Africa Update
Published by MAC on 2007-02-02
Africa update
2nd Feburary 2007
"We must come together to fight!" declares a community leader in South Africa as his people - along with others under assault by Anglo American and Implats companies - continue asserting basic human rights.
South Africa's gold mineworkers are also under siege from worsening injury and fatality rate. And Zimbabwean small-scale gold miners desperately try to eke out a living as the regime increases its attacks upon them.
Guinea strikers have reportedly returned to work after last month's general strike [see: http://www.minesandcommunities.org/Action/press1347.htm].
The Canadian titanium miner, Tiomin, has failed in its bid to attract co-funding for Kenya's most controversial extractive project. [see: http://www.minesandcommunities.org/Action/press1333.htm]
Platinum mines spearhead scramble for Africa's wealth
by Charlie Kimber, Socialist Worker
3rd February 2007
A new "scramble for Africa" is taking place, which has many of the features associated with the 19th century carve-up of the continent.
Today oil is the main prize, with the Gulf of Guinea (from the Ivory Coast to Angola), Sudan and Chad the central battle grounds. But other vital resources are also up for grabs as the world's great powers seek to control vital raw materials.
Ordinary Africans suffer as multinationals – backed by neoliberal African governments – compete for these assets.
Perhaps the starkest example is in South Africa where people are being expelled from the land they have inhabitedÊfor generations in order to clear the way for platinum mining. When they fight back, people are harassed, arrested and beaten.
The demand for platinum has rocketed in recent years. It is an irreplaceable component of vehicle exhaust systems – and globally car ownership is soaring, especially in China and India.
South Africa, which has 90 percent of the world's platinum reserves, is eagerly eyed by giant companies like Anglo Platinum (part of Anglo American) and Impala.
The mine bosses already have a green light from the ANC government to remove any obstacle to them ripping out platinum as swiftly as possible.
Last week women in the Mothlohlo area of the Limpopo province formed a human chain to stop Anglo Platinum from putting a fence around their crop fields. The firm instructed bulldozer drivers to dump mounds of dirt onto the women. This region has seen the largest forced removals since the end of apartheid.
Around 6,000 people have been driven from their land and 10,000 more face removal in the coming weeks.
In Magobading (a relocation camp for people removed from their homes) 15 leaders were beaten and arrested by police as they were walking home after a demonstration at Anglo Platinum's Twickenham mine. They were denied medical attention for 22 hours and bail was set at an outrageously high level.
In Maandagshoek several community leaders were arrested for protecting their land. Police shot rubber and live bullets at the community during a peaceful protest.
In Ga-Pila, 25 families refused to move from their land while 6,000 others were moved to a relocation camp. The government dumped mine waste on their water source and cut their electricity. They too were beaten and arrested for protecting their crops.
Mekgwe Lucas and Thusi Rapoo are campaigning against Impala in the village of Luka near Rustenburg in South Africa's North West Province.
They told Socialist Worker, "Luka is a village of around 20,000 people in an area which has the two largest platinum mines in the world.
"We have many concerns about what effect these mines are having. They have created vast waste heaps and on some days the dust blows everywhere and covers everything.
"We believe this is damaging water. The soil is being poisoned and our village is undermined by the workings. In some areas you can hear the miners working underground beneath the houses!
"We are also concerned by the gases released by the mining, which we believe are hazardous. Again and again we have demanded action, but we are always brushed off without proper answers.
"The Impala mining company was set up under apartheid as a bastion of that racist system. Yet the ANC government has not taken sufficient action to restore our rights.
"The Bafokeng tribal authority claims to speak for us, but its leaders have enriched themselves without pressing our demands.
"We will continue our campaign for justice for the people and for respect for the environment. If mining is to go ahead, the wealth created must be used for the whole community and for the miners as well."
Emmanuel Makgoga, spokesperson for communities in the Tubatse area that are fighting the platinum mines, said, "The land the mine is using belongs to us. The government refuses to fix this problem, but we will not be intimidated by the government or the police.
