MEMORANDUM OF THE NATIONAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

MEMORANDUM OF THE NATIONAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE AFRICAN NATIONAL CONGRESS TO THE GOVERNMENT OF SWAZILAND ON THE AGREEMENT BETWEEN SWAZILAND AND THE PRETORIA REGIME ON KANGWANE AND INGWAVUMA

JULY 15, 1982

The National Executive Committee of the African National Congress presents its compliments to His Majesty King Sobhuza II, the National Council and the Government of the Kingdom of Swaziland. We pray that the Government of the Kingdom of Swaziland will consider this memorandum with the seriousness we are convinced it deserves, in the interests of the unity of the African peoples and as a reaffirmation of our common resolve to liberate the mother continent from racist and colonial apartheid domination.
The reported agreement between the Government of the Kingdom of Swaziland and the apartheid regime is fraught with grave dangers for the brother people of Swaziland and South Africa. If implemented, it will seriously complicate and impede the struggle for the liberation of South Africa, and transform Swaziland into an ally of the apartheid regime, a regime which is objectively an enemy of the people of Swaziland. Conscious of our responsibilities to the people of South Africa, Southern Africa, and the continent as a whole, we humbly urge the Government of the Kingdom of Swaziland to renounce this agreement and desist from carrying it out.
Since its foundation nearly 20 years ago, the Organisation of African Unity, of which Swaziland is a member, has stood firm on the position that, in the interests of peace and unity, the colonial boundaries delimiting the states of Africa should not be redrawn except by free and mutual consent between the countries and peoples involved. Experience has shown that where this principle is violated, inter-African conflict and disunity do inevitably follow. Already this agreement has generated intense animosities between Swazi and Swazi and between Swazi and Zulu, involving millions of African people. This situation gravely undermines the cause of African unity and gives rise to the possibility of fratricidal strife among the African people. This fits in perfectly with the divide and rule strategy of the apartheid regime and can only serve to extend the lease of life of this regime.
As in other parts of Africa, the nation states of Southern Africa are composed people who speak various languages and who emanate from different ancestral origins. Many of these are to be found in more than one state as large settled communities. Accordingly, there are Swazi-speaking people in South Africa as there are in Swaziland. There are Sotho-speaking people in Lesotho as there are in South Africa. Tswana-speaking people are to be found both in Botswana and in South Africa, as are Shangaan-speaking people in Mozambique and South Africa and Venda-speaking people in Zimbabwe and South Africa. Conscious of their obligations towards the goals of the larger African community, none of the independent states in the region have pressed claims of annexation of the relevant sections of the South African population. Similarly, some have correctly refused attempts by Pretoria to have these sections declared alien in South Africa and nationals of the relevant independent neighbouring states. Since it formation 70 years ago this year, the African National Congress has fought against all attempts by successive South African regimes to annex Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland, attempts partly argued on the basis that the population of these countries constituted extensions of population groups living in South Africa. We would consider it highly regrettable that Swaziland should, at this late hour, set herself apart from the rest of the African people of our region by breaking with the tradition described above, by electing to separate the Swazi-speaking people of South Africa from the rest of the African population of our country and by joining hands with the apartheid regime in carrying out a policy which aims at transforming South Africa into a white man’s country by declaring the African people aliens in the country of their birth.
Our feeling of regret is made more intense by the fact that the Royal house of Swaziland, representing the Swazi people, helped to found the African National Congress in 1912. Then and during the subsequent decades to date, Swaziland recognised that the peoples of Southern Africa and of Africa shared common interests and a common destiny. Accordingly. the Swazi people were at one time with those of South Africa, in the struggle to forge even greater African unity and to liberate the oppressed African peoples. Over the decades, the leaders of the peoples of Swaziland and South Africa have worked strenuously to teach their peoples about the fact that they were in actuality one people who had been forcibly divided by the colonial powers. When the founding fathers of the ANC, including the distinguished Royal house of Swaziland, voted in January 1912 'to strive to bury the demon of tribalism,' they cherished the ideal not of the separation of the peoples of Southern Africa, but of their unification, emphasising the common African bonds that unite us and pointing to the grave harm done to our welfare by the stress on ethnic divisions. The Pretoria regime, the arch enemy of the African peoples, actively seeks to worsen these divisions, in its own interests. In this situation, the people of South Africa count on the Government and the people of Swaziland to recall the heritage of unity and African brotherhood which Queen Regent Labotsibeni left us and, as before, to reaffirm, practically, their loyalty to this heritage.
