The Swazi king

Today I read in the news that Christer Zettergren, secretary general in the Swedish Red Cross, argued that the HIV/AIDS epidemic is so severe that it should be classified as a catastrophe. This based on the fact two million people died in the illness last year and 7000 are infected every day worldwide.

My thoughts went back to Swaziland, which I passed by a couple of weeks ago. Swaziland is currently the most HIV infected country in the world, with at least 26% of the population infected. It is believed that two thirds of the country’s 15-year old children will die in AIDS within 10 years if the trend continues.

The country is neither helped by its (by many people referred to as somewhat stupid) king Mswati III. He has earlier expressed wishes that all HIV infected people in the country should be sterilised and branded. This has however not been implemented. In 2001, the king announced a 5-year ban on sex to stop the spread of the virus. The king himself did however not show much support to his new law as he during the period got married to several new wives.

The king also banned sexual relations for under 18s but this apparently didn’t apply to himself as he in 2005 got married to his 13^th wife, which at the time was only 17 years old.

The sex ban was ended one year early as it apparently didn’t work and rather had the opposite effect. It resulted in an increase in prostitution, decline in marriage and increase in abortions. And of course, the number of HIV infected people was increasing even faster. At this time, when HIV was booming in the country, the king ordered a private jet for $45M, to be paid for by the public funds. This amount corresponds to the whole country’s health care expenditures for a two-year period.

On a separate note, in December 2000 he launched the so-called Millennium project including a multi-million dollar international airport outside the tiny capital Mbabane. The current airport was seen "inadequate" as it could not handle transatlantic or inter-continental flights. Swaziland has around one million inhabitants and is located just 300 km from Johannesburg International Airport.

I really like this cool king, too bad I couldn’t meet up with him.