"We know that people in Peru, Nigeria, the Philippines and many other countries face the same problems. We must come together to fight."
South Africa: Death, Injury Rates Soar in 'Stressed' Gold Mines
Business Day (Johannesburg)
30th January 2007
Fatalities in the gold-mining sector had worsened, with mining houses seeking to cash in on a robust gold price by revisiting disused parts of their mines, Parliament's minerals and energy affairs committee heard yesterday.
The issue will also be highlighted at next month's indaba on mine health and safety.
The indaba was called by Minerals and Energy Minister Buyelwa Sonjica after the October disaster at AngloGold Ashanti's Tau Tona mine near Carletonville when five mineworkers died in a rockfall.
At the time Sonjica said the number of fatalities in the gold-mining industry was "unacceptable".
Mining Health and Safety Council acting chairman Mthokozisi Zondi told the committee that while there was a 26% drop in mining fatalities in the platinum sector in 2005-06, gold mining's figures worsened.
The council is a tripartite body representing government, labour and employers and is tasked with advising the minister on health and safety matters.
"We have a very old gold-mining sector and are mining areas that are highly stressed," he said.
Acting chief inspector of mines in the minerals and energy department Thabo Gazi said that while the gold-mining sector employed 35% (155165) of all mineworkers, it was responsible for 51% (104 of the total of 202) fatalities in 2005-06 and 56% of all injuries (2324 of 3966).
Gazi said the same regressive trend was evident in the gold sector again in 2006-07. The steady deterioration in the gold sector's fatality performance was undermining the effort to bring SA's safety record in line with international standards set by Canada, Australia and America.
Government's aim was to eliminate all gold-mining deaths by 2013, but this would require a 20% reduction in the fatality rate each year, Gazi said.
The performance in 2005-06 was only a 16% reduction in the fatality rate from 0,25 deaths per million hours worked in 2004 to 0,21 in 2005 because of the gold sector.
All other mining sectors, such as platinum, diamond and coal, had shown an improvement.
Gazi also said that with commodity prices going up, mining houses had revisited dangerous mines. "The improvement in the economy comes at a cost of human lives."
Injury rates had also climbed as the mining industry turned towards mechanisation, he said.
Other challenges facing the inspectorate were the loss of personnel. The department's safety unit lost 75% of its top managers in one year to the private sector.
Rising water levels in some closed mines in Gauteng could lead to disasters in neighbouring mines, Gazi warned.
National Union of Mineworkers national secretary for health and safety Eric Gcilitshana said he was concerned about the slow pace of delivery of family housing units for mineworkers living in single-sex hostels.
At the present rate of delivery it was unlikely the industry would meet its targets to have all workers living in family units or in townships by 2013, he said.
Pillage and Patronage: Human rights abuses in Zimbabwe's informal gold-mining sector
Sokwanele Report
27th January 2007
http://www.sokwanele.com/articles/sokwanele/pillage_and_patronage_27jan2007.html
The international press is currently swamped with reports of the arrests of over 25 000 gold panners in Zimbabwe. Operation Chikorokoza Chapera ("No Illegal Panning") was launched in November last year, ostensibly to bring gold panning activities under control. With the implosion of the economy, this sector had been burgeoning, albeit illegally in most cases, as poverty-stricken Zimbabweans endlessly struggle to provide for themselves and their families. Make no mistake, this loss of livelihood is not an incidental side-effect of the operation, but it is its very raison d'etre.
Just as they did with Operation Murambatsvina (Clean Out Filth) in 2005, the regime has purposely set out to destroy this activity, and with it, the lives of those involved.
This brutal operation is tantamount to genocide with constructive intent - the authors knew in advance that their actions would lead to death by starvation, depriving the poorest of the poor of their only - and last - means of feeding themselves and their families.
Not only have livelihoods been eliminated, but lives too. Since the beginning of January, the press - muzzled as it is - has still been able to report deaths as disused mines collapse on miners who are tear-gassed as they hide, seeking to evade arrest and others who have been shot by a police force bent on serving its despotic leader.
