Fight between the needy and greedy
WE, THE MINING-affected communities organised under the banner of Mining Affected Communities United in Action (Macua), have converged with our allies from all mining-affected regions and provinces, to register our demand for the scrapping of the MPRDA (Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act) and the legalisation of zama zama mining.
As mining-affected communities, we have always raised our concerns about the corruptive, divisive and patronising nature of mining development in our country.
For many years, communities have been resisting the violent land grab by mining companies who are aided and abetted by the political elite in the state.
As mining-affected communities, we have always been lied to with the promise of “jobs and economic development of our communities”, but we continue to pay with our lives, and have only seen the development of increased and persistent unemployment and increasing poverty levels.
This historic and ongoing exploitation of our land and our people has led to increasing dependency on grants and handouts, and has degraded our people, our culture and our heritage.
This state and corporate neglect has given rise to conditions of extreme exploitation and has allowed the conditions for the rise of all forms of violence in our communities – including domestic abuse against women and xenophobic violence against our African brothers and sisters.
We mining-affected communities have lost, and continue to lose, all our water sources, such as water tables, wetlands and rivers, and face increasing water and air pollution and soil degradation levels.
We continue to suffer the impact of abandoned and unrehabilitated mines when mining companies disappear or declare bankruptcy in order to avoid paying taxes. We continue to see the transferring of environmental liabilities to the BEE junior miners and the collaborative government.
We also note with great concern, the increasing criminalisation of the survivalist zama zamas, who are nothing but victims of the system in crisis.
Today we stand together as the artisanal mine workers, the unemployed communities, civil society organisations and Macua, to demand the rights, as enshrined in the constitution, to work in order to place food on our tables.
The blanket ban on artisanal mining that is enacted in the current legislation of the MPRDA, seems to run directly contrary to the UN International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, a binding treaty signed by South Africa in 1994 and ratified in 2015, which among other things requires the South African government to recognise the right to work.
Article 6 of the treaty states that “the States Parties to the present Covenant recognise the right to work, which includes the right of everyone to the opportunity to gain his living by work which he freely chooses or accepts, and will take appropriate steps to safeguard this right”.
The AU’s Charter on Human and People’s Rights similarly recognises the right to work, as does our constitution, which recognises the right to choose our own professions.
We call this a fight between the needy and the greedy.
These companies are sending their security guards to come and take our equipment that we are using to mine.
We invest this money to buy equipment in order to work where there is no work and we don’t expect anyone to come and summarily take away our livelihoods and our right to work.
The police, who are supposed to protect us, are also used by our government to come and take away our tools.
We are looking at the police as our brothers and sisters, not our enemies.
But the government is busy making us, its own citizens, the needy and the marginalised, the very people it is constitutionally mandated to protect, its enemies.
We are now displaying our anger and dissatisfaction at the manner in which the rights of our brothers and sisters have been undermined by both corporate companies and the government via the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) and Economic Affairs. It is for the above reasons that miningaffected communities under the banner of Macua demand:
1. The scrapping of the MPRDA, because it is a product of an undemocratic process, it gives precedence to the extraction of our minerals without other considerations, and it is serving the destructive interests of pro-mining groups who have no respect whatsoever for communities and the environment.
The MPRDA perpetuates the old colonial system of exploitation and does not benefit local communities and does not recognise the community’s right to free prior and informed consent.
2. That the DMR enter into negotiations with Macua to ensure that community and zama zama voices are entrenched into any mining legislative processes, and that communities and zama zama miners be treated with due respect and consideration before any decisions affecting their interests are taken.
3. That an immediate moratorium on persecuting hungry and needy zama zama miners be put in place, and that the DMR work with Macua to call an urgent zama zama conference, which includes, government, communities, zama zama miners, corporates, academics and civil society, to discuss possible solutions to the crises.
4. To immediately stop unilateral interventions and top-down imposition of solutions aimed at the elites only.
We are saying sekwanele! (enough is enough).
We are demanding urgent response and action to the demands contained in this memorandum.
We are submitting this memorandum fully conscious of the politically toxic virus, a virus which has become a tradition of government; it is a tradition of accepting community memorandums and providing slick answers.
We are aware that most demands contained in memorandums submitted by mining-affected communities in our country, have not been responded to, but instead police violence and arrest of community members has been the only answer.
We (Macua) submit this memorandum fully conscious of the fact that it might be ignored by a government that always claims to be democratic.
We are aware that neither the DMR, the Minister of Mineral Resources, the Office of the President or the Planning Commission, has ever given due respect to the demands of mining-affected communities, and this is why we continue to live in poverty and desperation.
Communities are now aware of the new strategy applied by government, and that is “Let them submit the memorandum, take it and do nothing but target the leaders for co-option”.
Our communities are also aware that government officials are trained to respond with diplomatic but already prepared answers that seek to defend government.
We are fully aware you will defend your political position on the basis of not wanting to accept what communities are demanding.
Macua therefore appeals to you to act differently, at least once in 23 years of “democratic” government. You have worked against the poor people in the name of the poor people of this country and for the benefit of capitalist forces.
Rutledge is natural resources manager of Mining Affected Communities United in Action