Swazi Observer

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POLICE SERVICE CHANGE NAME FROM RSPS TO REPS

By Ackel Zwane | 2018-05-26

Following the country’s name change on April 19 during the 50 years double celebrations marking His Majesty King Mswati III’s birthday and that of the country’s independence police have also changed their name.

Police Commissioner Isaac Magagula said in a memo to his charges that “as a sequel to the royal announcement pertaining the change of name of our country from Swaziland to Eswatini and further to the submissions made by regions on a suitable name for the police organisation, it is officially announced that the Royal Swaziland Police Service will henceforth, be the Royal Eswatini Police Service (REPS). To this end it is obvious that changes need to be made to various organisational/corporate paraphernalia such as the badge insignias, uniform and accoutrements, documents and other items bearing the old name.”

The King changed his country's name to Eswatini.

He reckoned the name of Swaziland has caused confusion, saying that people "refer to us as Switzerland.

He said "African countries on getting independence reverted to their ancient names before they were colonised," he told the crowd, that from now on, the country will be officially be known as the Kingdom of Eswatini."

According to National Geographic in another recent country name change, Cape Verde—a nation of 10 islands and a half million people in the central Atlantic Ocean—became “Cabo Verde” in 2013.

The new name is actually the original name Portuguese sailors gave the uninhabited islands in 1444.

Cabo Verde means green cape. Perhaps the most complex series of country name changes revolves around a central European country that no longer exists. Yugoslavia was first cobbled together out of the wreckage of World War I and was officially called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes.

In 1929 it was renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Following World War II, a communist government took control and renamed it the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia.

In 1963 it was renamed again as the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and a series of brutal internal conflicts, Yugoslavia came apart in 1992. After various boundary changes and more conflicts, the former Yugoslavia territory is today comprised of the modern states of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, Macedonia, and Montenegro. Serbia's Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija unilaterally declared its independence in 2008.

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