Gwede ‘Stun Grenade’ Mantashe’s called Xolobeni R2SayNo judgement “bullshit” [bububhanxa] as he fired off his ‘independent survey’ stunt
Yesterday, Mantashe’s “consultation on development” in Xolobeni was revealed as a clever spin. He did not come to “consult” or “engage”, as announced before the meeting.
He came to “report”, he said, that he will do an “independent survey” in Xolobeni. He left to the sound of stun grenades, without having listened to ONE person from the local community.
The result of this Mantashe’s survey will be mysteriously “certified in court”, he said in interviews. By a judge willing to end his or her career, we suspect.
The apartheid government gave its decisions and actions a varnish of lawfulness. Mantashe continues this tradition. His attitude to our community is one of contempt. He is playing with fire. He is putting ANC in disrepute, although he knows that this is a stronghold of ANC.
Mantashe’s survey is unheard of in South Africa. It has no basis in law. It has nothing to do with the Pretoria court decision on 22 November that granted the community the right to “full and informed consent”.
DMR says this idea follows from “the outcomes of the court judgment of the High Court in North Gauteng last year”. But the judgement underlined that our community decisions are based in customary law. A counting of Yes and No is not a process of for building consent on an informed basis.
In contrast to the DMR’s official hypocrisy, Mantashe’s ended his much heckled speech by saying that the judgment is “bullshit” [bububhanxa]. So much of respect for the judgement.
Another key question is: Given the use of tax money for busing of people again and again from the whole region to the Wild Coast and Xolobeni: Who shall take part in Mantashe’s survey? He doesn’t accept that the land rights holders in the five affected villages are the decision makers. He does not even accept that they are the ones with whom he should do his meaningless “consultations”.
Indeed, yesterday the state again bused in people from as far as villages Nomlacu and Mathwebu, west of Bizana town. This time, however, the massive transport plans partly failed: Enthusiasm is falling in the region for Mantashe’s stun grenade meetings.
In inland Amadiba, everybody was called to a big meeting by sub-headmen and other leaders. People were asked NOT to step into the transport organised by the municipality and Lunga Baleni (our disgraced chief who is a mining applicant).
As ACC, please accept our heartfelt gratitude for this act of solidarity of our brothers and sisters in inland Amadiba. Well done. Now we know that Amadiba will be healed!
The only person who was allowed to speak was pre-selected by the DMR.
This morning we finally got a report about the unknown young man who spoke about “whites manipulating us in ACC”, and said he is member who wants mining (in TV he lied differently saying he was a former member). This man was moved from the end of the queue to be first speaker of 17 by the chair of the meeting, after which there was growing chaos when Mantashe took the opportunity to say “Meeting is closed!”
Simlindile Matsheleza is from inland Amadiba, where the villages had decided not to come. He was heavily criticised by his community at his return, accused of being paid to help the mining company and Mantashe against the will of the coastal villages and split Amadiba.
We asked the chair to call him back to the podium and explain who he is. Then we asked Mantashe to let us speak one by one. We urged Mantashe not to stop the meeting. He closed the meeting. The toy-toy then started and five stun grenades were fired to empty the marquis.
At least one shot was also fired in Xolobeni village. Instead of starting the meeting at 10am, Mantashe led a caravan to “where the mining will happen”, the red dunes, was blocked by community members and turned another way. This delayed the meeting by one hour.
Amnesty International SA observers picked up a 40mm cartridge from that trip. You are littering, Mantashe.
It clearly transpires that Mr Mantashe will grant the mining license no matter what. This is what is asked of him, because maybe he is not a mining minister after the elections. He will then do it even if this is unlawful and just let it cook in court. To take just one example: There is no Environmental Authorisation of the Xolobeni mining application. The community has blocked TEM’s consultants from doing an Environmental Impact Assessment since 6 April 2015.
It was a Informed Consent decision taken at our Komkhulu, Mr Mantashe.
ENDS
Amadiba Crisis Committee: amadibacrisiscommittee@gmail.com
Spokesperson: Nonhle Mbuthuma 0763592982 Chairperson: Sbusiso Mqadi 0634964074
Visit Amadiba Crisis Committee on Facebook
Legal team:
Richard Spoor 083 627 1722 and Johan Lorenzen 079 654 5038 (Richard Spoor Inc.); Henk Smith (Henk Smith & Associates) 083 266 1770; Claire Martins (Legal Resources Centre) 082 4701187.
