| Prince Mkolishi Dlamini | |
| Succession: | Chief of Embhuleni |
| Reign: | 1954–1988 |
| Predecessor: | Prince James Maquba Dlamini |
| Successor: | Prince Cambridge Makhosonke Dlamini |
| Consort: | Catherine Sihlangu |
| House: | House of Dlamini |
| Birth Date: | 25 December 1928 |
| Birth Place: | BadplaasMkhingoma Mountain |
| Death Place: | Badplaas Dlomodlomo Mountain |
Prince Johannes Mkolishi Dlamini (25 December 1928 – 23 December 1988), was the Chief of Embhuleni in Badplaas between September 1954 until his death, at age 59, in December 1988. A great-grandson of Mswati II, Mkolishi was the son of the previous Chief of Embhuleni, Prince James Maquba Dlamini, and his wife Mkhosise Madonsela.[1]
Chief Mkolishi Dlamini succeeded his father Prince Maquba Dlamini as the Chief of Embhuleni royal kraal on 18 September 1953.[2]
Prince Mkolishi Dlamini was born in Badplaas at the Mkhingoma Mountains on 25 December 1928. He was the son of the late Chief of Embhuleni, Prince James Maquba Dlamini, and his wife Mkhosise Madonsela. Maquba's father's father was King Mswati II.
Mkolishi received his primary and secondary school education in the Carolina and Ermelo districts (now Gert Sibande District).
While his royal parents installed him as the Chief of Embhuleni after Chief Maquba's death on 18 September 1954, he was only issued with a certificate of recognition by the Apartheid government in December 1959 and was instrumental in the leads-up to the establishment of homeland administration afterwards[3]
He was elected the chairman of the Swazi Territorial Authority (that got to be named the KaNgwane government) when it was founded in 1976, and subsequently member of the KaNgwane Legislative Assembly as well as Minister of Justice in the KaNgwane government.
Chief Mkolishi Dlamini was elected as the founding chairperson of the Swazi Territorial Authority in 1976. The Apartheid government founded the Authority to establish self-governing homelands for the siSwati-speaking tribe within the Republic of South Africa during the Apartheid era[4] [5]
In 1977, Chief Mkolishi was voted out as the chairman of the Swazi Territorial Authority because he was opposed to its arrangements as it was deemed to be seeking to separate the South African Swatis from eSwatini, and Enos John Mabuza took over as the new chairperson of the Authority, and subsequently the Chief Executive Councillor of the homelands. From there the homelands administration was named KaNgwane government. While he influenced that the administration be called KaNgwane, which basically means Home of the People of eSwatini, Chief Mkolishi Dlamini was vehemently opposed to the arrangements of the KaNgwane Bantustan in South Africa as he felt it left the broader Embhuleni societal territory out of eSwatini. Teaming up with other Chiefs, Prince Mkolishi also protested the inclusion of non-siSwati speakers on the territory, like Shangans, and for the homelands to be incorporated into eSwatini under King Sobhuza II. Mabuza differed with Chief Mkolishi on this and said 'ethnicity' should play no role in politics, that the homelands were in favour of oppressed black South Africans in the area. Favoured by a majority inside the Authority board, Mabuza pushed for the Bantustan administrations to go ahead through the Inyandza National Movement, a political party that Mabuza founded in 1978 and which ruled the KaNgwane. In 1978, Chief Mkolishi requested Sobhuza II to sit down with the Apartheid government and begin negotiating for the KaNgwane area to fall under eSwatini. The campaign had fallen off by the time Sobhuza II died in 1982. Chief Mkolishi also founded the Inyatsi ya Mswati, a political party also, to seek “to unite all Swazi’s […] to be able to press the South African government for a fair deal in so far as the allocation of land for Swazi’s was concerned”.[6]
In 1984, Chief Mkolishi protested the forced removal of villagers from Badplaas to Nhlazatshe. He even threatened to go to court to get an interdict against the Apartheid bureaucracy. The Apartheid government said the blacks who had been living in the Badplaas area since 1842 were on a whites-only area and needed to relocate to Nhlazatshe. He won the battle when the government backed down following a widely publicized outcry.[7]