SWAZILAND: Student permits spark renewed border debate

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

MBABANE, 5 Sep 2005 (IRIN) - Swazi school children are feeling the brunt of renewed debate over the Swaziland-South African border, with South African soldiers reportedly blocking Swazi students from attending schools on the South African side of the frontier.

"The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mabili Dlamini, has expressed disapproval of statements made by South African officials, saying Swazi students deserved to be arrested for trespassing," reported the government-owned Swaziland Broadcasting and Information Service, the country's sole radio station.

Local media carried reports of a South African immigration official, Robert Zitha, who had allegedly threatened to prosecute South African school authorities who continued to admit Swazi pupils without study permits.

Swazi students have attended three schools in South Africa's northeastern Mpumalanga Province for years. The students endure walks up to two hours, starting before dawn from their Swazi homesteads and crossing a barbed wire fence that demarcates the two countries.

"I do not have a passport; nobody in my family has a passport. I understand it takes a long, long time to get a passport from government. How am I to study? I have already paid my school fees," said Jabulani Moratele, a Form 5 student who lives along the border.

Prince Khuzulwandle, appointed by his brother King Mswati to head the government's Border Restoration Committee, remarked last month that Swaziland's northern border fence had been put in place as a cattle control measure during an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in 1964. The fence was never intended to represent the actual border between the two nations.

Swaziland wants large sections of the Mpumalanga Province reincorporated into the country - areas that were gerrymandered into South Africa by British colonial authorities and the Boer Republics in the late 1800s - and is also claiming territory in South Africa's eastern KwaZulu-Natal Province, which would give the currently landlocked country access to the Indian Ocean north of the port city of Durban.

"South African lands that belong to the Swazis must be returned," Prince Khuzulwandle told residents of one community near the northern border.

But Swazi historian Dr Ben Dlamini offered a contrary version in a recent newspaper article. "South Africa is a sovereign state - we cannot order it to do what we like. It is not true that the fence was erected for the foot-and-mouth disease in 1964," he wrote.

Swazi students wanting to return to South African schools when the spring term begins next week are seeking government intervention, or help in securing student visas.

The foreign ministry has stated that Minister Dlamini will be meeting with his South African counterpart, Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, to discuss the issue. No date has been set for the meeting.

[ENDS]