Latest news with #CecilRhodes
Mail & Guardian
2 days ago
- Business
- Mail & Guardian
Put an end to four centuries of corporate plundering of Africa
Cecil John Rhodes epitomised the consolidation and expansion of white supremacy, corporate interests and state power. For the past four centuries, corporations have exploited — butchered — the African continent, leaving behind scars, open wounds and entrails which can be seen from space. The history of the continent could be told as one of corporate rule briefly interrupted by colonialism or, as the late novelist and scholar Ngugi wa Thiong'o put it, of 'corpolonialism'. South Africa's past and present exemplifies this. The Cape was colonised by a corporation, which then imported enslaved people to provide labour and enable the Dutch East India Company to lay the material and symbolic foundations for the regime of white supremacy and racial domination that culminated in apartheid. When slavery was no longer profitable, and so the British decided to 'abolish' it, the empire 'expropriated' enslaved people across it colonies and formally freed them — but not before paying £20 million pounds in compensation to white slaveholders and their creditors in the name of 'justice and equity'. These 'reparations', paid to white people for the end of slavery, were then reinvested through the new corporate vehicle of the joint-stock company. They were used to finance further colonial expansion and consolidate white domination over land, labour and lives, globally. In the Cape colony, for example, white compensation for black 'emancipation' quintupled the money in circulation in the economy; more than doubled imports and exports; financed the violent settler expansion on the colony's eastern 'frontier' and led to the establishment of its first private bank in 1837. The number of joint-stock companies in the Cape doubled, as white beneficiaries of 'emancipation' pooled their compensation to generate more wealth. White former slaveholders leveraged their land, capital and credit to re-subordinate the newly freed 'apprentice' labourers and become rent-seeking slumlords. The greatest beneficiary of the trade in compensation claims — the London-based merchant house of Phillips, King & Co. — financed the exploration of copper in Namaqualand, drawing a line from 'compensated emancipation' to the mining and extractive monopolies that emerged after the discovery of diamonds and gold. The consolidation and expansion of this three-headed hydra of white supremacy, corporate interests and state power throughout the latter half of the 19th century is epitomised in the figure of Cecil John Rhodes. This race-state-company nexus was also central to the system of colonial apartheid that emerged over the course of the 20th century. Rhodes's successors — who controlled as much of the economy as the apartheid state — were joined by the various corporations established under the volkskapitalisme, many of which dominate the continent today. As the Truth and Reconciliation Commission concluded: 'Business was central to the economy that sustained the South African state during the apartheid years. Certain businesses … were involved in helping to design and implement apartheid policies … Most businesses benefited from operations in a racially structured context.' This unholy trinity of white supremacy, corporate interest and state power is not unique to South Africa. Its global articulation was on full display in the White House two weeks ago as the world's most powerful statesman, the world's wealthiest man and rich white men who chase white balls around for a living put on a spectacular performance of ignorance, entitlement and victimhood. One after another, US President Donald Trump invited each of these unelected white men to roll back the years and weigh in on the present conditions and future prospects of the majority of people in South Africa, who were once again being held hostage to the delusions of a white minority. The ball-hitters obliged, literally speaking over Cyril Ramaphosa, the democratically elected president of South Africa, and Zingiswa Losi, the leader of the country's largest trade union federation, Cosatu. It was all too much for golfer Ernie Els, who momentarily forgot which side he was on and thanked the US for its support in maintaining apartheid. It was the most honest moment of the whole spectacle. President Trump's corporate handler, Elon Musk, loomed large but said nothing. Rather, his ransom was delivered by South Africa's second richest man, Johann Rupert, who declared that he had opposed apartheid from birth — as long as he had benefited from it. He said South Africa must abandon its insistence that corporations operating in South Africa — which for centuries have worked hand-in-glove with colonial apartheid to advance the interests of a white minority — should include a mere 30% ownership stake for the majority of South Africans. This would allow Musk's Starlink — a central part of the US military-industrial complex — to not only colonise space but recolonise the continent. Another demand, made explicit in Trump's recent executive order, is that white beneficiaries of centuries of racial domination who have amassed an absurdly disproportionate amount of the privately owned land (and wealth) should — like their slave-owning forebearers — once more be compensated in the name of 'justice and equity', regardless of whether the land was 'justly' acquired and is being 'equitably' used, or even used at all. Social movements, activists and affected communities have been working to hold corporations to account for their depredations on the continent since the 1900s. An early and instructive example is the work of South Africa's own Alice Kinloch, a pathbreaking pan-Africanist and pioneer