DEAR THULANI MASEKO
….a letter to Thulani Maseko on the third anniversary of his assassination
Dear Comrade Thulani,
Three years have passed since you were taken from us, yet time has done nothing to dull the pain or soften the injustice of your assassination. I write to you today not only in mourning, but in anger, reflection, and stubborn hope. Your life was a shield for the oppressed, your voice a legal and moral compass in a country drifting deeper into authoritarian darkness.
When the bullets found you, they were meant to kill an idea, that justice could still live in Swaziland . They failed. We miss you deeply, Comrade Thulani. We miss your leadership, firm yet gentle, radical yet grounded. We miss your calmness in moments of chaos, your patience when others rushed to anger, your clarity of thought when confusion reigned. You were a unifying figure in a movement too often fractured by ego and petty politics.
You listened, truly listened: even to those who loudly disagreed with you. Your tolerance, humility, and intellectual honesty reminded us that the struggle for freedom must also be a struggle for dignity. We miss your unwavering dedication and total commitment to the cause of justice.
Today, we yearn for a leader like you, one who can rise above our differences, recognise our diversity as a strength rather than a weakness, and unite us, and the world around us, in the pursuit of social justice, peace, the rule of law, and democracy. Since your passing, the human rights situation in our country has worsened dramatically.
The late Thulani Maseko
The state has perfected repression: arbitrary arrests, torture, killings, and the criminalisation of dissent have become routine. Fear is no longer accidental; it is institutionalised. As Martin Luther King Jr. warned, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Today, injustice governs us. The labour movement, once a formidable force for democratic change and social justice, has been gravely weakened and shadow of its former self.
TUCOSWA, battered by state interference, leadership crisis, organisational and internal paralysis, stands as a painful symbol of how repression succeeds not only through force but through exhaustion and division. Equally troubling is how the Multi-Stakeholder Forum (MSF) failed to rise to the historic responsibility created by your assassination.
That moment demanded courage, unity, and urgency. Instead, hesitation prevailed, and the regime filled the silence with violence. We were promised answers. We were promised that SADC facilitated dialogue would offer a pathway out of the crisis. Yet the SADC-facilitated dialogue never materialised, reduced to diplomatic statements without consequence.
Promises dissolved into diplomatic theatre, while our people continued to die in poverty and royal supremacy. As Desmond Tutu reminded us, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” That neutrality has cost Swazi lives. Your party, PUDEMO, remains under relentless attack, leaders persecuted, members imprisoned, political work criminalised.
Organisationally, it is nowhere, lacks direction, mediocrity, factionalism , suffocation of new ideas has become its defining characteristics. Meanwhile, King Mswati survives by entrenching a royal aristocracy, shielding privilege through patronage and brutality while the people endure poverty, fear, and despair. And yet, Comrade Thulani, hope persists. History tells us no tyranny is eternal.
As Nelson Mandela said, “It always seems impossible until it’s done.” Your sacrifice planted seeds that continue to grow in our youth, in our communities , in exile and at home . The struggle lives because people still dare to imagine a free Swaziland. We miss you . We honour you. We carry your name. We continue the struggle. Dawn will come.
In struggle, sorrow, and unbreakable hope,
Maxwell Dlamini
”There is no night so long that it does not end with dawn,” Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o.
This darkest hour for the Swazi struggle shall pass.