July 2024
Dear comrade, this edition includes a focus on Critical Raw Materials, suggesting that a failure to understand what is happening and how to respond may be a serious setback for the justice movement. Given Africa’s resources, how do we ensure that the looting by powerful Northern countries does not keep us in colonial subservience? We discuss the DRC’s resources and struggles as well as Kenya as part of our commitment to Pan Africanism. Leadership in Africa is a scarce resource, but where it exists and is ethical and accountable, imperial forces and their agencies play a role in undermining and overthrowing it. In From the Ground, we report on the historic tailings conference of the CSOs as well as the importance of free, prior and informed consent and the Right to say No to unjust and mal development. Next Month, August, is Marikana month, where we reflect on its significance to South Africa – now 30 years since the fall of apartheid.
Our resources are diverse and well worth a look at.
Read, enjoy and pass it on.
· OPINION ·
This month the journal is led by two big issues, Jagersfontein and Critical Raw Materials. The big push for critical raw materials has reached a new high: the United Nations Secretary-General has initiated a Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals — co-chaired by Ambassador Nozipho Joyce Mxakato-Diseko of South Africa and Director-General for Energy Ditte Juul Jørgensen of the European Commission – which they say will address issues relating to equity, transparency, investment, sustainability and human rights. The multi-stakeholder working group includes direct participation of Indigenous Peoples, labour unions, local communities hosting transition minerals mining, women, and civil society groups. These groups are called non state actors and include some decent organisations such as:
- Climate Action Network International
- Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative
- IndustriALL Global Union
- Natural Resource Governance Institute
They are tasked to oversee an implementation plan to follow up on the recommendations of the Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals, including through an annual meeting to track progress on implementation. We have to engage these groups and ensure they are mandated and report back to us. If we do not meet with them, they will run away from us and into the camps of those who will use the critical raw materials machinery.
I do not know if they will be able to help us stem the new gold rush. The promises should be a cause for concern. In addition, the pace is really fast for many community based groups and, as I write, we must admit that we already missed the deadline to participate in these remote platforms. From its formation on 2 December 2023 at COP28 in Dubai and the announcement of the panel on 26 April 2024, the first substantive panel meeting was held in a virtual format on 22 May.
Panel Timeline: April to September 2024
The panel is working under a tight timeline since its formation..
Between the May and early July, panel members worked across four workstreams divided into four related topics:
– Benefit sharing, local value addition and economic diversification;
– Transparent and fair trade and investments;
– Sustainable, responsible and just value chains; and
– Mineral value chain stability and resilience.
The deadline for submissions was the end of July and the reports will be deliberated upon in September 2024. And it must make us think of new empowering ways of organising to ensure that we do not get used and trampled upon.
Let us briefly delve into this.
Africa is a target. Many have said, in particular the African Development Bank, that we, our continent:
Africa has significant natural resource wealth. The region is home to the world’s largest arable land mass; second largest and longest rivers (the Nile and the Congo); and its second largest tropical forest. The total value added of its fisheries and aquaculture sector alone is estimated at USD 24 billion. In addition, about 30% of all global mineral reserves are found in Africa. The continent’s proven oil reserves constitute 8% of the world’s stock and those of natural gas amount to 7%.. Minerals account for an average of 70% of total African exports and about 28% of gross domestic product. The contribution of extractives to public finance is significant, with some African countries’ public revenue almost entirely dependent on them. Indeed, AfDB estimates that Africa’s extractive resources could contribute over USD 30 billion per annum in government revenue for the next 20 years.
This has implications for people living near these minerals where, despite the promises of development, violence and lack of development may not be far off. Will these continue expropriation patterns fed and nurtured under colonialism? What about the beneficiation which the president in his opening of parliament speech raised alongside the debate on critical raw materials?
What about the pace of this transition (unjust transition) and the power of mass organisations to control or tame it? Some corporations have instituted that there is a need to triple renewables by the year 2030 – of course – to stop the climate catastrophe and ensure we do not heat up the continent. The growth rate, they argue, will require a minimum of close to 17 percent. The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) recently revealed that despite renewables becoming the fastest growing source of power, the world will now have to grow renewables capacity at a minimum 16.4% rate annually through 2030. So here it is: we have the goodies and they want it… badly. So there will be a scramble and many will be trampled if we do not get organised.
The UN Sec General has noted that: The race to net zero cannot trample over the poor. So developing countries cannot be shackled to the bottom of the clean energy value chain – relegated to suppliers of basic raw materials.
It is absolutely essential that added value takes place in the countries that produce these raw materials and that added value is not only in developed countries. Because that’s where the largest part of the value chain takes place.