of the field of business and human rights, who was born in the Cape in 1863 and moved to Kimberley in the 1870s. In the final years of the 19 th century, Kinloch pointed out that: 'The handsome dividends that a certain company pays are earned at the price of blood and souls of … black men. Shareholders may be in happy ignorance of this, so we would remind them that there are several thousands of fellow-men kept under lock and key for their sole benefit, and that the gems on their wives' hands, and the finery bought by their 'profits' are, to 'seeing' eyes, bespattered with human gore.' Kinloch proceeded to set out 'the state of affairs in South Africa, for which the bloody, brutal and inconsiderate hands of avarice and might are answerable', where '[f]or more than a quarter of a century Kimberley has been the stage for the worst forms of undisguised inhumanity' at the hands of 'their master the Company'. In doing so she pointed to the race-corporation-state nexus, noting that De Beers was 'a company as ostentatiously 'colour-hating' as its chief, Cecil Rhodes'. Kinloch established the African Association in 1897, which organised the first Pan African Conference in 1900. The resolutions of that conference included a call for direct action in respect of 'the situation of the native races in South Africa', including the 'degrading and illegal compound system of native labour in vogue in Kimberley'. The work of Alice Kinloch and her fellow pan-Africans should serve not only to inspire us but instruct us. Last week, social movements, activists and affected communities met in Johannesburg for the 7 th African Regional Indaba on a Binding Treaty on Business and Human Rights organised by the Centre for Applied Legal Studies, the Alternative Information & Development Centre and Lawyers for Human Rights. The treaty negotiation process began in 2014 following a resolution by the Human Rights Council — co-sponsored by South Africa — to 'elaborate an international legally binding instrument to regulate, in international human rights law, the activities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises'. The future of the treaty is uncertain, as efforts towards corporate accountability more generally are backsliding everywhere. Both the US and the EU are rolling back what little controls they had in place to regulate the actions of corporations. Countries of the Global South are being put under immense pressure to ease regulations to facilitate the second 'scramble for Africa' under the banner of a 'green transition' that relies on minerals the West has declared 'critical'. In South Africa, the Competition Commission is appealing a decision of the competition appeal court which effectively neutered the commission's capacity to hold companies operating beyond our borders accountable for the negative impact of illegal activities in the republic. The appeal arises from the commission's efforts to prosecute the largest banks in the world — whose market capitalisation exceeds $2 trillion, some of which were founded with the compensation paid to white slaveholders — for the coordinated manipulation of the rand. The competition appeal court's 2024 decision threw out the case against 17 of the 28 banks before they had even responded to the allegations. When the Centre for Applied Legal Studies requested permission to intervene as an amicus curiae to place the banks' conduct within the framework of domestic and international human rights law, the constitutional court refused our application. In the face of these challenges, we must continue to hold the line on corporate accountability for what Kinloch rightly described 'handsome dividends … earned at the price of blood and souls', including through defending the treaty process, which has been led from the outset by the Global South. Like Kinloch, we must also insist on a continental response, including by supporting the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights' efforts to draft an African regional treaty to regulate the activities of transnational corporations. Four centuries of impunity for corpolonialism is enough. Professor Christopher Gevers is the director of the Centre for Applied Legal Studies and an associate professor at the School of Law, Wits University.
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Sean Williams seizes rare Test chance as Zimbabwe show love and pride in defeat
On 11 June 1890 a column of three hundred colonialists crossed the Shashe River to begin the annexation of Mashonaland on behalf of Cecil Rhodes' British South Africa Company. They brought cattle, horses and wagons, rifles, revolvers and field guns, a searchlight, a steam engine, tents, food and water. Each man carried a slouch hat, a spare shirt and pair of socks, a water bottle, a sewing kit, a belt, a bandolier, a hundred rounds of ammunition and a hand axe. And, of course, this being a very English endeavour, in among it all someone packed a bat and ball. So the first game of cricket in what would become Zimbabwe was played just over a month later, on 16 August, between the Pioneer Column's A Troop and B and C Troops, on a patch of land at Providential Pass at what would become Fort Victoria. Nobody knows who won. 