POLITICS: Armed Bandits in South Africa Target Swazi Travellers

By James Hall Reprint | | Print |

James Hall

MBABANE, Swaziland, Jul 31 2002 (IPS) - A spectacular attack by armed bandits in South Africa on prominent visitors heading for Swaziland has renewed concerns in the small landlocked country that its national interests are threatened by crime and neglect from the large neighbour that surrounds it on three sides.

‘’South Africa is Swaziland’s lifeline. We are cut off from the world without road and rail links through South Africa,” Timothy Vilakati, the principal secretary at the ministry of foreign affairs told IPS this week.

‘’Good bilateral relations are essential,” he said.

But relations have been strained because of persistent highway attacks in South Africa on Swazi-owned vehicles, and on tourists headed to and from the kingdom.

Road freight operations are also affected, with trucks now travelling in convoys when they depart the Swazi border and head to Gauteng, the South African province where Johannesburg and key industrial parks are located. The trucks are driven by professional security men who have been taught to operate heavy vehicles, and then qualified for truck operating licenses.

‘’These are security men, first, and truck drivers second,” the manager of a large express cargo service headquartered at Swaziland’s main industrial centre in Matsapha told IPS. His company’s trucks have been hijacked along the notorious N12 highway that leads to Johannesburg from Swaziland’s Ngwenya border, which is the border gate most heavily utilised by traffic to and from South Africa.

‘’It is sad that it took the robbery of Chinese tourists to alert South African police that the N12 highway is unacceptably dangerous for vehicular traffic,” said the manager. ‘’If security is not improved, Swaziland’s economy is in trouble.”

With 85 percent of Swaziland’s imports coming from South Africa, and 60 percent of Swazi exports sold to South Africa, interruption in freight haulage can bring severe consequences for a small country struggling for economic self-sufficiency. South Africa’s neglect of Swazi concerns is seen in some government quarters as a national security issue.

‘’South Africa and Swaziland have a special relationship,” a Times of Swaziland commentary stated last week. ‘’Because of Swaziland’s dependency on South Africa, our neighbour is obligated to do something when our interests are attacked by South African crime.”

It is not just South African crime that concerns the business community. Because so much freight travels to the landlocked country by road, ease of customs passage is seen as essential. But Mark Svenningsen, the director of Express Cargo who also represents Swaziland on customs issues with South Africa, told IPS, ‘’There is delay and obfuscation in the way South African customs treats Swazi interests. We are subjected to rules and regulations that delay shipments and cause losses. South Africa has an uncaring attitude.”

To what extent must a sovereign state devote its attention and resources to assist the interests of another country? South Africa’s ambassador to Swaziland, Walter Seale, feels his country does a lot for Swaziland, but has problems of its own. ‘’Crime is a problem throughout South Africa, and it would be impossible to put enough police on the highways to Swaziland to make them safe all the time.”

In fact, as Seale confirmed for IPS, it is South Africa’s sharing of customs duties with Swaziland that keeps the Swazi government afloat. All goods entering the Southern African region pay customs duties into a communal Southern African Customs Union (SACU).

Swaziland’s government receives 53 percent of its annual revenue from SACU, with the rest coming from grants, and personal and corporate taxes.

Majozi Sithole, Swaziland’s finance minister, cautioned parliament while delivering this year’s budget that the kingdom must diversify its revenue base, and not depend so heavily on SACU receipts.

That Swaziland’s government does not run out of money immediately is due to South Africa. Most of the goods entering the customs union area go to South Africa. But the country accepts for itself a much smaller share of the receipts than is its due, in order to keep poorer countries like Lesotho and Swaziland afloat.

‘’Little is made of that fact,” says ambassador Seale, ‘’or that SACU is looking for a new regional headquarters, and South Africa is willing to recommend Swaziland to be the host country.”

Despite the financial assistance from Pretoria, the palace grows angry with South Africans when the Johannesburg press characterised royal rule as dictatorial.

‘’We have a policy of non-intervention in the internal affairs of foreign countries, but in the case of South Africa this is not reciprocated,” says a palace source who mistakenly believes that the South African press is directed by the government.

Good will between the two countries can be easily shattered when disturbing crimes affect Swaziland’s interest. This month, 40 wealthy Taiwanese businessmen were robbed of R2 million (around 200,000 U.S. dollars) when bandits dressed as South African police and brandishing AK-47 assault rifles stopped the bus in which they were travelling to Swaziland.

The businessmen were on their way to greet their president, Chen Shui-bian of the Republic of China, who was visiting King Mswati.

This high-profile highway robbery proved too much for Swaziland’s education ministry, which suspended all student trips to South Africa scheduled for the August-September school break. Swazi students traditionally use these breaks for excursions to the resort city of Durban on the Indian Ocean, or industrial Gauteng.

Faced with the loss of tourism revenue, Mpumalanga province on Swaziland’ s eastern border offered police escorts to tourist groups. But Swazis complained the action was intended to safeguard South African tourism interests, and was not a response to crime against Swazis. No similar protection has been proposed for road freight vehicles.

The quick action taken against the robbers of the Taiwanese businessmen û five suspects were arrested, and two proved to be off-duty South African policemen û proved to Swazis that South Africa could do more to protect Swaziland if the will were there.

‘’We see it as a moral issue, but South Africa should see it as protecting a valuable market and an inducement to clean up some of its won crime,” says banker Mduduzi Shongwe of Manzini, the commercial capital of Swaziland.