The president is buoyant and sees progress, modernity and electric motor vehicles. With these new projects, investments will increase (already R1.5 trillion as a just transition) and jobs will be created as South Africa is undergoing a renewable energy revolution that is expected to be the most significant driver of growth and job creation in the next decade and beyond. We also have a unique opportunity to position our country as a major player in the digital economy and create jobs in digital services.
To ensure the transition is truly just and equitable, the powers that be must be open to hear other views. Our principles of the Right to Say No, and for a bottom-up sustainable development means that we must have strong and democratic organisations, in both the Global north and the Global south.
Some international networks have already met and recommended some key positions that the UN panel must listen to if the programmes are to remain equitable and sustainable.
Its comprehensive programme seeks to link voluntary and binding agreements, debt, including the ongoing participation of CSOs. Let me just quote a few of these. The opening clause about consumption and climate change is well articulated under the heading Reduce Demand Equitably. It demands that governments (1.1):
especially in developed countries, should reduce energy and material use, in alignment with limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2030, to reduce overconsumption of transition minerals and enable equitable, efficient, and sufficient energy for all. They should ensure the overuse of energy does not come at the expense of a continued lack of access to energy in developing countries. Governments should support the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of affordable, reliable and sustainable and modern energy for all. When measuring GHG emissions to inform decision-making, governments should ensure the whole lifecycle of goods consumed in their countries is taken into account, and not only their end uses.
5.2: The United Nations Secretary-General should establish a United Nations mechanism, based on an inclusive and participatory approach that ensures access for affected local communities and Indigenous Peoples, tasked with monitoring, investigating, and addressing complaints on human rights, Indigenous Peoples’ rights, environment, or governance related to the extraction and processing of minerals.
5.3: The United Nations Secretary-General should task and resource a multistakeholder working group, including direct participation of Indigenous Peoples, labor unions, local communities hosting transition minerals mining, women, and civil society groups, to oversee an implementation plan to follow up on the recommendations of the Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals, including through an annual meeting to track progress on implementation.
By Hassen Lorgat
FEATURE: CRITICAL RAW MATERIALS
Opening of Parliament Address by President Cyril Ramaphosa at the Cape Town City Hall, Western Cape, 18 July 2024
[EXTRACT]
To create more jobs for South Africans, we will focus on processing our minerals so that we export finished products rather than raw commodities.
We will pursue a smart industrial policy that focuses on the competitiveness of our economy, and that incentivises businesses to expand our exports and create jobs.
We will continue to work with stakeholders to develop and implement Master Plans to grow important industries, increase investment, create jobs and foster transformation.
We are convinced that small businesses and the informal sector hold the greatest potential for inclusive growth and job creation.
We will pay particular attention to supporting small- and medium-sized enterprises in townships and rural areas. We will take economic activity to where most of our people live so that more jobs can be created. Red tape debilitates the creation of jobs. Every department and every public entity have been directed to reduce the undue regulatory burdens that hold back businesses from creating jobs. We have demonstrated the value of public and social employment in creating immediate work and livelihood opportunities.
The Presidential Employment Stimulus, the Expanded Public Works Programme and other initiatives under the Presidential Youth Employment Intervention have provided income, work experience and skills development opportunities to many young unemployed people.
We will expand and institutionalise these programmes so that more and more young people can participate in job opportunities and skills development.Through the Presidential Employment Stimulus, we have been able to create two million work and livelihood opportunities. We aim to expand the public works programme exponentially to create more job opportunities. We see great potential for growth beyond our borders.
As we strengthen economic diplomacy with our largest trading partners and potential trading partners, we will prioritise the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area to increase our exports to the rest of the continent. We will do this as part of our foreign policy approach, which promotes peace, security, democracy and development across Africa and advances a more just and inclusive world order.
Over the next five years, we will seize the enormous opportunity in renewable energy for inclusive growth.
South Africa has some of the best solar and wind resources in the world.
As we undertake a just transition towards renewable energy, South Africa must create a green manufacturing sector centred on the export of green hydrogen and associated products, electric vehicles and renewable energy components. We have seen, for example, how the Northern Cape has already attracted billions of rands of investment in renewable energy projects. Work is underway to set up a Special Economic Zone in Boegoebaai to drive investment in green hydrogen energy projects.
We already have a huge pipeline of renewable energy projects, representing over 22,500 MW of new generating capacity, estimated to be worth around R400 billion in new private investment. Investments such as these will create many jobs. Just this week, we saw the largest-ever private energy project connected to the grid near Lichtenburg in the North West, with over 390,000 solar panels that will add 256 MW to the grid.
We will see more of these projects taking shape across our country in the months and years to come. As these investments reach fruition more jobs will be created.
