Swazi borders could change as royals claim back land

JAMES HALL MBABANE – Road transport firms will have a set of new border posts with Swaziland and Mozambique if large sections of the Mpumalanga Province and KwaZulu Natal are incorporated into Swaziland, as the Swazi royal family desires and as South African officials have agreed to consider. “How far South Africa is willing to go is unclear. Perhaps the foreign minister was merely trying to be polite to her Swazi hosts,” one foreign diplomat told FTW. On a visit to Swaziland last month, foreign minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said her government would set up a border adjustment committee to work with a ten year-old Swazi border adjustment committee headed by Prince Khuzulwandle, one of King Mswati’s brothers. “We seek the return of land that is Swazi land historically and culturally,” the prince said. The territory the Swazis want back was given by British colonial authorities to their Natal Province and to Paul Kruger’s Republics in the 19th century: KaNgwane in the Mpumalanga Province that extends up to 40 km from Swaziland’s west to northeast border; a 65, by 30 km strip north of White River; and all land in KwaZulu-Natal north of Lake Sibaya, which if given would again extend the landlocked country to the Indian Ocean. OAU and African Union members have agreed to abide by colonial era borders, but Swazi kings have always held that their land was illegally confiscated. Millions of South African citizens, many of whom are not Swazis, and hundreds of millions worth of property and infrastructure would be affected. Doubtful that the border adjustment will ever be effected, the owner of one transport company located at the Matsapha Industrial Estate quipped, “If it happens, it will certainly cut down on driving time from Durban and Gauteng to the Swazi border.”