‘We want to be heard’
Alternative Mining Indaba representatives table list of demands to delegates at CTICC
POOR sanitation, abandoned mines, and a disregard for communities affected by mining were among the concerns raised by protesters outside the Mining Indaba at the CTICC yesterday.
The Alternative Mining Indaba, supported by the Economic Justice Network (EJN), faith-based organisations, environmental and civil advocacy groups, has been running concurrently to the Mining Indaba. Yesterday they tabled their demands to the Mining Indaba delegates.
EJN acting executive director Mandla Hadebe said that when they embarked on organising the Alternative Mining Indaba (AMI) initiative in 2010 it was due to the realisation that with all the pomp and hype that characterised the Cape Town African Mining Indaba, “there was a definite and deliberate silencing of the most critical and impacted aspect of this discourse, which was the communities”.
“Meanwhile, we often have protests, because people believe that the government doesn’t follow the mandate given by the community,” he said.
Hadebe said the Mining Indaba should have more representatives from communities paid for by the government or mining companies because it was too expensive for them to travel to Cape Town and attend the indaba. He said that when the first Alternative Mining Indaba took place, more than 40 people were able to spend three days in deliberation.
That is now minuscule in comparison to the high-powered delegates that descended for the African Indaba this year.
Food, extractive and climate justice representative at the EJN Simon Vilakazi said their Alternative Mining Indaba currently had more than 500 participants who discussed concerns they believe are not addressed at the Indaba, such as the environmental impact of mining and the lack of jobs, hence they felt a need to stage a protest.
“We want to be heard,” Vilakazi said
The Mining Indaba started on Monday and will end today at the CTICC, while the AMI, which had representatives protesting outside CTICC, also started on Monday at the DoubleTree Hotel in Woodstock.