Our Just Energy Transition Investment Plan sets out a clear path to invest more than R1.5 trillion in a just transition, including support for workers and communities in Mpumalanga and other coal-producing regions. South Africa is undergoing a renewable energy revolution that is expected to be the most significant driver of growth and job creation in the next decade and beyond. We also have a unique opportunity to position our country as a major player in the digital economy and create jobs in digital services.
We will invest in digital identity and payments, expand access to affordable broadband, and increase training for young people in digital skills.
As we pursue these new areas of growth, we will continue with the far-reaching reforms that enable growth. At the same time, we will launch the second phase of Operation Vulindlela, a government-wide initiative that has been essential in supporting and driving reform. In its second phase, Operation Vulindlela will focus on reforming the local government system and improving the delivery of basic services and harnessing digital public infrastructure as a driver of growth and inclusion. It will also focus on accelerating the release of public land for social housing and redirecting our housing policy to enable people to find affordable homes in areas of their choice.
We will complete the most consequential transformation of South Africa’s electricity industry in more than a century. Since the announcement of the Energy Action Plan in July 2022, we have made tremendous progress in reducing the severity of load shedding.
Over the next five years, government will focus on expanding and strengthening the transmission network. To drive inclusive growth, we need an efficient freight rail network to carry our minerals, agricultural produce and manufactured goods to market.
Through the implementation of the Freight Logistics Roadmap, we will continue with reforms to transform South Africa’s freight logistics system. The work we are doing with business and unions through the National Logistics Crisis Committee has already contributed to improvements in the operational performance of freight rail and ports.
The well-being of our people and the growth of our economy depends on the availability of water.
South Africa is a water-scarce country, and our water security is threatened by historical underinvestment in bulk water resources and distribution infrastructure. We will therefore continue with institutional reforms in the water sector to enable greater investment in bulk water infrastructure and better regulation of water services across the country.
Just as businesses need water and electricity to operate, a growing economy needs skills. Where the skills we need are not immediately available, we need to attract people with the appropriate qualifications and experience.
Read more.
Photo: UN co-chairs Your Excellency Nozipho Joyce Mxakato-Diseko and Your Excellency Ditte Juul Jørgensen with the Secretary General in the middle
Secretary-General’s remarks for the Launch of the Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals
26 April 2024
António Guterres
Dear Friends,
I am delighted to join you to launch our Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals.
And I thank you all for your involvement – particularly I thank our co-chairs – Your Excellency Nozipho Joyce Mxakato-Diseko and Your Excellency Ditte Juul Jørgensen. Of course, from South African and from the European Commission so we have the guarantee of a perfect global view. One principle shines from the heart of this initiative – and that principal is justice. Justice for the communities where critical minerals are found; and I just finished reading the book Cobalt Red. And so I am particularly aware of how communities suffer in these situations.
Justice for developing countries in production and trade; and justice in the global energy revolution. That revolution is now in full swing. New wind power was up sixty percent last year, compared to 2022; and new solar soared by eighty-five per cent – according to the International Energy Agency. So there is no question: the lights are going out on the fossil fuel era and this is of course essential if we want to keep climate under control and if we want to keep 1.5 degrees still possible. Now, delaying tactics from the fossil fuel industry cannot change that.
Misinformation, distortion, and spin can’t change that – no matter how many billions of dollars are thrown at them. But to keep the worst of climate chaos at bay – by limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius – we must supercharge both the roll-out of renewables, and the phaseout of fossil-fuels.
We need to flip the script. Now, between now and the end of this decade the share of electricity generated by fossil fuels must fall from sixty to thirty per cent. And the share generated by renewables must rise from thirty to sixty per cent – according to the International Energy Agency. Now, critical minerals are at the core of this shift.
A world powered by renewables is a world hungry for copper, lithium, nickel, cobalt and rare earth metals: Electric cars – and my wife just bought an electric car – so we are now perfectly in line – I have no car myself – so we are now perfectly in line with the right approach. Electric cars need six times more of these minerals than cars powered by fossil fuels.
Offshore wind farms need thirteen times more than similar gas power plants.
In a world heading to net zero by 2050, the International Energy Agency projects demand for critical minerals multiplying three and a half times over this decade.
Now for developing countries with large reserves, critical minerals represent obviously a critical opportunity. An opportunity to create jobs, to diversify their economies, and to boost revenues. But they could also be an important instrument in order to guarantee that these countries can achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
Simply, it is essential that everything is managed properly.
And too often, production of these minerals leaves a toxic cloud in its wake: pollution; wounded communities, childhoods lost to labour and sometimes dying in their work.
And developing countries and communities have not reaped the benefits of their production and trade. This must change. As we reshape how we power our societies and economies, we cannot replace one dirty, exploitative, extractive industry with another dirty, exploitative, extractive industry.
The race to net zero cannot trample over the poor. So developing countries cannot be shackled to the bottom of the clean energy value chain – relegated to suppliers of basic raw materials. It is absolutely essential that added value takes place in the countries that produce these raw materials and that added value is not only in developed countries. Because that’s where the largest part of the value chain takes place.
So little wonder that resource-rich developing countries are calling for urgent action to ensure that they, and their communities, benefit from the production and trade of critical minerals; and that people and nature are protected.
And that requires serious investments and that requires a serious institutional framework, adequate laws and adequate relations between Member States and the companies that exploit those resources to make sure human rights are effectively protected.
So this Panel is an important part of the United Nations’ response. You – our panel members – from across government, industry, civil society and more – are evidence that there is a real desire to do things differently. Every voice must be heard. And I strongly welcome your engagement. And of course we hope that you develop a set of voluntary global principles to guide governments, industry and others involved in critical minerals value chains.
What we are looking for is fairness, transparency, investment, sustainability and human rights. And they should draw from existing standards and initiatives – strengthening and consolidating them. And of course many gaps still need to be filled. So I have asked for initial recommendations ahead of the UN General Assembly in September.
And the whole United Nations system, all the agencies that are relevant will be behind you.
The work is complex – but the world cannot wait.
And the renewables revolution is happening – but we must make sure that it is done in a way that moves us towards justice. So your vital work to help make that a reality starts today and I’m extremely grateful for the generosity with which you have accepted our invitation.
Thank you very much.
PAN AFRICANISM
This month we focus on two countries, Kenya and the DRC
We wonder how many are aware that seed sharing is an integral part of the struggles in Kenya today. The neoliberal President has sought to criminalise seed sharing: the Kenyan government’s seed and plant varieties act restricts small-scale farmers from sharing and exchanging uncertified seeds, which can lead to fines and imprisonment.
The Seeds of Revolution today, Kenya
The recent spate of revolts and protests in Kenya has surprised many, in part because of the violent repression and death of many of the protesters. This repression was widely condemned with the Communist Party of Kenya calling for president Ruto to step down. They said in a statement that his actions exposed his true allegiance as a subservient agent of Western imperialism. His visit to Washington and address at the G7 summit confirm beyond doubt that he is held captive by the foreign forces that facilitated his ascent to power. This is no longer speculation but a glaring fact: President Ruto is a puppet of the Western ruling class, betraying the Kenyan people at every turn.
I, like many others, was also surprised to learn that a key demand of the Kenyan comrades was that the exchange of seeds remain untaxed, as it has been since time immemorial.
The media has reported that the neoliberal Kenyan President Ruto has sought to criminalise seeds. One such is Al Jazeera’s Inside Story, which highlighted the problems lay in how farmers have struggled to survive under cash crops, which have impoverished them. Many NGOs and farmers have complained that, over the last three decades, real income from cash crops has declined.
Greenpeace points out that African shares in world markets of most commodities have worsened, and most African countries have been sinking deeper and deeper into debt. The cash crop monopoly has led to the inhumane exploitation of smallholder farmers. This system has consistently oppressed farmers economically and socially through land grabbing, repressive seed laws, and dependency on multinational corporations for farm inputs. Farmers can no longer save and share seeds from the current harvest to plant the next season, as these seeds are patented by multinational seed corporations and protected by intellectual property laws.
Farmers have thus demanded that the Seed and Plant Varieties Act in Kenya be amended because it is a punitive law that punishes farmers with a jail term of up to two years or a fine of 1 million shillings (about 6 800 USD) for sharing indigenous seeds without certification or registration.
Already in 2022, the African Centre for Biodiversity discussed in its paper The changing nature of Kenya’s seed industry sectors that “the changing nature of the potato seed sector as a case study, to illustrate how these laws not only denigrate and criminalise smallholder seed systems but have contributed to the creation of tightly controlled commercial value chains underpinned by centralisation and standardisation. These commercial value chains coerce smallholder farmers into becoming commercial farmers, essentially by requiring that they align themselves with registered growers’ associations, to sell their produce at centralised collection points. This entails huge transportation and packaging costs for the smallholder farmers and places them at the mercy of potato cartels, with whom they must compete on an equal footing.
The imposition of strict commercial standards, registration, and other requirements by the government for entry into the potato market entails the incurring of additional exorbitant costs that are out of reach of small-scale farmers, thus allowing only an elite group of players to participate in the value chain. As a result, foreign entities, and companies, particularly those based in the Global North, and especially from the Netherlands, have eased their way into the potato sector. Here, they accrue massive benefits, as they are allowed to import seed technologies into Kenya that require highly intensive management.”
Fast forward to July 2024 and William Ruto, president of Kenya, is on the rocks… the people have spoken in the streets but this will be a long struggle where the people vs their leaders won the first round.
The first GNU post 1994. Photo Credit: News24
Happy Birthday Patrice Lumumba
The Democratic Republic of Congo is important for Africa’s development and obviously firstly for its own. In the past, we looked at the DRC-Zambia deal and did an interview with the organiser of the Pamodja Critical Mineral Alliance. This debate hopes to further our thinking…
AMY GOODMAN: …we are joined by Vijay Prashad, director of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, where his new in-depth article is headlined “The Congolese Fight for Their Own Wealth.” It looks at how the Democratic Republic of Congo’s vast mineral wealth contrasts with its extreme poverty caused by exploitation and conflict. Thanks so much for staying with us, Vijay. Just why don’t you lay out your piece?
VIJAY PRASHAD: Well, Amy, today is actually Patrice Lumumba’s birthday. He would have been 99 years old. It’s important for people to recall that he was assassinated by Belgian intelligence, U.S. intelligence and British intelligence, in collusion with the Congolese military, when he was only 35 years old.
What he said in that landmark speech in 1960, when the Congo attained its independence, was that all tribal rivalries should be muted, and the Congo needs to use its immense resource wealth, untapped reserves now valued at about $24 trillion — it’s one of the richest countries in the world — use that resource wealth for the good of the people of the Congo.
Patrice Lumumba was a ally of Kwame Nkrumah, who in 1965, five years after the murder of Mr. Lumumba, published a book called Neo-Colonialism, where Kwame Nkrumah laid out the argument that Africa was not going to be allowed to develop, because the West, which had colonized the continent after the Berlin Conference of 1884 — I mean, not after it, but they divided up the continent in Berlin in 1884. Nkrumah argued that, “Look, we’re not going to be allowed to develop our own resources, because they think they have patrimony over it.” Indeed, it’s so interesting to look at this specifically.
People may not know that the nuclear material, the uranium, used in the bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki come from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, from the mine of Shinkolobwe. And that mine’s control was actually part of the debate and dispute in 1960. The CIA worried that if Patrice Lumumba was allowed to remain in power, he might hand over the uranium to the Soviet Union. He had to be, therefore, couped.
This question of who controls resources in a place as rich as the Democratic Republic of the Congo is central, whether it was rubber during the time of the Belgians and King Leopold II, in particular, or now coltan, cobalt and other very, very lucrative minerals and metals. The issue of control over resources is fundamental. And governments are overthrown, indeed; the state in the DRC, the state institutions, not permitted to grow to become mature state institutions at all. I was at the border town between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mpondwe. In Mpondwe, you can see trucks just drive across the border, nobody paying octroi duty, customs duty, bribes being put here and there.
And here’s the nub of it, Amy. People say that, “Well, this has to do with corruption.” Corruption isn’t a particular problem. It isn’t the explanation for the problem in the DRC. Corruption is the symptom of a deeper problem, which is the prevention of the Congolese to control their own wealth. Equally, people sometimes say, “Well, there are tribal wars,” and so on. This is a fundamentally inaccurate statement. There are 400 different ethnic communities in the Congo, 200-plus languages spoken there. There’s a great deal of difference. The question is, the Congolese have never been able to put forward a national project around how to unite the people into a proper country and so on. This has always been suborned by external intervention. And that’s really what we argue, that the Congolese need to control their own wealth.
Watch the discussion here.
FROM THE GROUND
Jagersfontein: The time for justice is now!
Date of issue:23.7.24
The Bench Marks Foundation, Earthworks, Federation for A Sustainable Environment, groundWork as well as the National Union of Mineworkers and the various participants at the South African Tailings Civil Society Working Group call on the South African government to ensure justice for the people of Jagersfontein, in the Free State province.
We recall that the disaster took place on 11 September 2022 when, according to reports, the waste torrents spread, causing havoc to the neighbouring communities of Charlesville and Itumeleng, killing at least two people, leaving two missing and injuring dozens more. The untold damage to animal life and wider ecosystem is not often spoken of but must also be factored in as well as the damage to close to 164 houses. Almost two years after the Jagersfontein tailings disaster, participants at the June 2024 workshop were appalled at the lack of transparency and accountability by the authorities.
Hassen Lorgat, convenor from the Civil Society Tailings Working Group, said that “it is scandalous that, when close to two years have passed, the authorities have failed to publish the forensic report on the Jagersfontein disaster and all the recommendations have not been made public.” Participants at the Tailings workshop demanded from the National Prosecuting Authority increased vigour and commitment to public service so that they prosecute the owners of the mine.
