BY EPN Reporter
MBABANE – Prime Minister Russell Mmiso Dlamini believes Eswatini can still get back the land it lost to South Africa in 1881.
This can be achieved in the next five years, said the Premier.
Eswatini is believed to have lost all of the Mpumalanga Province of South Africa around 1881 to South Africa. Again, the country is also believed to have lost some parts of KwaZulu Natal and Mozambique around that time. The country is believed to have once had access to the sea through the land it once had from some parts of KwaZulu Natal Province of South Africa and the southern parts of Mozambique.
Speaking about the border restoration, the Premier said he believed that the land could be claimed back successfully.
He said this today during breakfast meeting with Editors and Journalists at Mountain View in Mbabane.
He was answering questions from the members of the local media houses, who wanted to know if there was a possibility for the country’s borders to be restored.
In response, Dlamini said there was a possibility. He mentioned that all would depend on the strategy of the incoming border restoration committee. He said if things went well, something could be done within the five year period of the current administration. The Prime Minister said he called for patriotism from the media on such issues.
He said he already had people coming from the neighboring country, who held title deeds that were given to them by Eswatini Government and not the Government from the country they lived in. Those people, according to the PM wanted to know what they could do to help. He also talked about new developments that have taken place regarding this matter.
The PM then challenged the editors and reporters to do more research on this matter and report on it positively and truthfully, as it was. Eswatini is on a quest to reclaim land said to have been lost to South Africa around 1881 by certain people believed to be of Afrikaner origins.
Efforts have been made to claim the land from South Africa, with some parts of the land said to have been lost to Mozambique. In July 2018, Eswatini Observer and Times of Eswatini once reported that members of a South African political party known as the Freedom Front Plus claimed that some of the land in South Africa belonged to Eswatini. They took some of the information from some South African media outlets.
According to Sowetan, a South African newspaper, the Freedom Front Plus has claimed in July 2018 that land in Mpumalanga belonged to Swaziland (Eswatini). Speaking during the public hearing on the proposed amendment of section 25 of the South African Constitution to allow expropriation of land without compensation in Mpumalanga, Warner Weber who labelled himself as spokesman for Freedom Front Plus on land, told the committee of joint review of the Constitution that the land in Mpumalanga belonged to the King of Swaziland (Eswatini).
“I have received three delegations from the King of Swaziland (Eswatini), these three delegations agreed that the land in Mpumalanga was a property of the Swazi people. The delegation agreed that the land was not stolen from the Swazi people, but permanent settling rights were acquired by Hendricks Poetjiter through an exchange of 100 cattle in 1860 through the request of the King of Swaziland,” Weber was quoted as having said by the Sowetan in July 2018.
On December 12, 2022, Lesotho Member of Parliament Dr Tsepo Lipholo moved a motion calling upon the Basotho Govenrment to claim land said to be lost to South Africa. Speaking to Eswatini Observer at the time, Dr Lipholo said Lesotho, before losing its land to South Africa, used to share a border in the Mpumalanga Province with Eswatini and South Africa was not included at all.
Lesotho wants all of the Free State Province and some parts of KwaZulu Natal, Eastern Cape, Northern Cape, and Mpumalanga to be returned to Lesotho. The Legislator said there was a ruling from the United Nations, which he said allowed them to claim the land from South Africa. He said the land from Lesotho was lost in many ways.
Sometimes it was through war and sometimes, the British took the land to establish the Union of South Africa, which is still known as South Africa today.
