Stilfontein mining tragedy sparks calls for inquiry

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JEREMY MAGGS: With a degree of shame, horror, and I guess disbelief, we’re all still digesting the Stilfontein mining tragedy. In case you don’t know, 78 miners are confirmed dead, 248 have been rescued, many in a horrific state. While an unknown number remain underground, possibly lost forever. This tragedy follows a police crackdown under Operation Vala Umgodi, a government-led campaign against so-called artisanal miners.

So I think the question we need to be asking now was this preventable. Who ultimately is responsible and what does it say about our government, the mining industry, and general law enforcement?

In that respect, I’m joined now by Mametlwe Sebei, president of the General Industries Workers Union of South Africa. A very warm welcome and thank you for joining us. The government has framed this operation as a crackdown on illegal mining. You argue it was a death sentence for those underground. Why are you saying that?

MAMETLWE SEBEI: Thank you, Jeremy. I’m pleased to be here. Absolutely, yes. Firstly, let’s get to the facts, but before I start there, this is arguably the worst mass murder of miners due to state actions and a series of decisions since the dawn of democracy, worse than the Marikana massacre, both in terms of numbers, but also the nature of death, just the cruelty of it. Because what these miners suffered is months of deprivation of food, water, and medication, being trapped underground.

So they died a very slow, painful and just too ghastly a death to even contemplate. That is really what has happened here.

What transpired is that the state, knowing that at shaft 11, it is a two- to three-kilometre hole without a staircase, without a lift. That these miners, basically without anybody on the surface, pulling them through a pulley system that is actually a manual rope that used to take the miners down and out of the mine. It was also that very same system that was used to ensure supplies of food, water, and medication.

Read: ‘The smell of death was everywhere’ – Stilfontein mine rescue ends

The state and the police arrived there, simply chasing away the people from the surface and waited at that hole for miners, who were located somewhere at 1.6 kilometres and 1.8 kilometres, for months without supplying them with food, water, and medication, but also ensuring that there wasn’t any means for these miners being pulled up.

They lied about these miners having options to come out of other shafts, the shafts were, lots of miners have come out, that is Margaret shaft, that shaft does not even belong to that mine. It’s not connected to the shaft. The only other shaft that is connected to shaft 11, is shaft 10 of the same mine. On average it takes seven days of miners crawling underground in the dark, narrow, flooded tunnels. Many of the miners, by the way, died on the way there from falling, but also drowning in those flooded areas and so on.

JEREMY MAGGS: Let me ask you this question. What do you say to government then that asserts that they were criminals, and they need to be treated as such?

MAMETLWE SEBEI: Well, let’s be clear of what we’re dealing with here. There are two levels to basically this industry of artisanal mining. One is people who are crushed by poverty, many of whom are former miners, they’re families and communities who are abandoned by the big corporate mining companies.

That is true of Buffelsfontein Mine. That is true of over 6000 other mines in this country that are abandoned, derelict and ownerless. When these big companies abandon these mines, it’s not only that they’re leaving holes that are not sealed, an environment that is not rehabilitated, meaning it can be used for other alternative productive uses, amusement, housing, agriculture, you mentioned all of that. They abandoned the miners along with their families and of course, communities in dire conditions of poverty and unemployment.

Read: Rescue of illegal Zama Zama miners underway

JEREMY MAGGS: Your union is now calling for a commission of inquiry. What specifically do you want investigated and what accountability measures do you believe should follow that?

MAMETLWE SEBEI: We do think that there’s a case to be investigated here for criminal liability charges and accountability of those who were responsible for the deaths of these miners, in the way that they carried out the police operation. We do also believe that there’s got to be discussion about what we do about the explosion of artisanal mining that is unregulated, but also because of lack of regulation, lack of access to equipment and access to market.

This industry is being hijacked by organised criminal syndicates.

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We’ve got to be able to deal with those issues. We’ve got to deal with the legacy of abandoned and relic mines. We’ve got deal with the conditions of dire poverty and unemployment, particularly in distressed mining towns affected by closed mines.

Read: Rescue of illegal Zama Zama miners underway

Many of these mines still have substantial deposits of minerals, actually over 2000, according to government, when I was doing the research on this… If these mines are reopened, recapitalised, they can create hundreds of thousands of jobs.

We need to begin to make inroads in the elimination of unemployment and ending the crushing and devastating levels of poverty, which in this country have reached levels of hunger and starvation that is forcing some of the former miners to work in these horrific conditions.

JEREMY MAGGS: How would you suggest that artisanal mining be regulated, given its often unknown and patchy nature?

MAMETLWE SEBEI: No, it’s very simple, Jeremy. There are over 100 000 miners in this country who are actually using rudimentary equipment to salvage the residual minerals that are left by the big mining companies. It’s very simple, in many countries, in fact, the history of mining here began as artisanal mining, it’s only that obviously it was later on monopolised by big companies and the legal framework was ordered in that.

What you do, there is regulatory framework in other jurisdictions that we can refer to that would legalise and make it possible for groups of miners to form cooperatives and to be able to apply for a licence.

The state can assist them with equipment to ensure that they mine safely, but also productively so that they earn decent earnings for themselves, their families, as well as to contribute to the sustainability of local economies.

JEREMY MAGGS: The problem, of course, with your argument is that government is not interested in doing that.

MAMETLWE SEBEI: But I’m saying that you can also then create a state buyer. When you do that, by the way, not only are you going to address the issue of taxation and a boost to the fiscus, you’ll dispense with organised criminal syndicates that have monopolised the trade, that are exporting the minerals from these particular mines, and to do that, they have unleashed a reign of terror on these miners, their families, their communities.

When you hear outrage about zama zamas, the stories of rapes, of murders, it’s these organised criminal syndicates, which I must say, by the way, they work in conspiracy with the elements of the state, particularly the police, but also the big companies.

Let me just make an illustration. The idea that you could have these poor emaciated, dehydrated miners who you saw coming out of Stilfontein, transporting gold on their own from Stllfontein, but also some platinum, all the way from Limpopo to the borders of Zimbabwe, to Durban, without the state and the police involvement. It’s not realistic.

JEREMY MAGGS: I’m going to leave it there. Regrettably, we are out of time. But thank you very much indeed for a very blunt and forthright assessment. That is Mametlwe Sebei, president of the General Industries Workers Union of South Africa.

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