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Mineral & petroleum resources minister Gwede Mantashe. Picture: SUPPLIED
Mineral & petroleum resources minister Gwede Mantashe. Picture: SUPPLIED

Former president Jacob Zuma is renowned, even revered, in some quarters for his ability to outmanoeuvre his opponents, and this skill is often attributed to his love of chess.

But mineral & petroleum resources minister Gwede Mantashe has recently played a game of political chess that has left even the most astute politicians and journalists barking up the wrong tree as he slides by unnoticed.

The artisanal mining question must have caused Mantashe some sleepless nights and a few headaches over the years, I imagine. The pressure on the minister and his department to deal with unregulated mining operations, as well as ownerless and abandoned mines, has at times been relentless.

Around this time, the minister started to press home the narrative that artisanal mining, or “illegal mining”, as he deliberately called it, was a policing problem.

This narrative gained traction in his department and eventually dominated in the broader government’s discourse. The implementation of Operation Vala Umgodi (“close the pit”) represents the culmination of the Mantashe’s grand plan to sidestep responsibility and push police minister Senzo Mchunu and the government under the bus in this, leaving Mantashe scot-free.

This grandmaster chess move resulted in Mchunu having to answer for something that is out of his control. Even minister in the presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni has had to publicly champion a militaristic and violent framework for dealing with what is actually Mantashe’s problem, stating that the government is going to “smoke them out”.

While some media have meekly asked why Mantashe has not been at the forefront of dealing with this matter, journalists have generally been far too comfortable and uncritical in following the government’s narrative. In the process, the media have allowed xenophobic sentiment to run rampant through the public discourse.

Mantashe has used two inflection points successfully to manipulate the narrative about artisanal mining away from the structural economic exclusion that causes artisanal mining, and that has fuelled the growing hate-filled xenophobic invective that has dominated the media and social media spaces.

The first is the insistence on using “illegal” to characterise those who are participating in artisanal mining activities. The minister of all people should know that the legislative framework of the Mineral Petroleum Resources Development Act does not adequately deal with the question of artisanal mining, and therefore the state is unable successfully to prosecute any artisanal miner for so-called illegal mining.

Through his insistence on characterising all of those who seek to eke out a living from the dangerous economic opportunities on their doorstep, Mantashe places the police — and the state, more generally — in a predicament in which there can be no legal outcome, and in which thousands of lives are at risk.

That most of these miners are not processed through the courts and are essentially charged with the minor infringement of “trespassing” points to the irresponsible efforts by the government to starve and deprive them of their right to life. Their alleged crimes and the extrajudicial punishment meted out by the government is unconstitutional and unconscionable. Yet our media continue to report and frame the miners as illegal, thereby amplifying the government’s hate-filled, unconstitutional message.

In addition to the foolhardy exercise of kragdadigheid aimed at creating a swart gevaar reminiscent of the worst days of apartheid, by characterising artisanal miners as illegal, Mantashe has stoked the latent fires of xenophobia. This avoids the more critical question of the economic structure of mining in SA, which seeks to exclude the majority from benefiting from the mining economy.

Tagged onto the label of criminal, the minister and state have been at pains to characterise artisanal miners as an industry of foreign immigrants who are stealing South Africans’ wealth.

While it is undeniable that foreign migrants are active in the sector, and indeed dominate in some spaces, independent research by Wits university academics such as Pontsho Ledwaba and Mining Affected Communities United in Action (Macua), has shown far more South Africans are active in artisanal mining than the government is willing to admit.

Economic exclusion

By framing it as a problem of illegal immigration Mantashe is able successfully to divert the public’s attention from the key economic questions of apartheid-type exclusion, which he and others are so keen to ensure is maintained. His efforts to keep his slate clean while scapegoating innocent, poor black people is an example of the worst sort of political posturing, which ultimately breaks down social cohesion, builds hate and promotes violence.

It is because of this that Mantashe’s chess game, and the risk to life and limb it has engineered, deserves our censure, not our indifference.

Instead of giving the minister a free pass to peddle and promote his xenophobic narrative of illegal immigrants and his continued attempts to exclude (even by force) poor black people from the economy, we need to instead approach this complex, yet straightforward, question with a wider, more holistic lens.

Instead of repeating Mantashe’s narrow focus on illegal immigrants, it is time that the media and the public start to ask the minister why he has not yet introduced legislation to regulate the artisanal mining sector more than five years after he was first appointed to the ministry.

Instead of fanning the flames of xenophobia, which ultimately pits poor black people against each other, we should be asking why the minister has been determined to deny community rights recognised in the law, even though the courts have ruled on their constitutional imperative.

As the minister continues to act in the interest of a narrow sector of society, we must remind him that a true grandmaster would do the following:

Think ahead. Consider the future and make decisions that will lead to a good outcome. The decision to employ Project Vala Umgodi without a clear legal framework in place is short-termist and counterproductive.

Learn from mistakes. The lessons from Marikana still burn in our hearts. We should have learnt that brute force by the state does not resolve deep structural economic issues, but rather makes them worse.

Recognise patterns. Study the context to identify patterns and develop a strategic approach. By excluding the people who need to be regulated, the minister will not understand the full complexity of the issues at stake and is thus bound to make strategic mistakes.

Be patient. Do not rush to attack, instead focus on improving your position over time. By taking time to work with stakeholders to bring legislation to regulate the sector and working with the stakeholders to comply with the collectively crafted legislation, there will be less need for violence, and where violence is necessary it could be done within the ambit of the constitution and the law.

Sacrifice. Sometimes you need to sacrifice a piece to make a better move later in the game.

We call on the government to urgently review its one-sided, authoritarian approach and work with stakeholders to find lasting solutions.

• Rutledge is executive director of the Macua & Women Affected by Mining United in Action Advice Office.FF

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