Tribute to Baba Ndlanzi

By Sheila Berry

GET, MCEJO and All Rise wish to pay belated tribute to our much-loved Baba Makwela Canaka Ndlanzi, who died on 27 August 2021. Mr Ndlanzi was a loyal member of the Mfolozi Community Environmental Justice Organisation (MCEJO) who regularly attended our community meetings. We offer our condolences to the family and trust that his soul rests in peace. We miss his presence and his warm friendly smile that his white beard could not hide.

The Ndlanzi family was amongst the first to be relocated when coal mining came to Somkhele with wonderful promises of how everyone would benefit from the wealth and job opportunities that mining would bring to the area. In those early days, before the truth about the unbearable impacts of coal mining became a reality, it was not difficult to persuade residents to give up their land.

Mr Ndlanzi’s sad story is a common one in Somkhele and wherever mines relocate rural farmers. At a recent meeting earlier this year, where MCEJO members were asked to share their grievances in order to inform the pending mediation process with Tendele mine, Baba Ndlanzi was one of many who spoke. He told about his big farm at Dubelenkunzi and how it included an extensive area under sugarcane. Every year this piece of land would produce annual profits of R200 000 or more. When the mine was negotiating the family’s relocation, it promised to pay compensation of R200 000 a year for the loss of this field. However, when the Ndlanzis were relocated the mine paid only R100 000 for the first year and thereafter nothing was paid to them. For almost 20 years Mr Ndlanzi struggled to make a living after having been a wealthy farmer. He warned others not to be tricked by Tendele’s false promises or think that the money paid to them by the mine would make them wealthy. When it came to dealing with the mine, the mine would always win, and the people would always lose.

It is sad that Mr Ndlanzi did not live to witness the inevitable transition to economic, social, and environmental justice that MCEJO, All Rise and GET are committed to achieving. The High Court hearing on 6 and 7 October to review Tendele’s 222km2 mining right is an important step along this road. (P lease see the update on the hearing)

This article was also published in saveourwilderness.org

ANOTHER DELAY TO MCEJO’S COURT CHALLENGE OF TENDELE’S SOMKHELE MINING RIGHT

A court application has been brought by the Mfolozi Community Environmental Justice Organisation (MCEJO) and it four co-applicants, GET, MACUA, SAHRDN and ActionAid SA against the decision made in 2016 by the Minister of Mineral Resources granting Tendele Coal Mining (Pty) Ltd a new mining right in Somkhele, an area falling between Mtubatuba and Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park, in north-eastern KwaZulu Natal. This new right allows Tendele to significantly extend its mining operations into three new areas displacing thousands more people in addition to those already affected by its existing mining operations that commenced in 2007.

Nearly three years after the application was first instituted in the Pretoria High Court to review and set aside Tendele’s Mining Right, and several postponements later, yesterday’s court hearing set down for 6 and 7 October was again postponed.

This was the ruling of the Honourable Acting Judge Bam after she said that the parties had failed to file a Joint Practice Note setting out the facts that are common cause (i.e. the facts to which all parties agree) and those that are in dispute and remain to be argued before and decided by the court.

Although the parties then proceeded to combine their respective practice notes into one, Acting Judge Bam said that it was evident that there was a lot of additional reading required and that the court hearing could not proceed. The applicants’ attorneys, All Rise have requested an urgent case management meeting with the Deputy Judge President to request new dates still before the end of this year and hope to be able to provide an update shortly.

For more detail on recent developments, please refer to:

Healing the Violence against the Earth and Women

**Lihle Mbokazi** – photo by Casey Pratt

A Women’s Day Message from ALL RISE’s LIAISON MANAGER, LIHLE MBOKAZI

Women are the custodians of wisdom in the villages and they are the pillars of their families. The continuation of violence in mining affected villages is ripping apart families, communities and the Earth. With August being a month to celebrate women, this article is written in honour of the women of the Mfolozi Community Environmental Justice Organisation (MCEJO) in Somkhele and Ophondweni, Zululand, who inspire us every day in the way they stand up for themselves and for their environment.

Through the years women have stood together with their communities, implementing good environmental sustainability for their children, practising traditions on the land of their forefathers. They participate in rituals, and the fields would produce good, healthy food, and their livestock was healthy because the grazing fields were ever green. They never ran out of water because the rivers were forever flowing. Women knew that land was their everything and that they were protecting their natural resources and the environment.

When mining comes to rural villages families are broken apart. Women are threatened and intimidated in their homes. Even Ward Councillors and Indunas knock at people’s doors demanding them to sign their land away. Cars drive up and down or park next to the gate of the women’s houses just to scare the family. There has been even shootings of many bullets into the windows. This is done to intimidate and to put fear into these women. Mines do not know and understand that the imbokodo (warrior women) of the community will never give up. They will continue to defend their land until their last days.

In October last year a human rights and environmental defender, a mother, a sister and a grandmother was shot death in her home. Fikile Ntshangase died because she was never afraid of telling the truth. Until this day the murderers have not been found. The violence has caused trauma and anxiety to women in the villages. They have lost trust and hope amongst the community. The women are now afraid when evening falls because they fear what will happen whilst they are asleep.

The mine has broken families – sons are fighting with their mothers because they want them to give away their rights to land in exchange for money. The communities are divided because some families have been convinced to sign away their land and they won’t be paid until everyone else does the same.

As a trustee of the Global Environmental Trust (GET), I helped to facilitate group counselling sessions to support women in Ophondweni.

In our counselling sessions we use the methodology of connecting the women back to their traditions, and to the ways that community people used to use to care for others (and still are able to care). For example, the Zulu culture used to have Indaba under the tree in the village with people being free to share, but not being forced to share their feelings and thoughts.

It is not everyone who is comfortable to share. Some people find it difficult to repeat what happened to them. People are encouraged to only share what they are comfortable to share. We create a safe space where people heal because healing takes place where there is no stress or anxiety, where people just feel free and let go of their fears in the short time that they are together. It is in sharing that people gain strength because they will know that they are not alone, that there are other people who are going through similar or even worse trauma than they are. We use the power of songs to bring healing to women we work with. Singing and dancing, drama and drawing are used to help them. The feelings shown in their drawings when they first start the process and then in their drawings at the end of the process help people see their own progress. Singing and laughter is an important tool. When people are able to joke and laugh together, it brings a lightness that is connected with the positive and diminishes the trauma, acknowledging that life goes on.

Kadima! Forward with the spirit of all women in the front-line defending the environment who are no longer with us, and those that are still with us – the struggle goes on. Thank you all. Mbokodo!

Happy Woman’s Day to all the women of MCEJO.