Johannesburg - What is the difference between blood diamonds and bloodied platinum? None, whatsoever. Here’s why: They are both minerals that are mined by unscrupulous money-mongers whose primary objective is to make profits at all cost.
In their business management literature, mine owners such as Anglo-Americans would be quick to explain – according to their actions that speak louder than words – that the “business of business is to make business!”
In there lies the moral bankruptcy of all the mining companies in South Africa. They are determined to carry on with the journey through democratic South Africa in just the same way – albeit camouflaged – as they did during the tyrannical days of apartheid when they amassed billions of rands in minerals, using cheap black labour.
Sadly, the practice continues to this day. Back then, mining bosses could dine and wine with top government officials as they plotted ways to maintain the subjugation of African blacks based on their skin colour.
The difference today, oh my, is almost non-existent. Profit-driven mine bosses dine and wine with the new political elite and other governmentally-connected heavyweights, plotting - as they did during cruel bygone days of apartheid - how to rake in billions of rands by hook or crook at the expense of disenfranchised black mine workers.
Talk about the more things change, the more they stay the same.
“From 1960 to 1983, the apartheid government forcibly moved 3.5 million black South Africans in one of the largest mass removals of people in modern history. There were several political and economic reasons for these removals,” according to the Michigan State University literature.
Such is the cruel nature of mining in SA, characterised by its collaboration with the political top dogs of the day. Reflections of this cruel era came crushing on my mind through revelations in this publication a few weeks ago about the lingering plight of the Sporong community in Bleskop, outside Rustenburg.
The community was all but obliterated through the heinous system of forced removals around 1968. They were ejected from the land of their forebears, Sporong, their sacred piece of land where most of the villagers were born and bred.
As if their merciless uprooting wasn’t enough, the government of the time kicked them out of their land to nowhere leaving helpless Sporong community members to seek their final destination on their own, anywhere they could - as long as they turned their backs on Sporong.
Like unwanted livestock under chase, they ran in all directions and, by the grace of The Lord, ended up in dozens of places whey they were pitied and offered sanctuary. The saddest thing revealed itself in the melee: Many Sporong villagers were never to see each other ever again, having fled in all directions like scattered sheep.
To this day, many say they have never seen their erstwhile fellow villagers. As the Sporong community was being decimated by the racial discrimination of apartheid that the UN had declared “a crime against humanity”, they split into small groups in all directions, some ending up incorporated by the nearby Photsaneng village near the Bleskop mine along the platinum belt.
Others ended up in distant destinations such as Moboloka village outside Brits, whilst many others ended up God knows where. But here’s the most troubling thing about the Sporong villagers: Their forced removal was to make way for platinum mining. This was an intersection where big businesses colluded with politicians to destroy an unsuspecting community that was close-knit and interdependent.
Years later, as the scattered community trickled back to Sporong to visit the graves of their ancestors and perform traditional rituals, the Anglo-American mine put an abrupt stop to their periodic cemetery visits, which had anyway required the uprooted community to apply to the mine for entry permission or else face trespassing charges.
The mine built a railway line over the more than 200 graves for the delivery train of mining equipment and other goods. When I visited the Sporong cemetery recently, the graves were unkempt and covered with large veld grass and shrubs.
Walking deep into the woods where the surviving Sporong people insist their loved ones are buried, one would be greeted by two graves with headstones with the epitaph: Johannes Tinana, who was buried in 1965 and Rueben Mooi, laid to rest in 1941.
The Sporong community leader, Dan Lesojane, said many of the graves had been dug out and destroyed. In some sections of the cemetery, the mine’s TLBs only stopped digging after they accidentally excavated some remains of the dead. Pictorial evidence of the bones is available in Lesojane’s files and is part of a looming David versus Goliath court battle against the mine.
Lesojane and some of the surviving Sporong community members have waged a spirited fight-back against Anglo-American, and forcefully dug out portions of the railway line that still ran over the cemetery.
In a recent interview with this publication, Lesojane said he was a little boy when the forced removal took place, but like many, he still has vivid memories of the nightmarish events.
“We were born at Sporong and growing up like others who came before us. We were a close-knit, big, happy community living in our ancestral land. Until the white man came,” he says, pausing to regain some strength. “Our people were scattered like sheep. But, come hell or high water, this is our land, and the constitution states that gravesites are sufficient evidence for one to claim their land.”
Spokes Rathulwane, now 77, is regarded as one of the remaining elders of the Sporong community. He was an active teenager when they were ejected from their birthplace. He said in an interview: “I can’t talk about Sporong without shedding a tear. My mother, Senka Rathulwane, was born and bred in Sporong from 1915 until she died in 1951. Her grave and that of my maternal grandmother, Sani Rathulwane, are among those that we saved when (we) toyi-toyied against the mine’s destruction of our cemetery. Unfortunately, my uncle’s grave can no longer be traced. Like many others, it was covered with large rubble when the mine was digging to build the railway line.”
In a statement, the mine said: “Anglo-American platinum is committed to harmoniously coexist with communities in the areas where we operate. We are always open to engagement with our host communities to discuss, investigate and address valid grievances and concerns through the relevant structures.”
Well, dear Anglo-American, the Sporong community says if you were committed to “coexist with the community”, you would have come to the table several years ago when community leaders implored you to negotiate. Instead, they say, you chose to exercise your power to bar them from even setting foot near their confiscated land.
Concerning access to the graves, the mine wrote: “Anglo-American platinum confirms that there are graves on our land which is next to our Western Limb distribution centre, and they are located adjacent to the Transnet owned railway line. For safety and security reasons, permission for access has to be arranged before arrival, and we have the processes in place to regularly permit community members to access graves and do rituals on our property. Anglo-American Platinum respects and protects cultural heritage…We commit significant time and resources to ensure we comply with the laws and regulations governing all grave-related matters in South Africa. At this stage, there are no plans for the relocation of the graves.”
Well, that is some fancy public and media relations footwork by the well-resourced multi-billion rand Anglo-American Platinum mine. There is evidence that the mine has destroyed the graves of the now-defunct Sporong community, on whose soil the mine is making millions of rands daily under-ground and on the surface.
Anglo-American is playing blind and ignorant to the Sporong people’s history of dispossession. It is on this unjust history that Anglo-American is raking in wealth daily, hiding behind “the rule of law”. The mine’s argument is so shallow and narrow-minded, and mischievous in the extreme. Like the blood diamonds, Anglo-American’s extracted platinum is filled with the blood of the Sporong people who died of cardiac arrest and other ailments emanating from their emotional suffering.
The mine no longer even allows the community to visit the graves of their ancestors. I find the mine’s argument morally bankrupt, reprehensible, and littered with deliberate falsehoods by commission or omission. My only wish is that a Chapter 9 institution that has taken interest in the matter can take the fight against the mine on behalf of the Sporong community to the highest court in the land.
Anglo-American Platinum owes the Sporong community an enormous amount of money in reparations. They must stop hiding behind their apartheid-generated gains, and negotiate with the Sporong people for a settlement that should be in the form of a return to portions of their land, significant shares in the mine, employment of the Sporong people or the building of decent housing for the people so they can return to the stolen land of their forebears.
Thieving through the apartheid government’s protection is still a crime against humanity. Being in the good books of the latter-day political bigwigs is no excuse for Anglo-American Platinum to ride the crest of a stolen wave. It is time to give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar.