SWC ~ Sustaining the Wild Coast ~

WILD COAST MINING: MINISTER OF MINERALS DUCKS THE QUESTION

STATEMENT BY GARETH MORGAN MP

DA SPOKESPERSON ON ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS

The Minister of Minerals and Energy, Buyelwa Sonjica, has ducked a reply to a DA parliamentary question on whether she made racial remarks to an audience in the Wild Coast on 15 August 2008. This was following her awarding of a provisional mining licence to mine in the Xolobeni area, a decision which has drawn mixed reaction from local communities. Speaking in isiXhosa, the Minister was reported in the Sunday Tribune (17 August 2008) to have said among other things that “rich whites” were dividing the community. She allegedly also launched into a verbal attack on human rights lawyer, Richard Spoor, who has been assisting local groups in opposing the mining licence. Following this event, Human Rights commissoner, Jody Kollapen, criticised the Minister for playing the race card.

The DA subsequently asked the Minister in parliament whether the comments attributed to her by the Sunday Tribune journalist where accurate, and whether she stood by these comments. The reply to the question is peculiar since it is written in the third person. Parliamentary questions are put directly to Ministers, and their responses are in the tradition of parliament directly attributable to them.

The reply noted that: a) “Mr. Fred Kockott’s [the journalist] article is allegedly a translation of what the Minister said in isiXhosa into English. In this regard it is not

possible to say with certainty whether the translation was accurate” and b) “The Minister can at this stage neither deny nor confirm the translation version by Mr. Kockott”.

Minister Sonjica knows what she said at the meeting in the Wild Coast as the words came out of her mouth. The DA asked the question to the Minister personally, and her Ministry ducked the answer by saying that the Minister’s alleged comments could not be confirmed. If the Minister made these comments she should own up to them. As a Minister she is answerable to the public. For this reason the DA will submit a follow-up question to the Minister to give her a further opportunity to reply. The official who drafts the replies to parliamentary questions would do well to just ask the Minister herself to confirm or deny whether she made these alleged racial remarks.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION: GARETH MORGAN 0725283910

QUESTION BELOW:

NATIONAL ASSEMBLY

INTERNAL QUESTION PAPER

QUESTION FOR WRITTEN REPLY

Question 1530:

1) Whether with reference to an article in the Sunday Tribune on 17th August 2008, entitled U Minister slams divisive whites”, the comments directly attributed to the Minister are accurate, if so, what are the relevant details, if not how did she reach this conclusion?

2) Whether the Minister stands by the comments she made at the actual event in Xolobeni on 15t August, is so, why if not, will she retract any comments?

a) Mr. Fred Kockott’s article is allegedly a translation of what the Minister said in Isixhosa into English. In this regard it is not possible to say with certainty whether the translation was accurate.

b) The Minister can at this stage neither deny nor confirm the translation version by Mr. Kockott.

Posted on October 27th, 2008 by Louis
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Development and verbal schizophrenia.

Val Payn

Wild Coast communities responded angrily ‘when Minister Sonjica called them ‘impoverished’ at a community meeting at Komkulu on Friday 12 September. Community members considered it an insult to be called ‘impoverished’ by an ‘outsider’. Particularly as DME had justified the highly unpopular Xolobeni Sands mining proposal under the guise that it would bring ‘poverty relief’ and ‘development’.

‘Impoverished’, like ‘development’, is just one of many words that seem to suffer from verbal schizophrenia. Their meaning changes, depending upon who utters them. ‘Sustainable’, ‘economic growth’, ‘poverty relief’, ‘aid’ are a few others that come to mind.
These words represent a host of deep and complex issues but, when used sprinkled about decoratively like cherries on a cake, they give little clarity on the ‘real deal’ behind the matters at stake. Far too often such words are simply used to obfuscate policies and programmes that have questionable benefits for the people they are supposedly helping.

For example, what does ‘poor’ signify? Poor in what? In capital, in human relationships, in health, in intelligence, in natural resources, in appropriate education or skills for the task at hand, in appropriate assistance from government? Unless one understands what it is that people are ‘poor’ in, then how can one hope to ‘alleviate poverty’? ‘Poor’ can be a very subjective statement, often as dependent upon the values of the observer as it is upon the opinions or real experiences of those labeled ‘impoverished’. This is not to say that poverty, of any kind, is not a real and debilitating phenomenon. But if the goal of ‘development’ is to relieve poverty, then any appropriate ‘poverty relief’ policies first require a holistic understanding of the root causes of poverty and should be designed to specifically remedy these.
To therefore talk of ‘development’ as a means of ‘poverty alleviation’ without an appreciation of what, who or to what purpose one is trying to ‘develop’ is hollow.

Far too often, however, in the name of ‘poverty alleviation’, commercial proposals that go under the guise of ‘development’ (or its schizophrenic word substitute ‘economic growth’) are used to impose plans upon communities that are driven by the value systems and the commercial interests of ‘outside’ agenda’s , rather than by the real needs of communities themselves.

This brings to mind another schizophrenic term, namely ‘public–private partnerships’.