By far the most appalling case is of three miners in Inyathi district who died from hunger and exhaustion after the police forced them to work for six days, filling up trenches left open by other gold panners, beating them and denying them food at the same time. They had been complaining of dizziness and hunger before they collapsed and died on December 24th.
Once again it is the poorest of Zimbabweans who are being victimized and used as pawns to hide the culpability of the big players, government ministers and zanupf apologists, who are allowed to continue the rape of the country's precious resources with impunity.
The facts are there, but the intention behind these widespread arrests stand veiled by layers of conspiracy and malice.
A not so glittering History …
One has to look back a decade to understand the regime's haphazard stance on gold panning, which has left the desperate panners confused and now threatened with violence and starvation.
The early 90's saw Zimbabwe reeling under its disastrous Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (ESAP). With the devaluation of the Zimbabwe dollar and the subsequent high gold price in Zimbabwe dollar terms, more people began to join the informal gold panning trade as retrenchment caused by the structural adjustment programme began to bite.
In 1992 gold panning along the country's streams was legalised and actively encouraged, provided the panners obtained the necessary permits and deposited their gold with the Reserve Bank or its agents. The panners were also required to rehabilitate their operations by backfilling. In those days environmental policing took place regularly.
The then Mines Minister, Chris Anderson, said it was high time the panners were recognised as part of the informal sector. Instead of hunting them down, he said they should be encouraged to sell their gold to the reserve bank. He even suggested that small-scale miners should be paid a higher price than the market rate to prevent them from selling to the black market. Prospective panners were able to apply for permits to exploit the gold deposits from their respective councils.
There is a common belief that small scale gold mining and panning, which mainly took place on commercial farms, was encouraged by government then not only to control this informal sector, but also as a means of harassing white farmers and precipitating conflict with the farmers who later suffered under the most severe form of intimidation.
From 1999 to 2000, following the violent seizure of land from commercial farmers, Zimbabwe's mineral production declined between 17%-60% in nine major commodities with the gold sector hardest hit - three major mines and several small operations closed and gold production declined for the first time in 20 years. Output was 22,070 kg, down from 27,666 in 1999. The "land reform programme" did not only affect agriculture, the mining industry was severely impacted by government's madness on the farms.
Gold mining previously accounted for the highest income of the precious foreign currency earned by Zimbabwe; that was before the ruinous policies of the Mugabe regime started to decimate our economy. Since 2000 the Zimbabwean government policy towards formal and large scale mining has been executed with the customary myopic ineptitude expected from mugabe's cabinet. This sector has been hamstrung by foreign exchange shortages which have prevented it from buying new equipment and the supplies essential to this industry.
With threatened take overs and the severe recession in the country Zanupf has successfully inhibited foreign investment in this vital sector and brought many previously productive mines to a grinding halt.
The gap in production left by the near collapse of formal mining was replaced by the precious metal being brought in from the informal sector, with the Reserve Bank buying much of its gold from illegal panners. However, the panners today sell their gold on the black market as the Reserve Bank pay well under the true market value.
The Victims of Human Rights Abuses …
The attack on panners has been merciless and indiscriminate. Some of the victims are the estimated 100 000 gold panners operating legally since the 1990's, still holding licenses issued then. They have not escaped the wrath of state agents.
Following the illegal, violent and chaotic land seizures, the country was thrown into turmoil and an estimated 500 000 commercial farm workers were forced from their homes. Employment in agriculture was for most of them vindictively ended by the so called "new farmers" and war vets, and the vast majority were unable to find any formal employment, so many were forced to turn to gold panning. They required little expertise or capital investment to get going.
Gold panning was their last and sole means of livelihood, and even that has now been brutally eliminated.
Ironically, by 2003 the "new famers" came to loggerheads with small scale miners who were viciously competing for the land which had been redistributed and in many cases divided into small plots. Environmental surveillance became increasingly difficult and virtually non-existent with manpower and funding shortages. Clashes between small scale miners and new farmers grew alarmingly. There was no clear legal instrument on which activity held sway, with mining permits sometimes going directly against land resettlement patterns.
