Word: swaziland
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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When King Sobhuza II of Swaziland died in 1982 after 61 years on the throne, the people of that tiny southern African kingdom lamented, Umntfwana sowuphumulile: the child has gone to rest. Now the slogan of the day in Swaziland (pop. 800,000) is a much more cheerful Umntfwana sowukhulile: the child has grown into...
Some of that intrigue almost seems inspired by the early reign of Louis XIV of France. Mswati, formerly known as Prince Makhosetive, officially took the 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...
...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 of the nation. Before the public ceremony, Mswati underwent secret initiation rites and took part in a series of exhausting ritual dances in full...
...organization's attempts to undermine the apartheid system through a campaign of sporadic terrorism. Now there is increasing evidence that Pretoria is engaged in a campaign of retaliation against the A.N.C.'s leadership. Last month Cassius Make, a member of the A.N.C.'s national executive council who was visiting Swaziland, was gunned down by assassins. According to A.N.C. officials, Make was the eighth congress member or sympathizer to be killed in Swaziland this year; an additional six have been abducted to South Africa. In the most bizarre incident of all, two Zimbabweans and two Britons recently arrested in London were...
...been resettled over the past 20 years. Of the 450,000 blacks who toil in South Africa's gold mines, 163,000 come from the impoverished homelands, where work is scarce and the pay pitiful. An additional 195,000 come from the neighboring countries of Mozambique, Malawi, Lesotho and Swaziland, where jobs are equally rare. Leaving their families behind, the miners spend most of the year living in cramped dormitories and working for wages that average $50 a week. Come mid-December, tens of thousands stream out of the camps and head home for the holidays, jamming bus stations, train...