Owners
The Free State based mine was formerly owned by De Beers up to 1972, when it stopped mining. The corporation retained the prospecting rights on the property until 2002. It is believed that limited reprocessing operations at the mine were eventually started in September 2010 by a company named Son Op, later known as Jagersfontein Development. Reinet Investments of Luxembourg became involved around 2011, but eventually sold out to Stargems Group around early 2022 who now own and are mining the tailings dump.
Stargems acquired the shareholding of the tailing dump from billionaire Johann Rupert’s Reinet Investments SCA and media reports confirmed that Jagersfontein Developments had offered R20 million to assist the community, although how far this has gone has not been confirmed.
The call
We are aware that some government departments have supported this call, including the Department of Water and Sanitation.
Furthermore, we believe that the principal regulatory departments, that is the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS), the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) and the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE), must report jointly and severally about how they will address the policy gaps in relation to tailings facilities and risk management.
Global NGOs Earthworks, Mining Watch Canada and London Mining Network, as well as International trade union Industriall Global Union have all backed the call for the report to be released publicly to serve the public interest.
For additional comment, contact: Hassen Lorgat +27 82 362 6180 / Hassenlorgat [at] yahoo.com / Hasslorgat [at] gmail.com
Photo by Marta Garrich
Communities are left to suffer the Legacy of Gold mine Dumps
By Thokozile Mntambo
The legacy of mine shafts and mine waste in the Witwatersrand continues to create social and environmental challenges for communities, even in areas where gold mining ceased a hundred years ago. The slow pace of eradicating these gold mine shafts and waste dumps results in conflict between authorities and communities.
Earthworks, the Bench Marks Foundation, and the Federation for a Sustainable Environment hosted the first tailing management meeting on June 26-27. This event happened in the Melrose Place Guest Lodge at Rosebank, Johannesburg. Mining affected communities around South Africa gathered to share their issues and learn more on integrated knowledge about mine tailing dumps. This event was so informative it even hosted representatives from the Department of Water and Trade Union participation. This event was unique because it was a table dialogue with community activists, government officials, and civil society organisations.
Legacy mine shafts and waste dumps negatively affect the quality of life of surrounding communities through water pollution, and air pollution, creating health concerns. They make physical barriers to people’s security and freedom of movement, which limit sustainable development. Comrades shared how it is becoming a fairytale attending workshops that do not change their community situation. They want this event to change their approach to challenging relevant authorities about tailings mine dumps.
Safety First: Community Guidelines for the Mine Life Cycle
In 2022, EarthWorks, MiningWatch Canada, and London Mining Network, in collaboration with experts, communities from mining-affected communities released 17 guidelines for safer tailings management. The guidelines have been endorsed by 164 communities, indigenous peoples, organisations, academics, and scientists from 34 countries.
These guidelines were presented to the 40 participants who attended the event. The whole aim is to empower activists and to highlight the need for transparent regulatory agencies that can operate without undue influence from the mining industry.
Community activists also had to comment on the safety guidelines. How will they enforce them on mining companies when they rarely reach out to communities and exclude them in decision making? Every mine should have a mine closure committee where the community should be represented. The money allocated to the rehabilitation should be declared to the community. Communities should serve on mine closure committees, on mine environmental management committees and should be fully informed of closure and transition plans and the funds available for it.
The Department of Mineral Resources is the appropriate authority in the mining environmental management field. But still, local minor communities of colour are the ones who are living adjacent to mine sites, which results in social problems and environmental degradation through the depletion of air quality, water, and soil.
It has been recorded that since the discovery of gold in 1886, mining has been the driver of economic growth in South Africa. Even today gold remains a vital component of South Africa’s economy, particularly for investors in the gold markets. For marginalised people, the mine gold rush benefited them with nothing, just numerous mine shafts that become hot spots for illegal mining, volumes of unrehabilitated residue, or mine waste affecting the quality of life of surrounding communities.
Communities, particularly living in Soweto, are fighting against private ownership of land, ownerless mine dumps. They are having challenges in enforcing accountability in rehabilitating these abandoned mine sites and tailings. In recent years, the industry has witnessed several mines closing down due to liquidation, leaving such mines unrehabilitated and without proper closure plans. Liquidations are legislated by the Companies Act, limiting the MPRDA in enforcing closure requirements in liquidated mines. Mintails and the Central Gold Mine (CRG) are examples of mine operations placed under provisional liquidation without adequate financial provision for proper mine closure.
