I FEEL SO HIGH

LOCAL RASTAS JUS LOVE DAGGA

Eeish mzala I’m high….i mean mzala not from smoking any habit forming drug but because my ‘brother’ Mthupha was recently arrested for a huge consignement of dagga.

I don’t want to judge him because the court of law is yet to pass judgement on his suspected act. The man is from Mvutjini (who cares) but it seems like his story reminds me of my dream of dagga trafficking agents well known to farmers.

These are the agents I have been seen in the city’s drinking holes posing as ‘money –makers’ drinking like there is no tomorrow.

It is not that I am trying to tell brother Ike that these money makers are agents who act as go-

betweens connecting the farmers and the South African, regional and the European dagga dealers.

I have heard from a kwerekwere friend that these bunch of lomakhaya are responsible for

Purchasing dagga from the farmers and transporting the harvest to strategic locations for

packaging. After processing, the agents together with their accomplices would then

smuggle the dagga into South Africa through illegal points. In some instances, trucks

take the aggregated harvest and drop them at specific points along the border on the

Swaziland side.

Akausimi and not referring to Mtfupha but I have heard through the grapevine that the same trucks drive through official entry posts empty before driving to opposite positions on the South African side where the dagga is loaded back on to the vehicles and taken away.

Mzala I am just disheartened that the issue of organised crime, or crime in general for that matter, should be understood in the context of the socio-economic conditions in Swaziland. With more than 69% of the population leaving on less that E7 a day (ask yourself how may aske for E1 a day in the township you live in), more than 40% infected and manm more affected by HIV/AIDS, the general standards of living are low.

It can be argued that this leads to a situation where a significantly large number of people are forced into situations they would not ordinarily choose, and that includes participation in crime and organised crime to earn a more “dignified” income. It is probably from this point of view that the prevailing attitude amongst the ordinary people is that dagga is a source of income upon which many families rely.

I have learnt from my friends labafundzile that this makes it a socially and politically

sensitive issue for the police/government to seriously confront. Conversations with a

number of government officials have also confirmed this state of affairs by highlighting the fact that families that grow dagga are able to fetch more than ten times what those who grow corn and other legal crop are able to fetch per acre of land. It therefore makes business sense for these families despite receiving only a very small fraction of the ultimate price for their produce as compared to the wholesalers and international dealers.

I still remember mzala upon the construction of the Maguga dam near Pig & Hog residence families were relocated to areas further inland and on soil fertile for the cultivation of sugarcane. The government facilitated the community farming projects by availing loans to sponsor the overhead costs and left the management of the new farms to the community. To the government’s dismay, alongside the sugarcane farms, thriving dagga plantations have suddenly been discovered. The justification of the farmers is said to be that all the money they get from the sugarcane goes to paying back the loans and therefore that the money that they generate from the dagga is guaranteed to be theirs.

Why is it that the region is flooded with the myth that mabhala ngepeniseli

that needed to be verified was that sometimes back inindividuals were given concessions for dagga farming for medicial purposes to supply both the local and European markets. Allegedly, this was the springboard upon which the current dagga trade was established. However, there was no evidence suggesting that this was ever the case. The official point of view is that traditionally, Swazi warriors have always used dagga as an acceptable way to evoke courage. It has also been used as a traditional sedative. The elders have been known to brew dagga and drink the product to treat chest and respiratory infections. It is known to control asthma attacks. The source of the myth appears to be the law that allows the cultivation of dagga on experimental projects. Authorities have noted that this is the case in other Southern African countries and they have sent teams on exploratory trips upon receiving numerous public demands to legalise dagga cultivation on a controlled basis like “in Zimbabwe and South Africa”.

In terms of law enforcement, the Royal Swaziland Police have over several years made dagga a priority in their operations. However, because of the inaccessible terrain, they do not have requisite resources to confront the problem. The police do not have an air wing and rely on the South African Police Services (SAPS) for assistance in fighting dagga farming. The practice is to fly over the mountains and spray the identified plantations with chemicals that would destroy them. Such operations generally occur once or twice a year, mainly because of the related costs. Otherwise, an alternative to dagga spraying is the physical uprooting of dagga plants. This is a labour intensive and notoriously excruciating exercise that is disliked for its demand for operatives at the expense of other operational priorities, at least in the period when dagga plantations are destroyed. In any case, spraying is only considered effective with dagga that is identified before it nears maturity because the sprayed plants would subsequently wilt