Swaziland: in Transition to What?

A publication of ihe African Studies Program of The Georgetown University Center tor Strategic and International Studies No. 30 • July .13, 1984 Swaziland: In Transition to What? by Millard W. Arnold The tiny kingdom of Swaziland, sandwiched between centuries with the Tembe people. As clans broke away apartheid South Africa and revolutionary Mozam from the parent group, they would take the name of bique, is in the midst of a fratricidal power struggle the clan leader. One of the earliest to do so was that that threatens the delicately balanced legacy left the of Dlamini, the forefather of the present Swazi royal country by King Sobhuza II, the astute monarch family. Dlamini and his people lived around the whose 61-year reign ended with his death in August Tembe River near what is now Maputo. His im 1982. mediate successors conquered many of the other clans The battle for supremacy within the royal family is along the Lubombo Mountains and began to spread being fought against a backdrop of intrigue, power, south and west, eventually settling near what is now and tradition. It has been a conflict marked thus far Nhlangano in the southwestern part of present-day by the dismissal of a prime minister and the ouster of Swaziland. The tribe was then led by King Ngwane the acting head of state; the removal of several cabi III, and today the Swazis refer to themselves as net members and the detention of lawyers, civil ser "bakaNgwane," the people of Ngwane. Sobhuza I vants, and various members of the royal family; and ruled from 1815 to 1840, and by the time of his death the emergence for the first time in years of an active Swaziland stretched westward to what are now the if still embryonic opposition movement. Bhekimpi South African cities of Ermelo and Carolina, east to Dlamini, a conservative, is the current prime minister, the Lubombo Mountains, and south to the Pongola but the real power appears to be Prince Mfanasibili, a River. traditionalist and masterful political operative. As the Sobhuza was succeeded by Mswati II. When the struggle continues, the country Sobhuza left in peace Europeans arrived, they called the territory "Swati's is wracked with internal dissent and, more ominously, Land," and later Swaziland. During the reign of Ms a cloud hangs over his successor, young Prince wati, the Afrikaners, who in 1836 had trekked north Makhosetive. to establish an independent government free from British influence, began to move into the Swazi ter A Unique African State ritory. South Africa claims that in 1846 Mswati When the continent of Africa was carved up at Euro reached an agreement with the Afrikaners ceding the pean bargaining tables in the nineteenth century, ownership of a large portion of Swazi territory, in Swaziland was the rare exception to the general pat cluding the present-day districts of Lydenburg, Middle tern of creating political entities by splitting and com burg, Barberton, and Carolina. Whether Mswati ac bining various ethnic groups. The Swazis' common tually signed such a document remains in dispute. language and culture have bound them into a genuine This was a period of bitter struggle between the nation freed of the tensions of tribal conflict which Afrikaners and the British, and each side attempted to have affected so many other parts of Africa. gain strategic leverage over the other by seizing ter The Swazis were part of the great migratory wave ritories belonging to the various indigenous people of of Bantu-speaking Nguni people that swept down from the area. The Swazis maintained a cordial but cau central Africa during the fourteenth and fifteenth cen tious relationship with both groups, but considered turies. They initially settled in an area between the Lu the British to be the lesser evil. Desperate for an out bombo Mountains and the Indian Ocean near Delagoa let to the sea, the Afrikaner government of the Trans Bay in Mozambique, which they shared for nearly two vaal Republic eventually laid claim to the entire Swazi Editor: Helen Kitchen , Director of African Studies • Research Associate : J. Coleman Kitchen, Jr. • Production/Circulation: Sheilah Mclean CSIS Africa Notes, Suite 400, 1800 K Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006 ·Telephone (202) 887-0219 • ISSN 0736-9506 2 kingdom in the hope of developing a rail link from tories should be returned to Swaziland. Their change Pretoria through Swaziland to Kosi Bay along the of posture in the 1895 agreement added a trouble Natal coast. some issue to the agendas of future Swazi-British When the British annexed the Transvaal in 1877 discussions. and subsequently undertook to govern Swaziland as a Meanwhile, something far more ominous was occur protectorate, the Swazis obtained assurance of their ring within what remained of Swaziland, as a stream independence through an unusual episode. One of the of white settlers persuaded King Mbandzeni to grant tribes in the area, the Bapedi, refused to acknowledge