Residents of Jagersfontein have also started to show coughing symptoms which are a potential health risk that might be associated with the mine waste sludge. The sludge flowed from the burst tailing wall into the residential area of Itumeleng and Charlesville. Many people drowned in the sludge and others were injured during this horrible tragedy, the majority of the injuries were broken leg bones. This tragedy happened on the 1st of October 2022.
On the 4th of November 2022, the Department of Water and Sanitation opened a criminal case against the Jagersfontein Development (JD) mining company. The case is based on the contraventions of the National Water Act, in terms of Section 151 of the National Water Act (NWA) of 1998, on the release of a substance (slimes/mine process waste materials) that pollutes or has the potential to pollute water resources. It has been over three years now and this case has not been to court yet. According to Thabo Choledi who is a resident of Donkerhoek.
“During rainy seasons it is traumatic for us as the people of Jagersfontein when we see water flowing from the dam wall where disaster struck in September of 2022. This is due to a mine sludge. This is the side that is facing the community and we do not know when it will collapse. The water flows into the nearby river and contaminates it. We were told by the University of Free State that the water is not toxic but what we know is that the water is very salty and cannot be consumed.”
The Vlakfontein tailings mine was owned by the Durban Roodepoort Deep and it later sold the dump to Mintails Limited in 2007. In 2010, Mintails Limited was no longer maintaining the dump, and they later liquidated in 2018, leaving behind a lot of air pollution and environmental degradation. The community is still living in a contaminated environment, which has caused a lot of harm to their health and wellbeing. In 2022, Pan African Resource Mine bought the tailing mine dump with only one mission: to re-mine without rehabilitation. The gold waste rush will take place after six years. The level of commitment to the MPRDA and NEMA by mine management to the affected communities is low, with the least consequences as the mechanism for compliance monitoring is weak.
This is what community activists had to say about the safety guidelines that were introduced to them at the conference:
“There is no safety in experiencing the death of children. However, the mines are withholding information and do not consent with the community. The guidelines will only work if we have a team all over South Africa to report to the DMRE,” Magrette Molomo (Kopano Formation Committee)
“The guidelines will work if the mines implement them. And the government officials who attended the event are sugarcoating things because they were sitting face to face with activists.” Dumisile Magagula (VEM), Dineo Tlali (Letsunyane NPC Project) and Mahlohonolo Mothware (Macua)
“Safety guidelines were relevant, because mine closure and rehabilitation is slow! We need more awareness and campaigns.” Kenny Mhlaba (OWE GREEN ECONOMY)
“The laws we are using are easily manipulated because mining companies know them. We need to enforce our own.” Toto Nzama (MEJCON)
“The guidelines are not laws, they are just volunteering laws. We need something that will regulate our issues because guidelines are not binding.” Father Ratsou (Consultation Forum for Mining)
“The DWS and the DMRE claim that they own issues but they are not doing enough to solve these constituencies. The government is dragging its feet. Our community has been without water for 2 years, they dont implement their promise and there is a lack of service delivery.” Pule Mokoteli (Tlawu Imvelo Environmental Organisation)
Is the Free Prior Informed Consent (FPIC) working in mining impacted communities?
On 25 June 2024, we had our monthly online discussion asking if Free Prior and Informed Consent was working for the mining affected communities. This is part of a series of workshops called Community Capacity Building hosted by the community monitoring school of the Bench Marks Foundation. The aim of these monthly seminars is to assist and capacitate each other and to invite experts to educate the community.
We chose this theme Free Prior Informed Consent (FPIC) because we realised that communities are not properly consulted when mining commences. We also wanted to understand and explore further whether we could take the mining corporations to court for their failure to consult communities properly in line with FPIC principles.
We believe that we must get a deeper understanding of FPIC Principles as the community activists needed to learn how it could empower them on the strategies of whether to give or withhold consent for activities, projects, and policies impacting their lands, territories, resources, or livelihoods.
We had 34 participants online and three speakers who unpacked and shared their experiences around the context. Mmathapelo Thobejane (the coordinator of Bench Marks Foundation) facilitated the discussion and the two other participants were: Rebecca Selomo from Mogalakwena, community monitor, and Micheal Koen, freelance researcher.
Rebbecca Selomo from Mogalekwena concerned mining affected communities is also a monitor of the Bench Marks Foundation, representing the voice of the communities. She touched on the need for the community to be capacitated by this kind of information. Selomo also shared her experience in Mokopane where the community does not have access to information from the mine and the local municipality (government). They just see things happening and, at the end of the day, it is the communities that suffer the consequences. So the point is that communities must be consulted BEFORE decisions are taken. Communities must be given ALL THE NECESSARY information that will support them in making decisions.
