Word: royalities
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Mswati III, at 19 the world's youngest reigning monarch. Five years after his father's death, Mswati has finally shown that he can use his full regal powers with a vengeance. So far this year he has arrested a dozen high Swazi officials, including five members of the royal family, on suspicion of sedition and treason. Says a Swazi journalist in Mbabane, the capital: "Mswati is clearly angry at the intrigue that took place following his father's death and is determined to put things right...
...throne in April of last year. For the four previous years, Swaziland had been ruled by a regent, initially Queen Dzeliwe, one of Sobhuza's 50 or more wives, though not the mother of the current King. In 1983 Prince Mfanasibili, a powerful member of the Liqoqo, or royal advisory council, masterminded Dzeliwe's ouster and replaced her with Ntombi, mother of the young King-to-be. Mfanasibili then talked the new Queen regent into allowing him and his coterie to take political control over the Liqoqo and thereby in effect run the country...
Mfanasibili went to bizarre lengths to maintain his position. In 1983, while the youthful Prince Makhosetive was attending a private school in Dorset, England (where he was known to classmates as "Mac"), Mfanasibili charged that several members of the royal house had plotted to assassinate their future King. The weapon of choice, according to Mfanasibili, was a witch doctor, who was sent to England to hunt down the prince and poison him. As a result of Mfanasibili's charges, several princes loyal to the ousted Queen regent were detained without trial, as were a handful of ranking Swazi officials, including...
...meantime, Mswati has demonstrated that despite his British schooling, Swazi tribal tradition has a strong hold on him. Mswati was one of at least 67 sons of Sobhuza, who had as many as 200 children -- the exact number is a royal secret -- and who died at 83 as the world's oldest reigning monarch (Emperor Hirohito of Japan, at 86, is now the oldest). At last year's coronation, the chiefs of Swaziland paid a total of 105 cattle to the family of Mswati's mother Ntombi as a dowry for the woman who was to become the mother...
American authorities were mildly astonished last week after getting a call from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The Mounties said they had nabbed Charles J. McVey II, 57, a businessman-fugitive on the U.S. Customs Service's ten-most-wanted list. The Canadian cops found him in Teslin, Yukon Territory, a hamlet 850 miles north of Vancouver. McVey was a target of Operation Exodus, an effort to stop sales of Western high-tech goods to the Eastern bloc...