On Thursday, I was inundated with calls from pro-democracy and Tinkhundla activists speculating on the identity of the Swaziland International Solidarity Forces Commander (SISF).
It should be noted that the identity of the Commander is unknown, but every citizen has the freedom to speculate on subjects that are in the public domain.
What is more surprising is that State under-cover journalists, who have been developing various online platforms dismissing and labelling our stories as misinformation, have opted to speculate and link a political leader as the Commander based on a picture published by this Swaziland News.
Now, solely to advance their own agenda, the story and the picture are no longer fabricated, they are even attempting to give identity and to legitimise the photograph.
For the first time, I am seeing State propaganda journalists trying to assist this publication in confirming a story as true because they have an interest in knowing the Commander.
Worth-noting, if the person in the picture looked like Prince Lindani, Bandzile or any royal family member, that would be misinformation in the eyes of Mswati’s loyalists.
The person with the ultimate power to give an identity to the covered picture is the author.
It is astonishing to see Tinkhundla loyalists spreading speculation, I expected them to denounce both the image and the story as misinformation.
In light of the aforementioned, it is important to state that the identity of the Commander of the Solidarity Forces remains unknown, and as a publication, we disassociate ourselves from speculations influenced by political agendas.
Furthermore, we do not anticipate calls from people pretending to be calling the editor for substance, trying to authenticate the man behind that picture, and I won’t entertain people who will try to systematically record me in order to unmask the Commander.
Furthermore, I won’t feature any names in this article saying political leader X is not the Commander because I don’t want to validate the rumours.
The names of the Commander and other Commanding Officers of the various units of the Ground Forces remain ‘unknown’.
Even King Mswati once contacted a lady based overseas and accused me of being the Commander of the Solidarity Forces.
I am aware of the call that lasted more than thirty (30) minutes, and all I can say is that even the King has the right to speculate on the identity of the Commander.
The State undercover journalists who are promoting a Public Relations (PR) project on behalf of Mswati’s regime have been posting my picture on social media, accusing me of being the Commander of the Solidarity Forces.
All of a sudden, they claim to know the identity of a Commander in a covered photograph published in a story authored by a journalist labelled as the mastermind of misinformation.
The question is, who is the now powerful and influential Commander of the Swaziland International Solidarity Forces?
Solidarity Forces logo.