Swazi princess is beaten for marking end of decree

MBABANE, Swaziland — The Swazi king's teenage daughter has long raised eyebrows with her Western-style clothes. Now her decision to hold a drinking party to celebrate the end of a chastity decree has shocked members of Africa's last absolute monarchy and resulted in a beating.

The scandal caused by Princess Sikhanyiso's latest flouting of tradition cast a pall over Swaziland's royal bride-choosing festivities, when her father was to select another wife.

The annual reed dance, at which 20,000 girls in beads and traditional skirts danced before King Mswati III, ended late Monday with no indication of whether he had chosen a bride.

In recent years, the king has increasingly made his choice in private, after a screening by palace aides and his mother.

Royal officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the issue is considered sensitive, said yesterday that the king had privately chosen three potential brides and might unveil one at a ceremony in southern Swaziland this weekend.

Royal officials had tried to keep word of Princess Sikhanyiso's party quiet during the reed dance but acknowledged late Monday it had occurred Friday to celebrate the end of a ban on sexual relations for girls younger than 18.

The chastity rite is separate from the bride-choosing ritual.

In 2001, Mswati temporarily revived the ancient umchwasho rite — symbolized by the wearing of woolen tassels — to fight AIDS, which is at crisis levels in Swaziland, but it was ridiculed as old-fashioned and unfairly focused on girls.

Days before the reed dance, the king said he was ending the ban a year early.

His eldest daughter, a 17-year-old who was rarely seen in the umchwasho tassels herself, said Friday's party with loud music and alcoholic beverages was a private gathering that did not warrant the public scrutiny it received.

"We were just enjoying ourselves," Princess Sikhanyiso was quoted as saying in a local newspaper.

Ntsonjeni Dlamini, who oversees traditional affairs, was not amused.

"We were so shocked that the girls decided to turn the reed-dance ceremony into a drinking and dancing spree," Dlamini said Monday.

He said he was compelled by tradition to beat the celebrating girls — including the king's daughter — with a stick.

Princess Sikhanyiso's father has come under international pressure for resisting reforms to introduce more democracy in the country. His lavish lifestyle, including indulging a love of expensive cars, contrasts with the absolute poverty of most of his subjects.

The AIDS crisis has compounded the misery, with estimates that 40 percent of the 1 million population is infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

According to Swazi tradition, the king is always meant to have a bride in waiting. He can only marry her when she is pregnant.

Mswati's late father, King Sobhuza II, who led the country to independence from Britain in 1968, had more than 70 wives.