The Border Determination Special Committee (BDSC) appointed by the Swaziland king, says the country has the right to claim parts of the territory of Mozambique and South Africa, including the capital of the latter, Pretoria.

“The country’s original borders show that it was demarcated by the Limpopo River in the north and by the Mkhuze River in the south, so the city now known as Pretoria belongs to Swaziland and the city then known as Sophia (in the province of Gauteng in Pretoria) was inhabited by the Swazis. Our history is complete and we can show that King Ngwane III was the first to cross the Lubombo Mountains, which gives us the right to reclaim some land from modern Mozambique,” state newspaper the Swazi Observer quotes committee member Prince Sicelo as saying.

The article does not explain which portion of territory the King of Swaziland claims but details that the committee’s first meeting on Monday “put the cards on the table and revealed that its mandate, as instructed by King Mswati II, was to recover for the Swazis all the land lost during the colonial era, to the east, west, north and south, extending as far as Pretoria and the Limpopo province”.

“The shrinking of Swaziland was the result of the arrival of white settlers, various concessions, treaties and conventions, and the country becoming a state under British protectorate,” Swaziland’s attorney general, ‘Loyal Eagle’ Thabiso Masina, argues.

Masina said that “the basis of the country for this claim are the concessions” and added that “the Swazis were never defeated in war, to have a land to be claimed by the winner”.

Outlining the geographical history of the country since the mid-eighteenth century, Prince Sicelo stressed that “it is imperative for the Swazis to know where they came from and [about] the legacy they have lost over the years”.

Swaziland is bordered by Mozambique in the south, and is the only remaining absolute monarchy in Africa. It has been repeatedly criticised for violation of human rights and the squandering of wealth by the royal family against a background of the extreme poverty which affects the majority of the population.