In recent years, with the almost total collapse of the agricultural sector, those same new farmers who were allowed to stay on seized land have had to resort to panning as a means of survival for they have been unable to effectively produce food with hyperinflation directly hampering access to seed, fertilizer and fuel.
Many of these panners were informal traders, whose livelihoods were hit by Operation Murambatsvina ("Drive out the trash") in 2005, when the regime sought to punish the urban poor for voting against them in the recent elections by razing their houses and trading stands, and banishing them forcibly back to the rural areas where they could do less political 'damage' .
There are an estimated 1 million small scale gold miners currently operating in Zimbabwe. In its sixth year of recession, where mining rather than farming is now the biggest sector, businesses are running below 30% of capacity and president Mugabe claims the country is a victim of a Western sabotage campaign. He tries to hoodwink the world and his grandstanding makes a mockery of the country's beleaguered victims of zanupf inflicted sabotage - the school children, grandmothers, educated and uneducated citizens, now all bound by the common malaise of poverty, inspired and inflicted by the illegal mugabe regime.
This regime has made it quite clear that they place little value on the lives of Zimbabweans. In 2002 Didymus Mutasa exposed the government's shocking intention to fulfill their vision of a final solution for Zimbabwe to effectively halve the population of 12 million. He stated, "We would be better off with only six million people, with our own (Shona) people who support the liberation struggle. We don't want all these extra people". By "extra people" Zimbabwe's leading civil servant means the people who live in non-Shona-speaking areas, who in their majority supported the opposition party ready to stymie the ruling party's obsession with power.
What are their intentions?
We know the regime actioned Operation Murambatsvina back in 2005 to punish those voting for the opposition, and to remove them to the rural areas where they could be better controlled.
Why, though, has the regime engaged in this persecution of the informal gold-producing sector? The answer is not at all obvious, and we can but speculate on how their evil minds work, but a few possibilities do come to mind:
1. Who stood to lose when the sale of gold no longer all passed through the Reserve Bank? Zimbabwean legislation requires that all gold is sold to Fidelity Printers - an arm of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ); the price paid for the gold is controlled by the government. The RBZ then sells the metal on the world market, generating much needed foreign exchange for itself.
Now in former days, when all the gold used to pass through the official channels, there was more foreign currency (forex) being generated. It is common knowledge that the chefs had access to forex, buying it at the controlled rate, and then selling it in the market at the much higher parallel rate; alternatively, they would buy fuel with it, and make a killing by selling their fuel at market rates.
Official records state that gold production has decreased from 1999 (27,666kg) to the end of 2006 (estimated 12,000kg) by 57%, but gold producers will tell you that the same amount of the precious metal is coming out of the ground as before. This means that the difference has been passing through the informal system in the last few years. That means less forex for the chefs (top dog zanupf leaders and their cronies)! If I were a chef, I wouldn't be too happy, would you? I'd try and put a stop to this informal sector 'leakage'. And maybe that's what they've done!
2. Stopping the fuel profiteers? These small-scale gold panners were selling their gold to middle-men either inside or outside the country. The middle-men then traded the gold for Rand, and with the Rand bought fuel, which was then sold inside the country at great profit. This fuel is what has been keeping the Zimbabwean economy afloat; now that whole sector of the economy - fuel procurement - has been drastically reduced. Was this part of their plan?
3. Gideon Gono's involvement? Gono, the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe - and now often dubbed CEO of Zimbabwe Inc., for his close relationship with Mugabe and his single-handed control of the economy - must surely have been involved in this operation. It is inconceivable that he did not sanction it, and he may even have been the architect of the scheme. What was his intention, though?
Aside from himself benefiting from access to cheap forex (and who believes the full page supplements in the newspapers, denying his purchase of a top-of-the-range Mercedes Benz?), is there anyone he might have a personal vendetta against? We know that Mnangagwa closely controlled all the gold panners in the Kwekwe area; and Joyce Mujuru has certainly been profiting from fuel deals; did Gono want to get back at them, both of whom were threatening his own presidential ambitions?
