Worse than a farce
We now have a communist minister batting for a mining company
For a sense of how truly bizarre the world has become, look no further than the recent high court ruling on the battle for mining rights in the Eastern Cape coastal area of Xolobeni. As a result of the ruling we now have the former chair of the SACP seemingly batting for an Australian mining company with a dubious environmental record against the poorly resourced members of a rural community determined to protect the land that nurtures them and hosts their ancestors.
Gwede Mantashe is not only an SACP veteran but is also a founding member of the National Union of Mineworkers, and hails from the Eastern Cape. You’d be hard-pressed to find a more likely ally of the Amadiba Crisis Committee (ACC).
For 15 years the ACC has heroically battled to protect a place that their people have called home for centuries. As judge Annali Basson said, they want nothing more than the power to determine whether mining should take place on their land.
The law on the matter is little more than a farce, used to great advantage by wealthy mining firms. As the custodian of SA’S mineral resources, the government, to issue a licence, requires only that the mining company consults with the community. Basson’s ruling requires that a community gives “full and informed consent” before a mining right can be issued.
Mantashe, as mineral resources minister, is right to fear this might damage the country’s ability to use mining to grow the economy.
He might be on shakier ground when he claims the present legal system can help mining transform the economy.
Nothing seems more likely to perpetuate the existing divided socioeconomic structure than continuing to allow mining companies to upend the lives of rural residents.
Mining may have made substantial contributions to the SA economy and created wealth for shareholders, but the contribution has been at a huge cost, one that has been borne largely by local communities who have either been relocated to regions that cannot sustain them, which means they end up on that life-sapping list of desperate jobseekers, or have remained and had to tolerate the destruction of a once-pristine environment. And, in recent years, all on the basis of a faux consultation process with someone who may or may not have communicated with the community.
If Basson’s judgment seems unreasonable, consider as you glance out at your manicured garden how you might feel if a ventilation pipe suddenly appeared in the middle of it. Back in 2006 a shack-dweller in one of the townships on the outskirts of Rustenburg explained to me that this was the first indication he had that he would be forced to move — and find a new home and a new job — to make way for a mining company.
The ACC and Basson are absolutely right to be suspicious of the Australian mining company’s benign description of the impact its activities will have. It may create short-term employment of dubious quality and generate profits for international investors, but it will destroy a region that has the potential to create sustainable eco-tourism employment.
Basson and the ACC have provided Mantashe with a great opportunity to ensure mining does help to transform SA. He should embrace the judgment.
How would you feel if a ventilation pipe suddenly appeared in the middle of your garden?