Bua Mining Communities

With 34 dead, 259 arrested and about 87 injured on the 16 th August the Lonmin are no where near backing down “sifuna R12-500” meet. Suspended ANC youth league leader Julius Malema came to address the workers at their secret, spiritual venue, and as you enter this venue women were all requested to take off anything on their heads, jewellery and loose change as it’s disrespectful to enter with those. Police left the place because workers were not feeling safe with them around.   This all transpired on the 18 th AUGUST : “Hospitals and mortuaries are full with our brothers bodies killed by policemen – workers shouted” and soldiers too. We didn’t commit any crime except demand a reasonable living wage. Our lips are dry, we fear going to our homes because we might be arrested so we sleep here and wake here, we will die for R12-500 just like our brothers and we won’t leave this place until our brothers are buried, discharged at hospitals and realised from jail and our deman...

Kagiso Padi (Mafenya) I conducted an interview about cracked houses in the village. I interviewed one of our monitors as he directly affecting by this issue at hand and lives in Mafenya. I asked him what he thinks is the cause of this problem and his response was that: ·          The four shafts surrounding us are the cause because they are close to us about 10km away. ·          He also mentioned that this cracked house were build by the mine (Bafokeng Rasimone Platinum Mine- RBPlats) when they were relocated from Lekgoropane to Mafenya. ·          The mine guaranteed them that they will not be affected by their operations. I walked around the village and I saw many cracked houses that were built by the mine and those that were there before. Mines are affecting us in many ways and they should account for their actions and fix w...

Kagiso Molefi (Mafenya) Mafenya community is a small village surrounded by heal near Chaneng and Robega. People from this community experience a lot of problems but their major problem is lack of transport. I interviewed four people whom are affected by this problem because they have to use public transport daily and asked to remain anonymous. Two of the interviewees said the problem can’t be solved until the potholes on the road are fixed. The common problem is low population so people think that cause the taxi drivers to neglect Mafenya as it has no business for them. People are unhappy because this problem restricts their movement, one of the interviewees said that he works at Sun City and if he miss a taxi to Mafenya at 3h00 he has to take a taxi to Chaneng and walk to Mafenya without any luck of a taxi for local. The other interviewee is a pregnant woman and she mentioned that when she goes for her check-up at the clinic she is challenged and is forced to take school taxi’s...

  Buti Botopela (Ikemeleng) The danger of busy and high accident roads from town (Rustenburg CBD) and local mining industries to Ikemeleng which has claimed many lives and left several in injured. ·          This busy road has high accident rate and potholes, no road signs, during rain this road became a mad trap for those who try to walk and drive, so the Ikemeleng residents are immobile during rainy days because of this roads. *I interviewed Mkhulu a resident of Ikemeleng. I choose him because he is from the informal settlements in Ikemeleng and experience the impact of this road (lack of service delivery) first hand. Key points from the interview ·          Potholes ·          No road signs ·          Speed humps ·          Traffic robots ·  ...

Problem in Ikemeleng Saving young people by giving them jobs The frustrations, hardships and temptations faced by unemployed young people. In our community the unemployed pool grows, with new graduations, matriculates’ and drop outs who can’t find work. Each year there are thousand of unemployed queues, for over ten years there has been finger pointing exercise with the government and the council complaining about the laziness of young people, and how they are alliterated and demanding jobs. Frustrated young unemployed people are responding by burning tyres, trashing streets and demanding job opportunities. The blaming and the burning tyres remain, even worse everywhere there are “NO JOBS” signs blocking young people. Both the public and private sector should review their employment programmes to accommodate all young people from Ikemeleng. The sad truth is the higher the unemployment rate the higher the rate of drug and substance abuse among youngsters or even opt prostit...

      Tshepang Sarah Rambao (Bapong)     Segwaelane is a small undeveloped village in Brits. The village is recognized by popular platinum mine which is located there. The operation of this mine puts both the community and the environment in danger. As a mine operates, there are chemicals, water and different substances that are released. This is unwanted and waste materials from the mines. As a result the Eastern platinum mines designed their dumping side. The dumping side is very large and dangerous. Inside of the dumping there is also water that mixed up with soil and formed mud plus all different chemicals the mine uses. So this is a mixed up of different materials that can cause a chemical reaction, the possibility of an eruption is very high. It may happen that the dumping erupts, and then the village is in danger because the dumping is huge enough to cover the village. If it also fills up and overflow it will be a disaster th...

The impact that the Styldrift shaft 1 may have in the Kgetleng (Elands) river Olebogeng Motene (Chaneng) Kgetleng is a well-known river in Chaneng, which is the source of drinking water to livestock. Over years cattle farmers and Shepherds have relied on this river for their livestock drinking. However presently threats of possibility of water contamination by Styldrift shaft which is close to this river, are not farfetched. Mining have been known to be polluters, which causing government millions of money on acid water drainage in the province of Gauteng.   This serves signal to the community of the possible problems ahead. Still waters of Kgetleng river This where livestock mostly drink   Bridge built over Bonwakgogo. This river is connected to two tributaries namely Matlopyane and Bonwakgogo .Few meters away from Bonwakgogo there is a bridge built over this tributary for mining purposes. Apart, from livestock dr...

 By Kagiso Molefi (Mafenya) Anglo Platinum “BRPM” is situated in the western limb of Bushveld 30km from Rustenburg near Boshoek. This mine is impacting in many ways to four communities which include Mafenya, Chaneng, Robega and Rasimone. This mine began 1996 when Anglo Americans started mining one of richest platinum field in the region. This mine is located in Rasimone and Lekgoropaneng, this two village falls under jurisdiction of Royal Bafokeng tribe or nation. Before the beginning of the mine the four communities depended on crops and livestock, farming some were working at Boshoek, Sun City and Impala Platinum mine. The mine location was used for crops and livestock grazing. The compensation for that land from the mine is said to be given to Royal Bafokeng because of their owner’s status. The year 2000 the Lekgoropaneng community was relocated 1,8km from their village to Mafenya. They had experienced cracked houses and during the mine blasting they were supposed to c...

By Luka concerned resident (Luka) On the 2nd of March 2012, in Luka village it was not an ordinary morning like, any other, as people woke up to a shocking incident of chanting of struggle songs outside their homes. The chanting came from the angry youth of Luka village who were tired of their unemployment issues not being taken seriously by the Royal Bafokeng Administration and the Impala mine management. They believe they should be given priority in terms of employment. The youth embarked on an a march demonstration which expressed anger and frustration, ended up barricading the railway line between Phokeng and Luka with burning tyres and tree branches with the aim to stop commuters from going to work. Some community members were threatened and forced to take part in the gathering. The local Schools were left in fear as protesters gate crashed the schools with intentions of forcing teachers to join the march. One community member said he was on his way to work when su...

The Rustenburg monitoring school had its first session on the 14th of April 2012 at the Bafokeng Land Buyers Association offices in Rustenburg.  In this picture we have activists from seven mining communities namely: Marikana, Bapong,Ikemeleng, Luka,Tlhabane,Chaneng and Mafenya, this communities are directly affected by platinum and chrome mines. Thru the monitoring school activists will learn how to observe,analyse and act upon the activities of the companies operating in their communities and the goverment's poor service delivery.The programme has two phases in a period of six months, in phase one (April to June)-monitors will develop writing, research,analysis,strategy,Internet and critical skills, phase two (August to October)-monitors will be applying the skills they developed in phase one into action, working in groups to do a research project.  T he session session in action. The introduction took place and...