Following a public meeting at the Xolobeni Tribal Authority on Monday June 18 approximately 150 local residents from five villages affected by the dune mining proposal, demanded a direct meeting with Mark Caruso, CEO of Australian mining company Mineral Commodities Ltd (MRC), and his South African representative John Barnes who runs TEM (Pty) Ltd the wholly owned South African subsidiary.The meeting had been planned by social impact consultants Mzizi Masutu and Associates (MMA) to confirm key issues identified in the scoping phase of the Environmental Impact Assessment process that is underway for the contentious project that, if approved will see a 22 km stretch of Wild Coast dunes mined for heavy mineral deposits.

“The community waited for over two hours for the consultants to arrive and became impatient and angry when nobody turned up at a meeting they had advertised” said Nonhle Mbuthuma, a youth leader from Sigidi village.

Some 150 people, including the Indunas of the five areas in the proposed minepath. attended the meeting, at which Ayanda Peters, a public participation practitioner with MMA was to report back on the first round of public participation meetings and clarify key issues for further investigation. He never arrived. A spokesperson for MMA later explained that Peters had experienced a “personal crisis” and all meetings scheduled for the week were postponed.

In the absence of the consultant the tribal council drew up an agenda and the meeting proceeded with ANC Ward councilors Mpendolu Jama and Ntethelelo Madikizela, MRC employee Basheen Qunya and his older brother Zamile Qunya and director of the BEE partner Xolco (Pty) Ltd Chris Ncwele, Congoyi Ndovela, facing a barrage of criticism for failing to either consult or fully inform the community of agreements they had made with the mining company on their behalf, and apparently indicating support for the proposal in municipal structures. One resident Scorpion Dimane, brandishing a copy of a downloaded statement from the internet published by MRC complained. “The TEM brochure claims ‘strong relationships have been developed with local community’. This is not at all true. The Mining proposal has caused nothing but division and conflict”.

Urged by such indignation, a call was made for the residents present to demonstrate their opposition by destroying the dust monitoring equipment and weather stations set up during the prospecting phase of the proposed mining. The more militant section of the gathering was however persuaded to postpone such action in favour of a mass meeting at which MRC and TEM directors could be told first hand that the community was completely opposed to the mining proposal. “We can no longer trust our ward councilors to speak on our behalf, and Xolco directors were never elected or mandated by us to negotiate on mining” said Nonhle Mbuthuma, voicing the concerns of Sigidi village and women in general.

The meeting adjourned for the tribal council to discuss the best course of action. They returned with a proposal that MRC’s Mark Caruso, from Australia and TEM boss John Barnes be called to a mass meeting on 28^th June “to hear directly from the community that mining is not wanted in Xolobeni” and to resolve the conflicts that have been created by mining proponents and employees of TEM.

Consultant Ayanda Peters had announced the program of consultation meetings at the first meeting held in the neighboring Baleni area the previous week, where Xolco directors Christopher Ncwele, Congoyi Ndovela, Zeka Mnyamana and Oupa Msabane faced severe criticism for allowing themselves to be co-opted by the mining company against the wishes of the community at large, and for participating in a process of appointment that lacked both popular support and full endorsement by the tribal leadership. ANC Ward councilor Mpendulo Jama, and the four Xolco directors left the Baleni meeting with worried expressions after the grueling confrontation. Afterwards an outspoken member from the Mntentu community sangoma Jabulani Mboyisa who attended the Baleni meeting was furious. “The Baleni community now say that they had only supported the mining because they were told my community is supporting it. That is a lie. Our whole community has always opposed the mining, and will fight to defend our ancestral lands and graves from the mining.”

Social worker and Sustaining the Wild Coast director John Clarke who, on the request of local residents has been monitoring and video taping the meetings, said he was very surprised at the extent to which local residents were asserting their fundamental human rights despite the “carrots and sticks” that were used against them. “To date I have only been working with groups from the Sigidi and Mntentu communities, and thought that the other three communities had been fully co-opted into the mining scheme. I was clearly mistaken, and feel somewhat ashamed for underestimating their resilience. This bodes well for the furtherance of the sustainable-livelihoods and human-rights based approach that SWC is advocating”.

Clarke sums it up as a matter of enhancing collective ‘well-being’ rather than simply creating and concentrating ‘wealth’ and dispensing ‘welfare’ to the masses. “Ultimately even economic development can only be sustained by a creative process that seeks to optimize benefits to all, rather than by an extractive process that seeks to maximize profits for some. If MRC and TEM had understood this principal they would have gone about things very differently” he said.

Petitions have already gone to the Department of Minerals and Energy (DME), the MEC for Eastern Cape Economic Affairs and Tourism and the Department of Public Enterprises stating their opposition to mining and expressing a preference for community development options that would benefit community interests and allow the sustainable use and conservation of the natural wealth of the area. In addition, a complaint has been lodged with the Human Rights Commission, who are investigating the situation.

The petition from the community stated “We oppose mining in the area as proposed by Mineral Resource Commodities (MRC), and by MRC’s South African subsidiary, Transworld Energy and Mineral Resources (TEM), and any other companies including ‘the Xolobeni community empowerment company’, and we oppose mining interests in that area in general, by other companies too. …Many of us are employed and working in the tourism sector, and are therefore affected by the development. The most sustainable and preferable way to develop the area is with tourism, nature conservation, that also employs local communities working in the tourism sector, and sustainable farming”.

“In addition we support the idea of having the area designated as a nature reserve, as long as we as communities and Interested and Affected Parties to development in the area of Port Edward and Xolobeni are consulted. The former proposal to have a Pondoland Park in our area we do not support at all. But a small nature reserve owned by a community which would boost tourism we would consider if consulted properly and if the ownership would be ours. We would not support any venture, which would lead to the displacement of people from their land. We would like to continue the development of established farming practices, cultivation practices, and develop tourism, and this idea to have a Pondoland nature reserve to be re-evaluated as a possible option, as long as it does not include the displacement or removal of persons living in local communities”.

“We would also like to see the fostering of sustainable development which is owned by the communities, and directly benefits the rural communities and honours their rights to natural resources. The plans to mine have had and will continue to have the effect of discouraging tourism enterprises establishment here”.

The petition is the latest from an increasingly vocal public outcry of condemnation and opposition to the mining plans from a wide range of local civic and international organizations and members of the general public, and fierce opposition from many local communities on whose ancestral and communal land the mining is proposed.

GCS (PTY) LTD has been appointed by Transworld Energy and Mineral Resources to undertake the EIA in terms of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act

( Act 28 of 2002) and the National Environmental Act ( Act 107 of 1998). A time frame of 30 days has been allocated for authorities’ and I&AP review and comments, and 120 days for the conducting of an EIA. ( for more details visit www.swc.org.za.)

The mining is estimated, over its 22 years, to create only 270 permanent jobs and a similar number of jobs through ‘outsourcing’. Revenue for MRC is estimated between at US 1.8 billion and US 11 billion.

Sustaining the Wild Coast is urging all members of the public who are concerned about the mining proposal to register as I&APs by sending their contact details to xolobeni@gcs-sa.biz or fax 011 803 57 45

Further info:
John Clarke: 083 6080944
Nonhle Mbuthuwa: 076 3597582
Jabulani Mboyisa: 076 062 2814
Mpendulo Jama (ANC Ward Councilor): 083 674 2069

Posted on June 20th, 2007
Filed under: Press Releases