Having refused to recognise the legitimacy of the racist and colonial apartheid regime, from its inception the OAU has rejected the claim of this regime to represent the people of South Africa. In keeping with these positions, the OAU has recognised the liberation movement as the authentic representative of the people of South Africa and has, therefore, granted our movement the status of observer at the OAU. These positions have been endorsed, and the course pursued by the OAU followed by the Non-Aligned Movement and the General Assembly of the United Nations Organisation as well as the specialised agencies of the UN. Accordingly, we are convinced that it is both politically and morally incorrect to enter into agreements with the illegitimate apartheid regime which affect the territorial integrity of our country. The people of South Africa and their liberation movement would therefore be within their right if they refuse to recognise the validity of such agreements. This position already has force in international law to the extent that the international community has formally declared invalid the decisions of the apartheid regime to balkanise the territory of South Africa through the Bantustan policy. It is our hope that Swaziland will continue to respect these positions which she herself helped to formulate.
We believe that it is fundamentally wrong to change the nationality of people without their express consent. In this particular case, the decision to change the nationality of almost a million South Africans has been reached without consultation whatsoever with these people and, indeed, against their express wishes. The imposition of a new nationality on these people would, in essence, mean that they are being colonised. There is no possibility that such a development can be acceptable either to the people of South Africa or to the international community.
The purpose of the apartheid regime in seeking to alter the boundaries of South Africa and to expatriate almost a million are clear. They are:
1. To further the policy of transforming South Africa into a white man's country by depriving the entire African population of their South African citizenship.
2. To impose on the Government of Swaziland the obligation to ensure that this population of one million South Africans does not participate in the struggle to liberate South Africa and that the ANC, the recognised leader of the oppressed and struggling masses of South Africa, is denied access to these people.
3. Further to integrate Swaziland within the South African economy, in pursuance of the policy of the apartheid regime of forming a neo-colonialist "constellation of Southern African states"; and
4. To alleviate the problem of African unemployment, which has assumed crisis proportions, by denying a million South Africans the right to employment in South Africa, since they will be turned into foreigners.
It is our firm belief that the Government of Swaziland, realising the grave injustice which the apartheid regime seeks to inflict on the people both of Swaziland and South Africa, will join hands with us to rebuff the manoeuvres of our common enemy.
An equally disturbing aspect of this agreement is the intention to develop the area along the Indian Ocean, reportedly to be ceded to Swaziland, as a naval base for use by the Western and South African navies. This refers specifically to Kosi Bay. Quite clearly, this is a very dangerous ploy designed to transform Swaziland into a military base for the purpose of terrorising and committing aggression against the rest of independent Africa, policing the Indian Ocean and the South Atlantic in the interest of the Western powers and providing these powers with a base from which they can easily and at the opportune moment, dispatch their military force into South Africa to save the apartheid regime from its inevitable defeat by our liberation movement. As an expression of its intent, the apartheid regime is already building an all-weather road, at the cost of tens of millions of rand, to link Kosi Bay with the rest of the South African road network. We are convinced that the Government of Swaziland, in keeping with its obligations under the Charters of the OAU, the Non-Aligned Movement and the UN will defeat this effort to turn the Kingdom of Swaziland into an enemy of the peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America and a base which threatens international peace and security.
The people of Swaziland and of South Africa can and will, in future, solve any territorial disputes between them peacefully and amicably, in the spirit of African brotherhood and mutual solidarity. For this to be possible, it is, however, necessary that the people of South Africa should, like those of Swaziland, govern themselves. It is, therefore, our considered view that the Government of Swaziland would be perfectly within its right to raise any territorial questions with the government of a liberated South Africa, should there be such questions. In the meantime, it would, in our view, have been an advantage both to Swaziland and ourselves, if the Government of Swaziland had sought the opinion of the ANC on the question under discussion before entering into negotiations with the Pretoria regime.
We wish to assure the Government of the Kingdom of Swaziland of our high fraternal esteem and of our conviction that we can and must, between ourselves, reach an honourable agreement which will advance the cause of African liberation and unity.

National Executive Committee
Lusaka,
July 15, 1982