We, the members of the Mfolozi Community Environmental Justice Organisation (MCEJO) would like to share what happened during our protest march on Wednesday, 5 June 2024, World Environment Day. It was a shocking experience especially on the side of the police.
There is a lot that Tendele mine is doing wrong. We explain these things in our Memorandum demanding Tendele coal mine to remove the mining machines from eMalahleni and to stop mining until the revised EIA is approved as required by Judge Bam in 2022. The EIA must deal with our comments and concerns raised at public participation meetings during the scoping phase but completely ignored by the environmental consultants. Another demand is for the mine to immediately stop relocating people from Ophondweni, eMalahleni and eMahujini areas until proper consultation and fair compensations are made. We also demand the mine to conduct a site visit in the existing mining areas for us and our lawyers, All Rise, to check if the rehabilitation was properly done.
On Wednesday we all gathered nearby the Roman Catholic Church at Somkhele. While we were still waiting for other comrades, one of Tendele’s employee, Lucky Mkhwanazi, was busy taking photos of our members even before the protest got underway. He was then driving alongside us still doing his work of taking photos when we started walking.
The march started very well with us marching together with our banners and singing our songs. We only walked about 500m when we experienced a terrible thing. Our plan was to turn left and march another 500m to where Tendele had assembled their trucks and stand there while we read out our memorandum and then hand it to someone representing the mine.
But, in front of us, at the turning, we saw something shocking that we have never seen before. About 30 police were standing with a group of people working for the mine with those doing business with the mine, and others with trucks. They were armed with guns and knobkerries while we were marching peacefully without any weapons. The public order police were there and all the uniformed police from Mtubatuba and KwaMsane. The armed men stopped us saying that no one can go past here. If you want to go past here, we will shoot you. All of you will be dead. You will be sleeping in the mortuaries today. They even told us they are going to visit us at home. They know where we live. They also said our comrades from Fuleni should not be this side of the river and what they just need is bullets. It was very terrible.
The people who were stopping us are well known in Somkhele. Some of them are from Mpukunyoni but most are from KwaMsane, Mtubatuba area, KwaSokhela across the river and elsewhere. We recognised several of them like Sabelo Gumede, Mvelase, PK Msweli, also known as Manzengane, and Sokhulu from when they stormed into a closed MCEJO meeting at Riverview in October 2022 and started pushing the MCEJO leadership around and disrupting the meeting. Tendele mine transport had been used for these people to come to Riverview. The next week Mam Fikile Ntshangase was murdered in her home by three gunmen after saying she was going to make an affidavit about the mine trying to offer her money. Sabelo Gumede was one of the people interrogated by police from Durban who were investigating Mam Fikile’s murder.
It was the first time we heard people like them swearing at us and threatening to kill us in front of the police and the police kept quiet and did nothing. We know Mary de Haas, the KZN Violence Monitor, had written to the KwaMsane SAPS station commander to make sure we were safe and had police protection while engaging in our legal protest. The police did not do their duty. It was so shocking and disappointing.
What the police did do was create like a court thing asking us why we are here and what are we planning to do going down this road? Now that we are being denied to go further what are we going to do? So, we have to explain all this to the police right on the road.
One of the police, his surname is Mathaba, he said that our protest is illegal, so we have to go back. Our march was legal. We got the necessary authorisation and, as citizens of South Africa, we have a right to protest. But the police ignored this and listened to the people who were threatening to kill us, who were saying that they won’t allow us to go past here.
One of our members asked Mathaba that if you say our protest is illegal what about these people who are stopping us here. Are they doing the right thing? Mathaba didn’t answer that question.
We didn’t argue with the police. We just waited for the police to finish their talks so that we can take a decision. We decided to end there to avoid causing a conflict between the community and us, as well as wanting to protect our members.
Even though we had to go through a very bad experience, and we didn’t reach the destination we were heading for to hand in our memorandum because of these criminals who are against righteousness, our mass action went well, and we achieved something out of the march. The only part that made it difficult was the SAPS who didn’t play their role.
The fact that we had a protest happening in Johannesburg at the same time at the head offices of Petmin was important. We know the bosses of Tendele got the message clearly and without interference from anybody.
We want to say to all the people who marched that you did make us proud. With your support we are encouraged to continue with the struggle.