RAPULA MOATSHE
Demonstrators marched to the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy in Pretoria on Wednesday to call for the decriminalising of artisanal mining activities and to express disapproval of the government's Operation Vala Umgodi, which closes disused mines.
Organised by Mining Affected Communities United in Action (Macua), protesters denounced the arrests of illegal miners operating in abandoned mines, saying it did nothing to alleviate South Africa's crippling poverty and unemployment.
According to them, legalising artisanal mining could be a more effective approach to addressing these socio-economic challenges.
Since Operation Vala Umgodi started in December 2023 it has resulted in the arrest of approximately 18,000 illegal miners across the country and over 7,700 were apprehended in Stilfontein.
The protest, attended by members of various organisations, aimed to hold Minister Gwede Mantashe and the SAPS members accountable for the tragic deaths of illegal miners in the underground mine in Stilfontein
Mametlwe Sebei of General Industries Workers Union SA (Giwusa) demanded that those responsible for the deaths of illegal miners be held criminally liable.
“It cannot be that our people lost lives in such a cruel manner and there is no one to be held accountable. It is not just a number of people who died in numbers higher than Marikana but it is also about the cruelty that led to their death. Unlike Marikana, where miners were shot and died instantly, these miners were starved, dehydrated over a period of months,” he said.
He called for an investigation into the miners deaths, adding that his organisation has also commissioned pathologists to assess the dead bodies.
He said the unregulated growth of artisanal mining warrants attention.
“There is mass unemployment in the country, poverty and hunger. Artisanal mining is development on the back of the abandonment of mines. We have to make sure that there is the regularising of the mines instead of criminalising their activities or arresting thousands of artisanal miners in the country,” he said.
A mining activist Bongani Jonas concurred that artisanal mining should be legalised.
“This industry needs to be decriminalised and made an alternative economy because clearly the community of Stilfontein depended on those shafts. Now the community there is distressed, disgruntled because the Vala Umgodi Operation has closed them,” he said.
Mzukisi Jam, spokesperson of the South African National Civic Organisation in the North West, called for Mantashe to take accountability for the tragic death of illegal miners in Stilfontein.
“He is supposed to be standing against everything that seeks to disadvantage the interest of our people. He seems to be championing a group of elites who seek to destroy our people,” he said.
One of the protesters from Mpumalanga, Daisy Tshabangu, bemoaned the fact that in her mining community in Ogies there were no amenities such as tarred roads and medical facilities.
She said: “There are mines that are blasting every day. I think we got 50 something mine shafts where I am staying but there is nothing they are doing for the community.”
Nkosinathi Zweni, senior director at the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy, accepted the memorandum of demands on behalf of Mantashe.
He assured that the memorandum would be personally delivered to Mantashe and that the concerns raised would receive a response.