The draft National Land Policy

Contents | 1.0 Introduction | 2.0 Issues and Policy Statements | 3.0 Implementation - Legislative Measures | 4.0 Implementation - Institutional Measures | Appendices

APPENDIX A

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The nucleus of the Swazi Nation, headed by the Dlamini clan, was settled for some generations around Delgoa Bay, south of what is now Maputo, Mozambique.

The Swazi moved south, and then west along the Pongolo River around 1750, into what is today the Shishelweni Region in southern Swaziland. By about 1810 the state founder, Sobhuza I, (Somhlolo) ruled lands bordered roughly by the Phongolo in the south and the Ingwavuma in the north.

The 1820's saw Sobhuza’s settlement in today’s central Swaziland, while the 1830's witnessed the King’s steady expansion to the north as far as the Nkhomati River.

King Mswati II (1839-1865) expanded the state rapidly in the 1850's and early 1860's, until his territory was virtually double that of Swaziland today, generally the bloc between the Phongolo and the Crocodile Rivers, including today’s towns of Piet Retief, Carolina, Nelspruit and White River.

The Boers established themselves in the eastern Transvaal in 1845, and signed three major land deals with the Swazi (1846, 1855, 1866). The first two changed very little on the ground, but the third (after King Mswati II’s demise) saw continued Boer colonisation of the most westerly and northern territory, demanding labour, if not tax.

The following King, Mbandzeni (1875 - 1889), mindful of the Zulu Kingdom’s unwarranted conquest in 1879 and the subsequent dismantling of its monarchy, allowed a flood of concession-seekers into his land in the 1880's.

While the Swazis expected the concessionaires to form another layer in their feudal hierarchy, the Europeans considered their concessions to be fully transferable, for payment or otherwise, without any reference to the King’s authority.

At the same time, this decade was that of the "Scramble for Africa". Swaziland remained precariously independent until 1894, whereupon the Transvaal imposed an administration, following protracted negotiations between Britain and Transvaal Boers.

The British victory in the Anglo-Boer War saw Britain taking over Swaziland as part of the subdued Transvaal in 1902, and then proclaiming it as a British Protectorate in 1906. A census conducted in 1904 determined that the population was then just over 85,000.

The injustice of Swazis finding themselves stripped of their land through cooperation was clear. They thereby found themselves in a similar situation to the defeated Zulu -whose king was made landless as the ultimate penalty for his wars against the British. However, the settlers now had a definite interest in the land, rights granted by the Swazi King himself, and were not going to surrender them lightly. In 1904, the Concessions Act 3/1904 provided for the formalising of concessions.

The colonial administration attempted to resolve this injustice by the Concessions Partition Act 28/1907 - "an Act to provide for the setting apart of land for the sole and exclusive occupation of Swazis, and the grant of freehold or other rights to persons holding concessions in respect of land not so set apart." On the one hand, this could be seen as the opening up of two-thirds of Swaziland to commercial development and the returning to the Swazis of at least one-third of their land: on the other, it could be seen as the permanent legalisation of a contentious dispossession of two-thirds of the Swazi State.

This Act, not long after the conclusion of a traumatic and turbulent phase in the history of the region, was greeted with dismay by the Swazi rulers. Its legality was challenged by King Sobhuza II in the Privy Council in 1923. The challenge was unsuccessful. The Swazi rulers became very distrustful and conservative on land issues.

The land trauma was aggravated even further by Proclamation No 2 of 1915, controlling the purchase of land by Swazis. This was not removed until 1963, and had the effect of keeping clearly defined, enforceable and transferable property rights - fundamental to enfranchisement in any market economy - largely out of the hands of Swazis. Swazis effectively had three basic choices - stay on SNL, pay quitrent on designated urban areas, or reside without formal tenure on freehold land. In each case, their chances of present or future significant participation in the market economy were severely curtailed.

At the time of the Concessions Partition Act, fifty-eight percent of Swazis were within the one third of the land returned to the Swazi Nation, the remaining forty-two percent being on settlers’ two-thirds. These were allowed five years to move to SNL, and after that the settler could elect to remove them, or allow them to stay. Most stayed on, usually under arrangements such as providing labour for the owner for half of the year in consideration of land use rights.

The Swazis then set out on the long process of getting back the freehold and concession land. At first, funds were raised by means of levies on the wages of mineworkers sent to the mines in South Africa (the Labotsibeni Fund). In 1944, King Sobhuza founded the Lifa fund, by means of which over one hundred thousand hectares were regained, funded by auctioning one head of cattle from every herd of more than ten head. From 1940 to 1948, the British administration instituted a land settlement scheme, regaining 6.3 percent of Swaziland’s area and bypassing the traditional authorities by dealing directly with 4,000 Swazi families.

By 1950, the population of Swaziland had grown to 200,000, about 1.4 percent of whom were domiciled in urban areas. In that year, the Central Rural Development Board was established with a brief to address erosion and resettlement issues. Before independence, the British administration instituted a programme of land repurchase of farms and conversion into SNL. The reward of all of these various initiatives was that by the time of the independence of Swaziland in 1968, over half of Swaziland had reverted to traditional administration. In 1969 the Hobbs Report was tabled, investigating aspects of current and future land use in Swaziland. The land repurchase programme continued well into the independence era, so that now almost three quarters of the land is held by the Ngwenyama in Trust for the Swazi Nation.

The Immovable Property Act 46/1963 had made racially discriminatory property transactions illegal; the Farm Dwellers Act 21/1967 (reintroduced with minor modifications as the current Farm Dwellers Control Act 12/1982), provided rights to the farm dwellers which had not existed before, but also allows their removal (provided compensation was paid) for intensive development. In 1973, the Land Concession Order 15/1973 was introduced. Retrospective to 1968, it made all concessions that had not been converted into freehold subject to being held at the will and pleasure of the King, and on such terms as he may determine. Today, only about two percent of the country is held by individuals under this form of tenure, most of whom are Swazis.

By independence, the population had grown to approximately five times the population of 1904, about 5 percent of whom were domiciled in urban areas. Population pressures on the land, both of people and of cattle, were taking a mounting toll on the land quality. By 1980, soil erosion on SNL grazing land was described as being of catastrophic proportions.

Economic pressures on the land resource were also building. Supply did not match demand, and the property market only catered for the elite, with values far in excess of affordability for most Swazis. In 1972, the Land Speculation Control Act 8/1972 was introduced as an attempt to accelerate Swazi ownership of freehold title without discouraging appropriate foreign investment. More and more Swazis migrated to urban and peri-urban areas, with or without formal tenure.