The death toll from the South African government’s five-month blockade of miners underground at the abandoned Stilfontein gold mine stands at 88. This includes bodies retrieved by community volunteers prior to the Jan. 13-15 rescue when 78 bodies along with 246 survivors were brought to the surface.
It was only when local residents forced the government to allow Mandla Charles and Mzwandile Mkwayi, who volunteered to retrieve the trapped workers, that the true extent of the carnage underground became known. Hoisted up and down in a cage, they made 30 trips to retrieve remaining survivors and bodies of the dead.
“Mandla Charles and I decided to volunteer and save them because all we have wanted this whole time was to rescue the people who were trapped in the mine,” Mkwayi told the Daily Maverick Jan. 19.
Their actions were part of a fight led by the community and other organizations that came together in solidarity with these workers. They decided to confront the African National Congress-led government campaign to criminalize foreign-born miners.
Some 6,000 abandoned mines in South Africa have become battlegrounds for miners and gangs that prey on them, as the price of gold has hit a historic high of nearly $2,900 an ounce.
And the government has carried out a vicious anti-immigrant campaign to dehumanize these miners, mostly immigrant workers.
“The government has to be held responsible,” Magnificent Mndebele told the Militant. He is a spokesperson for the Mining Affected Communities United in Action.
“If you go to a dangerous place, such as a neglected mine, and stay there for about three months, starving yourself to death, how does that become the responsibility of the state?” Mineral and Petroleum Minister Gwede Mantashe told the press.
Only 25 of the survivors were admitted to a hospital, the rest were arrested pending deportation, despite pleas from health care workers and doctors. The Stilfontein Crisis Committee protested the miners’ incarceration, demanding proper medical care be provided.
The government claims the owners of the abandoned mine are ultimately responsible. But it was the blockade of the mine by the South African Police that prevented miners from getting needed food, water and supplies that led to the agonizing deaths underground. The police took down the primitive rope and pulley system used to lower food and supplies down the 2,500 foot hole.
“This was barbaric, cruel and spiteful,” Bishop Paul Verryn of the Church Unity Commission said. He has been working with the Khuma and Khanana devastated communities — some 300,000 people living around the Stilfontein mine, many of whose lives depend on working underground.
These communities were set up in the 1950s when the mining industry was booming and the migrant labor system was run by the South African apartheid government to provide a source of cheap, exploitable labor. At its high point half a million workers were employed in mining. Today, with the mines closing, these areas are in crisis.
The unauthorized mining operations are largely controlled by profit-driven gangs, with government connections and police protection. One of the ringleaders of the gang in charge of the Stilfontein operation was among the 246 rescued. James Neo Tshoaeli, also known as “Tiger,” was arrested but never arrived at the jail. Four cops have been arrested for aiding his escape.
“Why did they let a known leader of the gang go?” asked Mndebele. “It’s in the interests of people in government who benefit from this to keep it going.”
Many of the surviving miners told the press how Tshoaeli used violence and intimidation to control miners underground.
Gangs profit from forced labor
The gangs in control also profit from selling food and other supplies at exorbitant rates, even charging miners a toll to enter and exit the mine. Many run up unpayable debts, forced to toil for months underground.
Shortly after Charles and Mkwayi were interviewed by the media, including the Wall Street Journal, about what they saw, Mkwayi was arrested Jan. 17. The police claimed by speaking to the press he violated parole conditions under a prior murder conviction.
In an interview shortly before he was taken into custody, Mkwayi told the Daily Maverick that what he experienced will haunt him as long as he lives.
“Every time I came out of that shaft, I was so down,” he said, “but we had to be strong for the miners.
“We rescued these people with our own hands. Even the dead, we picked them up and put them in body bags with the help of the miners.”
Mametlwe Sebei, president of the General Industries Workers Union of South Africa, told the Daily Maverick that Mkwayi’s arrest was a “clear attempt to intimidate and silence him, preventing him from revealing the testimony of atrocities at Shaft 10 that were shared with him by survivors.”
Mkwayi was arrested again the next day, as cops claimed he had violated another condition of his parole, community service. This was particularly ironic, since he had just spent three days retrieving the living and dead from the mine.
Union says cops blew up Shaft 10
The miners were trapped in two shafts, 10 and 11. Shaft 10 was a ventilation shaft with concrete walls, no stairs or ladder except for a destroyed guard rail. Some miners attempted to make the treacherous climb, only to fall to their deaths. Survivors who did get out described the horrific sight of mangled torsos and body parts.
In a public statement the General Industries Workers Union of South Africa claims that the South African Police had detonated explosives in Shaft 10 while miners were still trapped there. “The death toll is much higher and they do not want the truth to come out.”
Sibei said several organizations requested police send sniffer dogs and rescue personnel into the shaft to search for bodies and survivors. Instead, the shaft was blown up. “We are not allowed near the shaft to inspect it,” he said.
The police deny there was an explosion, claiming the allegation is “misinformation and lies.” They also issued a warning, saying that it is a crime under the Explosives Act 26 of 1956 to pass false information regarding any alleged explosion.
Community organizations organized a protest at a major conference of mine bosses, government officials and major investors, held in Cape Town Feb. 5.
“Over the past months, South Africa has witnessed a state-sanctioned massacre unfold in Stilfontein,” the call for the action said. “We have watched as artisanal miners have been subjected to cruelty and brutality, and many were condemned to an unjust fate.”