'Smoking out' Stilfontein miners has succeeded: Activists insist government massacred illegal miners

Activists in North West have roundly condemned government’s slow intervention to rescue hundreds of illegal miners who became trapped after police descended on the area as part of operation Vala Umgodi.

Tensions between the State, activists and community members in Stilfontein have been running high, as the community members demanded that government rescues the miners. On the other hand, government insisted that the miners were not trapped but were simply refusing to come to the surface, fearing arrest.

North West spokesperson for South African National Civic Organisation (Sanco), Mzukisi Jam on Monday said government had wanted the miners to perish underground.

“We are here to assist, that we finally get these people to resurface alive. We can never say thank you to the State for finally coming forth. There is nothing to be happy about here, where we are standing. But we appreciate that some of the families would get closure, and we are also going to make sure that those who have lost their loved ones at least get the opportunity to bury them,” Jam addressed journalists at Stilfontein.

“We should applaud the State for their initial plan to smoke these people out, it has worked. Thank you very much,” Jam said sarcastically.

President of the General Industries Workers Union of South Africa (GIWUSA), Mametlwe Sebei said the footage that has been received from the underground shafts, showing piles of dead and starving people, supports the narrative that a “massacre” has happened at Stilfontein.

He said the estimated 109 bodies which are yet to be hoisted from the mine shaft "we murdered by the police".

“What has transpired here has to be called what it is. This is Stilfontein massacre, because what the footage does is that it shows a pile of human bodies, of miners that died needlessly. This massacre, which is what it is, is really a bloody culmination of a treacherous policy that was pursued by the government, and in this police operation,” he said.

“There has been a campaign of lies and fabrication about the State, and the choices and the options that these miners are having underground. It was said that they could always exit through shaft 10, or they can always exit miraculously from shaft 11. We have emphasised again and again, that it is a two-kilometre hole, without a lift, without a staircase and without a pulley system that the police and the company owning this mine dismantled.”

He said the miners were dying because of a police-backed deprivation of food and water, while they could not come up to surrender.

In November, IOL reported that Minister in the Presidency, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni insisted that government will not attempt to rescue illegal miners stranded underground in Stilfontein – but instead, government would “smoke them out”.

At a post-Cabinet media briefing, Nshavheni said government would not help criminals.

In a dramatic change of course, Mining Rescue Services (MRS) has begun setting up machinery to rescue the trapped miners, in line with a court order after an urgent plea was made by a sister of one of the miners.

Through Lawyers for Human Rights, Zinzi Tom, filed an urgent application in the High Court in Pretoria, in the hopes of being reunited with her brother.

Tom sought the court to invoke Section 38 of the Constitution, where she demanded that the “State take immediate responsibility for funding the rescue of artisanal miners” trapped in Shafts 10 and 11 of the Buffelsfontein Gold Mine.

The court on Friday ordered the State to finalise and send a service-level agreement and letter of appointment to MRS and also mandated the uninterrupted delivery of food, water, and medical aid to the trapped miners over the weekend.

jonisayi.maromo@iol.co.za

IOL