By Velaphi Mamba.

I thought it prudent today to write to King Mswati’s children, which is something I would not ordinarily do. As a leader in society, I have lived long enough to understand that we do not have to speak to those who listen to us all the time – otherwise, what is the point?.

Significantly, I write this not only as an advocate for change in our country but also as a witness to history and as someone who understands how cruel history can be to those who refuse to listen. I hope you will listen – all of you collectively.

Your father, King Mswati III, has ruled our country with an iron fist for nearly four decades. This April marks forty years of his absolute power and 53 years since your family staged a coup against our national sovereignty as a people. 

In the 40 years of his iron-fisted rule, your father has presided over the systematic looting of the state, transforming himself into a billionaire while our people have descended deeper into poverty, hunger, and indignity. He has ruled through fear, violence, and impunity. 

Land that belongs to the nation has been appropriated as royal property. Strategic sectors of the economy are under his direct or indirect control.

The State has been reduced to a personal estate. 

Your father is not merely the head of the economy but he is the economy. That is the tragic scale of his insatiable greed.

I need you to understand that recalcitrant regimes as the one your father leads do not last forever. Tinkhundla shall not last forever too.

Your father is visibly unwell. The people see and whisper about it away from the public glare. The official explanations and his own claims of being under a strict exercise regime convince no one. Power has always thrived on secrecy in the corridors of power, but illness has a way of betraying even the most guarded rulers.

Whether through death or political collapse, the Mswati era is approaching its end. And when it does, the transition will be high-stakes, unforgiving, and irreversible. 

All scenarios point to a country entering a transitional phase to a post Mswati and post Tinkhundla order.  You, his children, stand at the edge of that moment.

I want to be brutally honest with you. Many of you have become symbols of everything that has gone wrong in this country.

Your public displays of obscene wealth insult a population that cannot afford bread, medicine, or school fees. 

While young people search desperately for work that does not exist, you flaunt luxury cars, foreign holidays, and extravagant lifestyles funded by a state that is collapsing under its own corruption. 

You earn money you do not work for while your peers, the children of our people, struggle under extreme conditions manufactured from the palace. This moral blindness and sickening sense of entitlement shall be your collective downfall. 

It is political suicide that you will not survive if you proceed in the manner you are behaving. More troubling still is your apparent willingness to preserve the throne at any cost.

In June 2021, the people of this country rose up against your father because they were sick and tired of being manipulated. 

They were desperate and hopeful for something better than the dystopian abyss that your father and your family have plunged our country into.

Instead of listening to their cries, your father callously ordered the largest slaughter of our people in modern history. 

Prince Sicalo and Princess Sikhanyiso were active participants and architects of this massacre.

One flew a Taiwan donated military helicopter from which unarmed civilians were gunned down.

The other switched off the internet, plunging the country into blanket darkness so that the killings could proceed unseen. Over a hundred people were murdered. It was a massacre of unequal measure. Unfortunately for you, history does not forget massacres, no matter how long justice is delayed. History always remembers.

I find it strange why you do not understand this better than most. Prince Sicalo was in Libya when Muammar Gaddafi fell – evacuated in the nick of time.

You saw what happens when a ruler misreads the moment, when force replaces legitimacy, when arrogance blinds power. Gaddafi ruled for 42 years and he tragically believed himself untouchable until he discovered that he was not. His sons believed the state belonged to them until it turned against them. Saif al-Islam, one of Gaddafi’s sons was recently shot and killed in Libya. He was once seen as the heir apparent to his father and he often presided over violent crackdowns and killings of Libyan citizens in attempts to keep the seat of power within his family.

Today he is dead and so is his father and most of the leaders of their evil regime. What I am writing here is not ancient history but a warning written in blood and memory.

History is replete with examples of fallen dictators – despots who failed to listen when the people spoke of change. Robert Mugabe ruled Zimbabwe for 37 years. He fell largely on account of the slow erosion of loyalty and relevance. The Arab Spring swept away presidents who believed they would die in office. Ben Ali fled. Mubarak fell. Bashar al-Assad of Syria is now exiled in Russia.

The Shah of Iran ruled with absolute confidence until he was forced into exile, dying far from the throne he thought eternal. His son and heir is now living in exile in the United States of America. You have lessons to learn there – power does not disappear quietly. It often collapses spectacularly. Do not fool yourselves to believe that your family is immune because it is not.

Not even muti will save you from change – as they say, change is the only constant in life.

You may believe that when your father dies, the throne can be secured through force, through the military, and through fear. That belief is dangerous and misguided and I would counsel that you to disabuse yourselves of it. A post Mswati order held together only by guns will not guarantee stability. 

It will be combustible and none of you seem to have the temperament, acuity and leadership skills required for such a period. Civil unrest is a very real prospect and the logical outcome of repression without legitimacy. And when that happens, royal blood will not shield you. It never has, anywhere in the world. 

I am unapologetic in conveying this message to you all. This is the moment for you to choose differently. You must not wait until it is too late.

You still have a narrow window to separate yourselves from a dying political order. You can acknowledge that the era of absolute monarchy is over. You can support a negotiated transition to democracy. 

You can place yourselves on the side of change rather than repression. History does not require you to be saints but it demands that you be wise. If you embrace change, you may yet have a future in this country. If you resist it, change will come for you anyway – without mercy, without negotiation, and without guarantees of safety. 

The sovereignty of our country belongs to emaSwati and not your family. I am speaking to you directly because I would rather see our beautiful country transition to democracy peacefully. You need to understand that history has already made its decision. 

The only question left is whether you will adapt or be swept away with the throne you are so desperately trying to preserve. The choice is yours Malangeni. It is time.