And why, by the way, is Gono's name not on the list of the European Union's travel ban?
4. Pillage of the gold milling industry? Maybe this wasn't the original intention, but the chefs are now trying to grab all the resources they can get their hands on. Do they sense that the days of this evil regime are numbered? Gold millers are central to the gold industry, as all gold passes through them for milling; they are now being harassed beyond belief, arrested on trumped up charges designed to elicit bribes, or even the forced sale of the companies, we presume.
5. Punishment of the electorate? Look at the timing: this operation kicked in just after the Rural District Council (RDC) elections. Like Murambatsvina, was this again punishment of the electorate for not voting for the Zanu PF candidates? Zanu certainly wasn't happy with the results of the elections - they might have won more wards in total than the opposition, but they lost in some of their strongholds, and they certainly didn't win the number of wards that they expected! Was it considered convenient, once more, to dispatch these "trouble-makers" to the depths of the rural areas, and to punish them by removing their last means of livelihood?
We don't know where these people are now: part of the starving urban poor, or part of the rural poor - also starving. But we can say truthfully that the regime's actions are tantamount to death sentences - no other means of livelihood remains to them - these people and their dependents are going to starve to death.
6. Control, control, control? As briefly mentioned in the introduction, the Mugabe regime had previously encouraged small-scale mining, as a prelude to getting people off the farms and into the rural areas. Operation Chikorokoza Chapera seems to be Part 2 of their plan.
Whilst they were mining, these people - many former farm-workers - were outside the regime's control. Forcing them back into the rural areas, under the watchful eye of the compliant village chiefs, control is re-established. It ties in with punishment of the electorate; it ties in with Mutasa's aim of reducing the population and so removing the non-compliant sector.
7. Local intentions? The local police are certainly benefiting from this Operation Chikorokoza Chapera; many of them have been stealing the gold confiscated from the panners! Are these the same policemen or militia who broke down houses and stands in Operation Murambatsvina? The police benefited there too, confiscating goods for their own use, or selling them and pocketing the proceeds.
As said previously, one can only speculate on the intention of the regime in this latest act of elimination. However, one thing is for sure, and that is that it was not done from pure motives.
Shooting, beating, starving - this is the Zanu PF way. It is tantamount to genocide.
They will plead the excuses of trying to prevent a cholera outbreak, or protecting the environment - fine! - but this isn't how it should be done, and they know it.
The world is not turning a blind eye to human rights abuses: look at Pinochet, Sadam Hussein, and now our own 'guest' Mengistu!
Operation Chikorokoza Chapera is the latest in a succession of human rights abuses by this regime: misery is piled upon misery. When will it end?
Bauxite mining resumes as strike in Guinea ends
Toronto Globe and Mail
30th January 2007
Mining operations by Guinea's national bauxite company have resumed following the suspension on the weekend of a general strike against President Lansana Conte, a company official said yesterday. "We're at 100 per cent. Normal activities have been completely restored," the official at Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinee SA's (CBG) Sangaredi mine, who asked not to be named, told Reuters News Agency.
Production by CBG, the world's biggest bauxite exporter, restarted on Saturday, the day union leaders and Mr. Conte's government reached a deal to end an 18-day strike. Alcoa Inc. runs CBG through its Halco venture with Alcan Inc. and privately owned Dadco Investments Ltd. Halco owns 51 per cent of CBG and the Guinean government holds the rest. AA (NYSE) fell 27 cents (U.S.) to $31.80. AL (TSX) rose 1 cent (Canadian) to $58.2
ATW Venture Terminates Agreement with Tiomin for the Kenyan Projects
TORONTO, ONTARIO--(CCNMatthews - Feb. 2, 2007) - Tiomin Resources Inc. ("Tiomin" or the "Company") announces it has been notified by ATW Venture Corporation ("ATW") that ATW will not execute the formal agreement to acquire an option to purchase up to a 50% interest in Tiomin's Kenyan mineral sand projects.
Tiomin believes in the unrecognized value of the Kwale project and will continue to review its strategic options regarding the potential future development of the project.