Micheal Koen is a freelance researcher who has been working on FPIC for a decade now. He also worked with the Xolobeni community where they won the case against Shell company. Micheal encouraged people that it is not too late to stand up and take charge by holding the mines accountable for not properly consulting the community. Koen also argued that this approach is doable even after mines have taken control of the land – if communities have not been consulted, mines could be contested in court. He encouraged those that are only commencing with mining: it is vital to collect all information which could be used as evidence when things do not go as planned. It is important to note that communities have the Right to Say No to mining.
What came strong from the discussion is that women in the meeting wanted to start their working group to challenge the companies because most of the decisions were taken without them. They feel now is the right time to challenge the mines because only men are permitted to be part of the negotiations and decisions around land use and so on. Women were not regarded as equals.
The discussion is continuing on the WhatsApp group where other community members are sharing their experiences.
We heard in a voice note from his sister, Aletta Mokoena, that it started with tonsillitis on Tuesday last week. It worsened, so he went to the local clinic and was provided with medication. He became weaker, and on Friday morning, his mother and neighbour drove him to the doctor who put him on a drip and treated him for pneumonia. It was too late though, he passed away soon after the first drip was administered.
Samson’s work and life has been a source of immense inspiration, a galvanising force in building people power to challenge environmental and human rights abuses. He worked for decades to highlight the pollution caused by companies like ArcelorMittal and Sasol, in Vanderbijlpark, Sasolburg and surrounding areas.
He also took on the state over their failure to respect, protect and promote environmental and human rights. His leadership of the Vaal Environmental Justice Alliance has been part of his legacy of change making and mentorship, leaving an indelible impact on those he worked with. He did all this with a sense of humour, injecting a courageous energy into any space he found himself in.
“As a struggle stalwart and grassroots activist he dedicated his life and every breath to fighting for clean air and clean water for his community. His vast legacy remains, as people are inspired by his journey of speaking truth to power, and being a true comrade, standing in solidarity with those most affected by one of the most dangerously polluted areas in the world, the Vaal Triangle,” said Avena Jacklin, Operations Director at groundWork.
Samson co-founded the South African Water Caucus (SAWC) and served as the coordinator of the Vaal Environmental Justice Alliance (VEJA). Over the 25-plus years of struggle, his passion and focus evolved into locally, nationally, regionally and internationally connected solidarity networks, and many friendships. Below are some of the messages of tribute from colleagues and comrades who walked part of this journey by his side.
The funeral took place on Saturday 6th July 2024 in the Vaal.
Read the full article by Thom Pierce
It came to me in a wild dream
Eyes bursting gleaming fire
Raging dead
Laughing in its fresh death
Dancing in a visceral frenzy
Intoxicated by being dead chanting melodies suddenly broken into severe
incoherencies of the soul
It was a green dream dressed in the blanket of night
Spirits whirling swerving eddying in invisible vortexes of blood
In the burning heights of
Marikana!
Wild eyes still gleaming raging
Thirty -four pairs of eyes staring at death their death
In a welter of sounds of glee
“Hit! Hit! I got -one -more -than –you- hit!”
Read more here.
RESOURCES
💬 Word of the Month
FOSSIL FUEL is a generic term for non-renewable energy sources such as coal, coal products, natural gas, derived gas, crude oil, petroleum products and non-renewable wastes. These fuels originate from plants and animals that existed in the geological past (for example, millions of years ago).
📓Opportunities and Challenges for a Just Transition in the South African Food System: Insights from the Beef Industry: Jointly developed by the Institute for Economic Justice (IEJ) and the East Cape Agricultural Research Project (ECARP), this wide-ranging and extensive working paper explores the challenges and opportunities for a just transition in South Africa’s food system, focusing on the beef industry. It examines the prevailing architecture, power dynamics, and policy frameworks through literature review, industry documents, and interviews with key stakeholders. The learnings from the focus on beef production highlight the need for a transition that addresses social inequalities, improves working conditions, enhances resilience to climate change, and seeks to achieve and balance multiple objectives rather than a singular pursuit of growth.
🗒️Feminist Economics Summer School 2024 – Call for Applications: The Institute for Economic Justice’s (IEJ) fourth annual Feminist Economics Summer School (FESS) will take place from 23 to 27 September 2024, in-person in Kampala, Uganda, in partnership with the Makerere Institute for Social Research (MISR) and Akina Mama wa Afrika (AMwA). Deadline for applications: 18 August 2024.
📢The Commons in the Everyday – Call for short think pieces or stories about The Commons in the Everyday. Note that the submission period is 1 August 2024 – 31 May 2025. Send submissions to gloria.bowes@wits.ac.za and vishwas.satgar@wits.ac.za.
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