'Probably A Troop,' wrote one of the players in his memoirs 50 years later, since they had Monty Bowden, the England captain and Surrey wicketkeeper, playing for them. Within five years, the settlers were organising games between Bulawayo and Salisbury and within a decade, they had formed the Rhodesian Cricket Union. Related: Shoaib Bashir grabs six Zimbabwe wickets as England win Test in three days It is the best testament to it that it survived – and thrived – despite being the colonialists' sport. Today Zimbabwe are, as the mayor of Bulawayo, David Coltart, told the Guardian this week, 'a passionately multiracial team' and their cricket 'a wonderful projection of our country'. This one, too. England took this game to the world and one of the great pleasures of following it is in watching the world bring it back to England. Zimbabwe are not a great cricket team, but they are a great cricket country and, after that painful first day, when their faltering bowling attack was flogged all around Trent Bridge by England's patrician batters they have, in their way, taken over the rest of the Test by turning it into one long demonstration of their bloody-minded pride in the way they play the game. It was there in Brian Bennett's bullish century on the second day and the way he forced Ben Stokes to withdraw his slips. It was there again in the way Sean Williams set about England's bowling during the 88 he made on the third morning. The 38-year-old Williams won his first call-up to this team way back in 2004, as under-19s captain. His career was just coming together at the time Zimbabwean cricket was falling apart and here he was, 21 years later, playing his first, and most likely his last, Test in this country. It was a hell of an innings, full of crisp cuts, punishing pulls and swingeing sweeps. Williams is a fine batter, with a Test average of 44, and he played like a man who wanted to take his last chance to make the point. The pride was there all around the ground, too. The Zimbabwe fans got louder as the game went on. They seemed to come in greater numbers every day and gave up their seats to seek each other out in the stands so they could dance, sing and chant in Shona: 'Zimbabwe! Mai-Mwana!' There are around 125,000 people in the Zimbabwean diaspora in Britain and a good number of them must have been here in Nottingham this week, in what felt like a happy refutation of Norman Tebbit's old idea that you can measure the strength of a migrant's love for their new country by whether or not they are cheering for it. 'It's the love of the game that binds everyone here together, not which side they're cheering for,' one of their cheerleaders told me. When it was all over, and Zimbabwe had lost by an innings and 45 runs, the team took a slow lap around the ground to thank the fans for all the support. It was one of those defeats that somehow still contained plenty to celebrate and a reminder that Test cricket is not only about who wins and loses and that the value of a game played over multiple days is not just in the finish but what happens along the way. It has been 22 years since England's men played Zimbabwe in a Test and there are people in the sport who would be happy enough if it were 22 more before England played them again. The England and Wales Cricket Board paid Zimbabwe for this fixture, which was arranged to fill an empty slot in the its broadcast deal. There is a lot of talk about splitting Test cricket into two separate divisions. Let the men who run the game have their way and cricket will turn into an endless summer of T20 contests between franchise teams, with Test cricket reduced to a sideshow, with series between England, India and Australia. Maybe the game would be wealthier that way, but not nearly so much so as it would be poorer for it, too.
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Sean Williams seizes rare Test chance as Zimbabwe show love and pride in defeat
On 11 June 1890 a column of three hundred colonialists crossed the Shashe River to begin the annexation of Mashonaland on behalf of Cecil Rhodes' British South Africa Company. They brought cattle, horses and wagons, rifles, revolvers and field guns, a searchlight, a steam engine, tents, food and water. Each man carried a slouch hat, a spare shirt and pair of socks, a water bottle, a sewing kit, a belt, a bandolier, a hundred rounds of ammunition and a hand axe. And, of course, this being a very English endeavour, in among it all someone packed a bat and ball. So the first game of cricket in what would become Zimbabwe was played just over a month later, on 16 August, between the Pioneer Column's A Troop and B and C Troops, on a patch of land at Providential Pass at what would become Fort Victoria. Nobody knows who won. 'Probably A Troop,' wrote one of the players in his memoirs 50 years later, since they had Monty Bowden, the England captain and Surrey wicketkeeper, playing for them. Within five years, the settlers were organising games between Bulawayo and Salisbury and within a decade, they had formed the Rhodesian Cricket Union. Advertisement Related: Shoaib Bashir grabs six Zimbabwe wickets as England win Test in three days It is the best testament to it that it survived – and thrived – despite being the colonialists' sport. Today Zimbabwe are, as the mayor of Bulawayo, David Coltart, told the Guardian this week, 'a passionately multiracial team' and their cricket 'a wonderful projection of our country'. This one, too. England took this game to the world and one of the great pleasures of following it is in watching the world bring it back to England. Zimbabwe are not a great cricket team, but they are a great cricket country and, after that painful first day, when their faltering bowling attack was flogged all around Trent Bridge by England's patrician batters they have, in their way, taken over the rest of the Test by turning it into one long demonstration of their bloody-minded pride in the way they play the game. It was there in Brian Bennett's bullish century on the second day and the way he forced Ben Stokes to withdraw his slips. It was there again in the way Sean Williams set about England's bowling during the 88 he made on the third morning. Advertisement The 38-year-old Williams won his first call-up to this team way back in 2004, as under-19s captain. His career was just