering crisis in the kingdom.

In a letter addressed to the SADC Secretariat and its member states ahead of the Summit, the Multi-Stakeholder Forum (MSF) — a coalition of political parties and civil society organisations — called on the regional bloc to apply pressure on the Eswatini government and ensure that the recommendations previously made by SADC were implemented, including that of a national dialogue.

On Monday, MSF spokesperson Sivumelwano Nyembe said the forum was “deeply disappointed” by the decision to remove Eswatini from the agenda of the SADC security organ.

Read more: Activists call for ‘decisive’ SADC action on crisis-ridden Eswatini ahead of Harare summit

“We had hoped that the regional bloc would have adhered to its own resolutions and conducted an independent inquiry into the situation in Eswatini, as requested by the country itself. This outcome underscores the urgent need for SADC to reform its processes to better represent the interests of its citizens and uphold democratic principles and human rights.

“We believe that Eswatini’s political challenges remain unresolved. The continued presence of political prisoners, the ban on political parties, and the lack of genuine political dialogue create a fertile ground for corruption, instability, and the erosion of essential public services,” Nyembe told Daily Maverick.

He said MSF was urging SADC to reconsider its position and “to engage in meaningful dialogue with all stakeholders in Eswatini to address the root causes of the country’s challenges”.

Read more: A call for African solidarity as human rights in Eswatini continue to worsen

The Southern African Human Rights Defenders Network (Southern Defenders) executive director, Washington Katema, told Daily Maverick, “SADC should be ashamed of its decision to remove Eswatini from its agenda.”

Katema said recent events in Eswatini — including the sentencing of two former members of parliament to a combined 43 years in prison on bogus terrorism and murder charges, and the recent decision by the Supreme Court of Eswatini to uphold the contentious anti-terrorism and anti-sedition laws — “demonstrate, beyond any whisker of doubt, that the poly-crisis in Eswatini is worsening”.

In a statement, the convener of the civil society organisation Swazi Lives Matter, Qhawekazi Khumalo, called the SADC decision to remove Eswatini from the Troika agenda, “a matter of grave concern” that must be urgently reviewed.

“The situation in Eswatini is characterised by severe repression, where dissent is met with violence, and the voices of the populace are systematically silenced.

“By prioritising the interests of the Eswatini government, represented solely by King Mswati III, SADC is failing to uphold its commitment to transparency and fairness,” said Khumalo.

“It is imperative that SADC reassess its stance and takes decisive action to address the atrocities occurring in Eswatini. The organisation’s mandate requires it to act in the interest of all citizens, not just those in power,” she added.

In a response to Daily Maverick on Monday night, SADC spokesperson Barbara Lopi confirmed that the report of SADC’s security organ on Eswatini would not be made public.

“The report for the SADC Organ Troika on politics, defence and security is presented to the Summit in the closed session of the heads of state and government for their consideration, hence its full contents is not for public circulation,” Lopi said. DM