mineral or land concessions. Between 1886 and 1894, British authority, and positioned themselves in an the majority of the country was turned over to conces almost inaccessible stronghold deep within the moun sionaires in the belief that no titles or rights were be tains. Unable to dislodge the Bapedi, the British ing passed with the concession grants. Since the called on the Swazis, who were renowned for their Swazis regarded land as belonging to the whole na fighting skill. Following the defeat of the Bapedi by tion, they had no concept of private ownership. the Swazi warriors, the British gave a written guar Accordingly, they did not consider that land conces antee of independence to the Swazi nation. The agree sions might be regarded as a grant in perpetuity. ment did not establish, however, precisely how much Pressure from the concessionaires, both English and territory the nation would include. Afrikaners, led the British to issue an Order in Coun The British seizure of the Transvaal was soon cil in 1903 and a subsequent Land Partition Proclama countered by a powerful Afrikaner counteroffensive, tion (1907) which divested the Swazis of title to 67 which culminated in the Convention of Pretoria of percent of the land area of Swaziland. Thus, by 1910 1881, and the restoration of the Transvaal Republic. the nation of Swaziland had been virtually dismantled The Convention was the product of intense negotia as a consequence of treaties, proclamations, and con tions between the British and the Afrikaners. It con cession agreements, and the Swazis themselves were tained 24 articles, the first of which defined the boun confined to 32 "native areas." Moreover, as the move dary between the Transvaal and Swaziland. The Bri to form the Union of South Africa began, a recurring tish position was based on the recommendations of a agenda item was the incorporation of all the British Royal Commission which had been appointed in 1879 protectorates into South Africa. to explore the boundary question. The Komati Valley, constituting what is now the South African homeland Sobhuza's Vision of KaNgwane and vast tracts of land north and west In December 1921, Sobhuza II became the Ngwen of the homeland, was the most disputed area. yama (Lion) of Swaziland, beginning the longest reign Although the commission allowed the Swazis to pre of any monarch in the kingdom's history. His vision sent their case, it eventually pressured King Mband from the beginning was to reestablish Swaziland's zeni to accept a less-than-favorable Swazi-Transvaal political independence, reunite the Swazi people ar boundary. The areas of Komatipoort, Barberton, tificially divided by the boundary decisions of the Carolina, and Ermelo-comprising nearly half of what 1880s, and undo the pattern of land ownership inside had historically been considered Swazi territory-were the country which gave non-Swazis virtual control now declared part of the Transvaal. In addition to the over Swaziland's economic destiny. Toward these land lost, the Swazi community was severed almost in ends, Sobhuza led a deputation to London in 1922 to half, with the portion permanently residing in South meet with King George V, but the British government Africa cut off from its cultural roots. indicated that it was not prepared to reopen the land Despite the Convention, the Swaziland issue re issue. Undaunted, Sobhuza then decided to initiate mained a source of friction between the Afrikaners legal action to challenge the validity of the original and the British. The Afrikaners, still seeking to estab partitioning of Swazi territory. His appeal to the Privy lish access to the ocean, continued to press the Council was dismissed on the grounds that the Order British for the incorporation of Swaziland into the in Council under which Swazi land was expropriated Transvaal. Even when the British eventually agreed had the same force "as an Act of State, which cannot (in 1895) to hand over the administration of Swazi be questioned in a Court of Law." Following a 1940 land to the Transvaal government, they denied the appeal by Sobhuza to King George VI for more land Afrikaners a coastal outlet by unilaterally proclaiming for his people, the British government decided to pur the areas of Sambane and Mbikiza to be parts of chase various concessions to be known as the Zululand and thus under the administration of the "Swaziland Land Settlement." Beginning with this British colony of Natal. Sambane and Mbikiza are half-loaf, the Swazis established the "Lifa Fund" to located in what is considered the lngwavuma region of buy back more land. Slowly, Sobhuza began to regain KwaZulu, and descendants of the first Swazi people his lost kingdom. have lived between the Ingwavuma and Pongola rivers After the Afrikaner National Party won control of ever since the main body of their people moved into the South African government in 1948 and introduced what is now Swaziland.

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