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South Africa’s ANC government uses police blockade to trap illegal gold miners underground

Umito November 20, 2024

The High Court in Pretoria, South Africa, this weekend issued an interim order ordering police to lift the blockade of “illegal” gold miners trapped underground at the abandoned Buffelsfontein mine and allow them to to go out.

This allowed local communities near the Stilfontein mine, 160 kilometers southwest of Johannesburg, to begin delivering food and emergency supplies to miners.

Relatives and friends protest near a reformed gold mine shaft where illegal miners are trapped in Stilfontein, South Africa, Friday November 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Denis Farrell)

The case, which will go to a full hearing this week, highlights the social apocalypse that has hit workers in this resource-rich country and its neighbors.

The deadly police tactics, dubbed “surrender or starve”, have sparked outrage in South Africa where unemployment has soared to 42 percent and economic despair is widespread in the world’s most unequal society .

The local population accuses the government of being responsible for this impasse. According to local media, they gathered around the mine shafts holding signs saying “Free our brothers” and “Smoke the ANC” (the African National Congress, President Cyril Ramaphosa’s ruling party). They say the situation is so desperate, they are starving and have no choice, without government help, but to go into hiding, where they usually stay for months looking for help. gold. Another said that even prisoners should not die.

The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) has launched an investigation into a formal complaint made by a Stilfontein community leader. The complaint alleges that police blocked the delivery of essential supplies such as food, water and medicine to a mine shaft for nearly three months, resulting in actual and/or potential loss of life, violating the right to life of minors as protected by Article 11 of the Constitution.

Yasmin Omar, one of the lawyers who filed the complaint, told the public broadcaster SABC News“But trapping people underground, starving them and allowing them to die this way is inhumane.” Mzukisi Jam of the South African National Civic Organization said Al Jazeera that while his organization welcomed the court order, it was “disappointed” that the government had to be forced to act to save the lives of workers.

Despite the court order, police insist that healthy minors who resurface “will be treated and detained” while those who are sick will be “taken to hospital under police guard” – a partial continuation of the blockade. Worryingly, in an interview with Al Jazeerapolice spokesperson Athlenda Mathe claimed to have information “that some of the illegal miners were heavily armed”, thus justifying possible police violence.

Three weeks ago, police launched an operation to “smoke out” and arrest the Stilfontein miners. Up to 4,000 miners could still be underground and their lives are feared at risk. Police had blocked the entrance to the mine and cut off food and water supplies to people inside as part of a wider “crackdown”, known as Operation Vala Umgodi, which means “Close the hole”, against illegal mining. This operation, made up of police and 3,000 soldiers, was launched in 2023 at the request of companies like Sibanye-Stillwater, the current owner of the Marikana platinum mine where 36 striking miners were massacred in 2012, on record gold production background. price.

Police arrested more than 1,000 illegal miners, known as Zama Zamas (“try your luck”), in various mines in the region, who had resurfaced due to lack of food and water since the beginning of the blockade, and accused them of criminal offenses. activities. Some were visibly weakened. A miner’s decomposing body has been removed, raising fears those remaining underground may be too weak to return to the surface.

On Wednesday, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, a minister in Ramaphosa’s office, told a news conference that authorities would show no mercy. “We don’t send aid to criminals,” she said. “We’re going to smoke them out. They will come out. “Criminals should not be helped, they should be persecuted (sic),” she added.

On Sunday, Ramaphosa told Parliament he had extended the deployment of 1,100 troops in Operation Close the Hole for another six months, at a cost of 140 million rand ($7.8 million). He said he took a hard line on the miners because they operated illegally and posed a risk to the economy, neighboring communities and personal safety. He released a statement saying: “The Stilfontein mine is a crime scene where the crime of illegal mining is being committed. It is common practice for police around the world to secure a crime scene and block escape routes that allow criminals to escape arrest.

The standoff in Stilfontein, one of South Africa’s many disappearing mining towns where hunger is rampant, follows the arrest earlier this month of at least 565 illegal gold miners in Orkney neighbors, after the police cut off their food and water supplies to force them. surface.

Police described their strategy as an “act of assertion of state authority.” Police spokeswoman Athlenda Mathe denied using the same tactic in Stilfontein. She dismissed claims that 4,000 miners were still trapped underground as a gross “exaggeration” and said no police, soldiers or government officials would descend into the mine to rescue the miners, saying: “ There is a high risk of loss of life.” since they can be heavily armed.

Mining for diamonds, coal, iron, gold, silver, titanium, vanadium and other minerals has been the backbone of the economy for over 150 years, employing not only South African workers but up to 500,000 migrant workers. They could be subjected to even greater operating conditions, resulting, according to many historians, in lower wages in real terms, thus providing large returns to mine owners. With the end of apartheid, the former Bantustans, Lesotho and Mozambique provided 60 percent of the mining workforce between 1989 and 1996.

Today, South Africa’s mining industry employs fewer than 500,000 workers in this country of 60 million people. Around 6,000 mines have closed since the apartheid era due to increased mechanization, deteriorating infrastructure including electricity and transport, and widespread corruption and economic mismanagement orchestrated by the ANC which only enriched a tiny part of it as part of its black economic empowerment program. Once the world’s largest gold producer, producing 619,000 kg in 1993, by 2023 South Africa had fallen to 11th place, producing only 100,000 kg, an increase from the previous year when production had fallen at 88,883 kg. It now employs only 93,000 people.

As poverty rises, thousands of Zama Zamas, many of them undocumented migrants from Lesotho and Mozambique, have taken over abandoned mines without legal permits, working in the most dangerous and precarious conditions to extract gold who remains. They sell whatever they can get on the black market, with the gold ultimately ending up in Dubai.

The Minerals Council of South Africa says artisanal mining has given rise to a global network of criminal syndicates, often employing armed gangs and fighting both police and rival gangs, and created a secondary market in local communities for food, alcohol and sex work. He estimates that the mining industry spends 2.5 billion rand ($144 million) a year on security measures, much of which is aimed at restricting the activities of the Zama Zamas. According to the government, the country loses around 70 billion rand ($3.9 billion) a year to illegal mining.

The lack of jobs in the country’s mining industry has rippled across southern Africa which once sent 500,000 migrant workers to South Africa. That number has now fallen to just 35,000, with remittances to landlocked Lesotho falling to just 21 percent of GDP, down from 236 percent in 1987.

Police say they have recovered 369 guns, 10,000 rounds of ammunition, R5 million ($275,000) in cash and R32 million ($1.75 million) in rough diamonds from illegal miners since the start of Operation Close the Hole. It also resulted in the recovery of rough diamonds, more than R5 million in cash and unauthorized weapons.

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South Africa’s ANC government uses police blockade to trap illegal gold miners underground

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