One of the newspapers of
autocratic Swaziland King Mswati III is pressing for action for the kingdom to
claim large parts of South Africa, including the capital Pretoria, for the
Swazi people.
The Sunday Observer said (4 March 2018) ‘some Swazis’ believed now was
the right time to reclaim land ‘lost’ to South Africa during the Colonial era.
The newspaper reported the Economic
Freedom Fighters (EFF) in South Africa, ‘successfully moved a motion of land
expropriation without compensation, which has since sparked wide spread debate
over Swaziland’s pursuit of reclaiming its lost land from South Africa.
‘Some Swazis believe that
this is the right time for South Africa to consider giving back some parts of
the country taken during colonial era.’
Swaziland has already
formed a Border Determination Special Committee (BDSC) which the King wants to
negotiate with South Africa over returning land occupied by people of Swazi
descent.
The Observer reported, ‘According to the BDSC, the old map of Swaziland
showed that South Africa’s administrative capital of Pretoria and larger
portions of the Gauteng, Limpompo and KwaZuluNatal Provinces belong to the
Swazi nation.’
The newspaper said it was
unable to contact BDSC chairman Prince Guduza for comment.
In March 2017 the BDSC met
with newspaper editors in Swaziland to press its case. The Observer on Saturday, another newspaper in effect owned by the King, who is sub-Saharan
Africa’s last absolute monarch, reported at the time that the committee,
‘revealed that its mandate as directed by the King is to recover all the Swazi
land lost during the colonial era, both on the east, west, south and north
which goes as far as Pretoria and the Limpopo province.’
The
newspaper reported the BDSC told the meeting that the presently landlocked
kingdom should stretch to the Indian Ocean and include parts of modern-day
Mozambique.
The BDSC was promoting what
it called ‘Pan-Swazism’, the newspaper reported. This was ‘to instil a sense of
belonging to all Swazis even outside the current borders of Swaziland’.
It added, ‘The Pan-Swazism
is of the assertion that it is globally accepted that Swazis have King Mswati
III as their king and that this is true even to Swazis that are living in the
Republic of South Africa.’
Lutfo Dlamini, a member of
the committee, reportedly said the Swazi King was rightly accepted as the
leader of all Swazis.
Thabiso Masina, the
committee’s ex-officio member from the Attorney General’s office, said land was
lost to the Swazis as a result of concessions to the white settlers around the
1840s. He said no Swazi king had in fact signed the land away.
The Observer reported him saying the Swazis were never defeated in war
to warrant for the nation to relinquish any of its land.
The BDSC said there was
already a draft agreement between Swaziland and South Africa that they would
solve the land dispute amicably.
See also
‘HELP
END SWAZI ABSOLUTE MONARCHY’
No comments:
Post a Comment