Zinzi Tom did not celebrate Christmas in December. Her brother was trapped more than two kilometres underground in Shaft 11 of the Stilfontein mine, along with hundreds of other illegal miners. She’s still hopeful that he’s alive, despite not surfacing in more than six months, but said this Christmas was a time to “mourn”.
“Even if they’re saying he’s a criminal, does he deserve to die?” she told FRANCE 24, as a rescue operation for trapped miners took place behind her.
‘It’s just not fair’
During the interview, a cage surfaced from the mine carrying miners and body bags.
Tom stopped mid-sentence and ran through a checkpoint to identify the dead and alive miners, with the hope that her brother would be among the latter.
Two days after this interview took place, police called an end to the rescue operation, saying that all living miners had been retrieved. A total of 248 living miners and 78 bodies were extracted from Shaft 11 after three days.
Zinzi’s brother was never found.
Police launched operation “Vala Umgodi” (“close the hole” in isiZulu) in August as part of a crackdown on illegal mining. Officers blocked community members from sending food and medication to illegal miners – known as Zama Zamas – working in discontinued gold mines.
Minister of the President Khumbudzo Ntshavheni said the strategy was to “smoke them out”, meaning it would force the miners to resurface. When many didn’t, this caused a nationwide debate over whether the Zama Zamas were trapped or they were refusing to resurface out of fear of being arrested.
It is only when reports emerged that a connection from Shaft 11 to the nearby Margaret mine had been destroyed that the “smoke them out” strategy became more controversial, as the miners did in fact appear to be trapped.
A video emerged on January 10 showing what appeared to be dozens of corpses wrapped in body bags and miners showing dire signs of starvation. The video was accompanied by a letter requesting masks to deal with the stench of 109 decomposing bodies. Reports also emerged that some of the miners had resorted to cannibalism.
“This is the Stilfontein massacre,” said Mametlwe Sebei, President of the General Industries Workers Union of South Africa.
“The footage shows a pile of human bodies. This is a bloody culmination of treacherous policies pursued by the government. This was a campaign of lies.”
The South African Federation of Trade Unions said the “massacre” reflects the South African government’s failure to uphold the “most basic tenet of our constitution – the right to life”.
The nationality and legal status of the Zama Zamas has been at the heart of the debate over the last six months, with many being undocumented migrants from Mozambique, Zimbabwe or Lesotho.
Zama Zamas work for criminal syndicates who send the illegal miners into abandoned or discontinued mines in dangerous conditions, often for months at a time.
“To allow anyone – be they citizens or undocumented immigrants – to starve to death in the depths of the earth is a direct violation of this principle and the state’s constitutional responsibility to protect life,” the union said.
After the video emerged, the High Court in Pretoria ordered the state to launch an immediate rescue operation and to stop blocking food and medication from being sent to the trapped miners.
“We do not want a situation where this will be marked as the darkest point in our history,” Judge Ronel Tolmay said.
“On my watch, no one will go without food. From a constitutional basis, it is immoral not to get water and food. It can’t be that more people die.”
The rescue operation began on January 13 and was planned to last 10 days, but only lasted three.
FRANCE 24 journalists at the scene saw authorities carrying multiple body bags from the exit of the mine into a truck.
Police Minister Senzo Mchunu and Minister for Mineral Resources Gwede Mantashe visited the mine on Tuesday, January 14 amid rising criticism of the crackdown.
Mantashe, who has staunchly opposed the Zama Zamas, reinforced his position.
“If you go and take a risk voluntarily, how is human rights [part of the question]?” he said.
“You go, a train is coming, and you sleep on the rail line, and the train runs over you. Can we address that as a human rights issue? Can we address that as a humanitarian issue?”
“Illegal mining is not different from that,” he added.
Outside the cordoned-off press conference, members of the community protested against the government’s actions. Some sang traditional struggle songs and chants directed at the ministers.
The ministers came to address the crowd after the press conference but amid too much shouting and pushing they were hurried away into a government vehicle.
Division among the community
While the Stilfontein crisis has drawn solidarity for the Zama Zamas from some South Africans, not everyone supports them.
A resident of Orkney, a town 20km away from Shaft 11, agreed to an interview with FRANCE 24 on condition of anonymity as he feared retaliation from the criminal syndicates that Zama Zamas work for.
“We are scared because you don’t know if you will be a victim of a stray bullet,” he said.
He says that Zama Zamas bring violence to mining towns and get into shoot-outs with other criminal syndicates, authorities or residents.
“There are shootings in the street and you wake up the next morning and you don’t know if there will be dead bodies next to your house.”
“People don’t want to talk about the Zama Zamas publicly because we don’t know who’s watching. You open your mouth and you might find yourself with a bullet the next day.”
The illegal gold mining industry costs South Africa about €3.5 billion annually.
Leave a Comment