By Mathibela Mankge
Tel: 012 394 1101
Fax: 012 394 2101
Cell: 072 186 4205
Email:
Mathibela Mankge is a member of the Gamawela Communal Property Association. He works for the Department of Trade and Industry as Deputy Director: BEE, Enterprise and Industry Development Division. These are his personal views.
3 October 2008.
MARUPING GO KA BOELWA: DEFENDING CULTURAL HERITAGE AGAINST EXPROPRIATION BY MINING COMPANIES
Angloplatinum intends to removemy ancestors’ graves and submerge my community’s sacred rain making pools under a dam. The community objects to this action as it will destroy our invaluable heritage, as well asdestroy the foundations of our identity as the Gamawela community.
The Gamawela community was the owner of a beautiful valley in a tributary of the Steelpoort (Tubatse) River since time immemorial. The tributary, which is known to the community as Molototsi, is blessed with sufficient water from the high mountains of the district to meet its commercial farming and other needs.
This blessing is being turned into a cursefirst by the appearance of colonisers who claimed ownership of the land, and then byforeign mining companies who have come to exploit us again.
Thecommunity, which numbers about 500 households, began its battle with Angloplatinum in 2002 when its first land claim on the farm St George was gazetted by the land claims commission in 2000, and the company made its intentions clear that it would fight the claim in court.
The Legal Resources Centre, Johannesburg, agreed to defend the community and brought a “direct access” application to the Land Claims Court, given that the Gamawela community had sufficient capacity to do so without assistance from the Commission on Restitution of Land Rights. The community won its case in court in July 2004.
The land claims courtfinally ordered the land to be restored to the community in July 2006, eight years from the time at which the community lodged its claims.Angloplatinum even made a submission to the court, based on its mining rights application to the Department of Minerals and Energy,that it had limited plans to use the land.
It is clear to the community now that Angloplatinum coveted the water resources which were being claimed by the community.
The community has now been informed by Angloplatinum that it is going to expropriate at least 100 hectares of its most valuable irrigable lands on the farm St George to build a dam, known as the Richmond Dam. This will undermine the livelihoods of the community in ways that are incalculable.
The dam will also require even more land on the farm Richmond, which is under claim by other clans in the community.The community is very anxious that the grave of Kgoshi Marobele, our great-great-great… ancestor, who gave rise to all the Mankge people who are today found on the entire world, will be submerged under water on the farm Richmond.
We respect Kgoshi Marobele and we believe Angloplatinum should respect the site where his remains are kept because that’s the place he had chosen and loved. That respect will never die or be made to die.
From time to time we may be required as it’s our cultural practice to pay respect to him as he’s a mediator between us and God. And that must continue to be done at his grave as we normally do – in perpetuity.
Truly speaking Africans do not believe in any foreign ancestor no matter in which book he may be written. We believe entirely on the ones who gave rise to us and God only. They are our Saviours. Marobele is our chief ancestor.
The Richmond Dam will destroy our sacred heritage sites. The beauty of the land and its natural habitat would be lost forever. Our heritage would be lost forever. Our land is also the source of our identity as clans, and as a community.
No matter how poor the magnitude of this community might be, I think it’s yet another insult to our people by Angloplatinum to offer a few rands for a dam that will destroy their social well-being.
I believe that a partnership between Angloplatinum and the Gamawela community would change the social well being of the whole community over the next decade – and by saying that I mean that a reasonable direct ownership in the productive mining assets proposed in their land would take the community out of poverty. If not, its members remain part of communities documented by government as among the poorest in both Limpopo and MpumalangaProvinces.
I don’t think that Anglo can start thinking that it has met the empowerment targets as set out under in the B-BBEE Codes of Good Practice if it continues to enrich the itself at the expense of communities such as my own who are directly affected by its mining operations.
My wish is that Angloplat will accept mediation; otherwise the communityhas declared publicly that it is determined to fightthe caseall the way to the Constitutional Court. We believe that we can set an important precedent against mining companies for socio-economic rights in this country.
The Gamawela community is armed with people of great minds and has no intentions to sell the land to anyone in any given time no matter at what price because the land is our heritage. No price would buy that, and this is the message that we will send with great pride to generations to come.
Lastly, it has become clear to the Gamawela community that the current legal framework for the mining sector is a recipe for conflict. Mining companies ride roughshod over communities, and their agreements with government are shrouded in confidentiality.
The fact is that communities are not signatories to any agreement between government and mining companies and, justifiably, reject any decisions taken by government on their behalf.
If government does not enforce the mining charter as intended, communities directly affected by mining will be forced to take matters into their own hands, outside of the inadequate framework of the law, to negotiate legally enforceable impacts and benefits contracts with mining companies.