In many areas of rural Eastern Cape, a number of development proposals under the guise of ‘poverty alleviation’ are being driven by a neo –liberal rationale of economic growth fuelled by industrial driven development, export trade, and ‘public –private partnerships’.
The Wild Coast mining proposal, as well as the N2 Wild Coast ‘toll road’ proposal, fits snugly within this neo –liberal rationale. Other developments that would see ‘public- private partnerships’ using rural communal land to drive a neo-liberal development agenda include the establishment of commercial timber plantations, maize for bio-fuels, and the intensive mono-cultural cultivation of land for agricultural export crops.
The theoretical rationale behind this is that by partnering with the wealth and skills of the private sector, a capital boost will be created that has positive ‘trickle down’ effects for the so called ‘impoverished’. In real life, because ‘trickle down’ is not generally planned with the needs of the poor foremost in mind but rather with the wants of profiteers, ‘trickle down’ often simply means the majority being left to gather whatever leftover crumbs might fall from the banqueting table.
If ‘public-private partnerships’ are foisted upon communities without the full participation of communities in developing such proposals, these too easily become a vessel in which public money and resources are used for projects that a few elites make a private profit from. Yet rural communities are seldom engaged with at the outset to help outline ‘development proposals’, but rather have already fully proposed plans foisted upon them.

Factions pushing for the industrial or agri-business ‘development’ of communal land often point to an ‘underutilization’ of communal land as a rationale for taking this land over for ‘development’. Yet ‘under utilization’ of land is in itself a value based judgment used to justify a world view that sees land as simply another commodity from which maximum capital gain needs to be squeezed.

It is rare that one finds a questioning of the value systems which lie behind various proposals for land use options, or an interrogation of policies to establish whether these support the optimal utilization of land by communal dwellers, or consider the extent to which so –called ‘under-utilized’ land might already be ‘optimally utilized’ to augment rural livelihoods, albeit under a different socio –cultural system to the dominant commercial model? Far too often the so called ‘under –utilization’ of rural communal land is blamed on ‘peasants ineptitude’, rather than asking whether the economic, political and institutional systems are sensitive to the socio –cultural context of land which many communal land dwellers still value, and work within these paradigms.

For traditional communities, land is not simply a commercial commodity from which to extract as much money as possible from, but is considered a communal resource to be utilized according to common need, and which is closely bound to a communal sense of identity. Seeing land seldom purely as a commodity is to ignore these broader values that land holds for many traditional rural dwellers.

Real ‘development’ is about improving the life quality of human beings. This requires that the conditions are created which allow communities to evolve in a manner that communities deem to be most beneficial to themselves.
The only way to address this is through real ‘grassroots’ consultation and the advancement of ‘development strategies’ that are outlined and directly engaged with by affected communities.
Val Payn, Box 44 Harding 4680, vallieb@gmail.com , cell 083 4416961

Posted on October 7th, 2008 by Louis
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Environment Livelihoods will be ruined

Sustaining the Wild Coast (SWC) campaign, a loose coalition of
organisations continue to lobby government to overturn the decision to
permit open cast dune mining in the Pondoland Wild Coast region. The SWC
argue that not only was the decision making process flawed but mining the
region would have grave consequences for the ecology of the region. But
the campaign continues to face a number of obstacles, from stakeholders
with different agendas to accusations of the campaign being ”a white
elitist concern” , to approving authorities lacking sufficient clout to
make a difference, Azad Essa speaks to the SWC communications officer, Val
Payn to get a better understanding of the issue. [Read more...]

Posted on September 26th, 2008 by Louis
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Our Opinion

2008/09/16

Dune mining – who benefits?

THE astonishing admission on Friday by the Minister of Minerals and Energy, Buyelwa Sonjica, that the consultation process in the planned multi- billion rand titanium mining project at Xolobeni on the Wild Coast was “flawed” raises a number of questions.

Sonjica’s admission followed a heated meeting the same day where the lawyer acting on behalf of AmaMpondo king Mpondomini Sigcau levelled several damning accusations against her department.

Demanding that the licence granted to Australian company Mineral Resources Commodities (MRC) and its black economic empowerment partner, Xolobeni Empowerment Company, to mine the dunes be withdrawn and that Sonjica institute an investigation into the planned project, the king’s lawyer, Votani Majola, made no bones about how Sigcau – who has opposed the project – feels. He said:

l “No proper procedures were taken”;

l Traditional leaders were not consulted, and would anyway never agree to “people from another country coming and employing us on our land”; and

l “The people who would benefit were politicians”.

After the meeting Sonjica told the media she was “disappointed because most of the things said here today, I did not know.”

But how is this possible? When initiating such a project surely the custodians of the land are the first port of call?

Also, government cannot plead ignorance about the opposition to the project – it has been widely reported nationally, including the violence that has erupted.

And Sonjica was in the area herself just one month ago to try and convince people to support the mining.

There are already serious questions over the dubious manner in which her department seems to have pushed the mining rights through. Despite warnings in the environmental impact assessment, and huge questions around the mining company’s financial viability, the department, according to The Times, quietly went ahead and issued the mining licence on July 14. They did this without notifying the South African Human Rights Commission, which had accused the mining company of violating seven constitutional rights.

And, by the time the Xolobeni community found out that the licence had been granted, only two days of the 30 days the public had to protest, remained.

These are not the hallmarks of a transparent process in which a community’s interest takes priority.

This newspaper has already called for the project to be put on hold and the sign- off date of October 31 to be cancelled pending a thorough, independent inquiry.

Following Majola’s revelations we repeat that call. Of particular interest is: Which politician stands to get the biggest piece of this pie?

Posted on September 17th, 2008 by Louis
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