coming together at the time Zimbabwean cricket was falling apart and here he was, 21 years later, playing his first, and most likely his last, Test in this country. It was a hell of an innings, full of crisp cuts, punishing pulls, and swingeing sweeps. Williams is a fine batter, with a Test average of 44, and he played like a man who wanted to take his last chance to make the point. The pride was there all around the ground, too. The Zimbabwe fans got louder as the game went on. They seemed to come in greater numbers every day and gave up their seats to seek each other out in the stands so they could dance, sing, and chant in Shona: 'Zimbabwe! Mai-Mwana!' There are around 125,000 people in the Zimbabwean diaspora in Britain and a good number of them must have been here in Nottingham this week, in what felt like a happy refutation of Norman Tebbit's old idea that you can measure the strength of a migrant's love for their new country by whether or not they are cheering for it. 'It's the love of the game that binds everyone here together, not which side they're cheering for,' one of their cheerleaders told me. When it was all over, and Zimbabwe had lost by an innings and 45 runs, the team took a slow lap around the ground to thank the fans for all the support. Advertisement It was one of those defeats that somehow still contained plenty to celebrate and a reminder that Test cricket is not only about who wins and loses and that the value of a game played over multiple days is not just in the finish but what happens along the way. It has been 22 years since England's men played Zimbabwe in a Test and there are people in the sport who would be happy enough if it were 22 more before England played them again. The England and Wales Cricket Board paid Zimbabwe for this fixture, which was arranged to fill an empty slot in the its broadcast deal. There is a lot of talk about splitting Test cricket into two separate divisions. Let the men who run the game have their way and cricket will turn into an endless summer of T20 contests between franchise teams, with Test cricket reduced to a sideshow, with series between England, India, and Australia. Maybe the game would be wealthier that way, but not nearly so much so as it would be poorer for it, too.
The Guardian
24-05-2025
- Sport
- The Guardian
Sean Williams seizes rare Test chance as Zimbabwe show love and pride in defeat
On 11 June 1890 a column of three hundred colonialists crossed the Shashe River to begin the annexation of Mashonaland on behalf of Cecil Rhodes' British South Africa Company. They brought cattle, horses and wagons, rifles, revolvers and field guns, a searchlight, a steam engine, tents, food and water. Each man carried a slouch hat, a spare shirt and pair of socks, a water bottle, a sewing kit, a belt, a bandolier, a hundred rounds of ammunition and a hand axe. And, of course, this being a very English endeavour, in among it all someone packed a bat and ball. So the first game of cricket in what would become Zimbabwe was played just over a month later, on 16 August, between the Pioneer Column's A Troop and B and C Troops, on a patch of land at Providential Pass at what would become Fort Victoria. Nobody knows who won. 'Probably A Troop,' wrote one of the players in his memoirs 50 years later, since they had Monty Bowden, the England captain and Surrey wicketkeeper, playing for them. Within five years, the settlers were organising games between Bulawayo and Salisbury and within a decade, they had formed the Rhodesian Cricket Union. It is the best testament to it that it survived – and thrived – despite being the colonialists' sport. Today Zimbabwe are, as the mayor of Bulawayo, David Coltart, told the Guardian this week, 'a passionately multiracial team' and their cricket 'a wonderful projection of our country'. This one, too. England took this game to the world and one of the great pleasures of following it is in watching the world bring it back to England. Zimbabwe are not a great cricket team, but they are a great cricket country and, after that painful first day, when their faltering bowling attack was flogged all around Trent Bridge by England's patrician batters they have, in their way, taken over the rest of the Test by turning it into one long demonstration of their bloody-minded pride in the way they play the game. It was there in Brian Bennett's bullish century on the second day and the way he forced Ben Stokes to withdraw his slips. It was there again in the way Sean Williams set about England's bowling during the 88 he made on the third morning. The 38-year-old Williams won his first call-up to this team way back in 2004, as under-19s captain. His career was just coming together at the time Zimbabwean cricket was falling apart and here he was, 21 years later, playing his first, and most likely his last, Test in this country. It was a hell of an innings, full of crisp cuts, punishing pulls, and swingeing sweeps. Williams is a fine batter, with a Test average of 44, and he played like a man who wanted to take his last chance to make the point. The pride was there all around the ground, too. The Zimbabwe fans got louder as the game went on. They seemed to come in greater numbers every day and gave up their seats to seek each other out in the stands so they could dance, sing, and chant in Shona: 'Zimbabwe! Mai-Mwana!' There are around 125,000 people in the Zimbabwean diaspora in Britain and a good number of them must have been here in Nottingham this week, in what felt like a happy refutation of Norman Tebbit's old idea that you can measure the strength of a migrant's love for their new country by whether or not they are cheering for it. 'It's the love of the game that binds everyone here together, not which side they're cheering for,' one of their cheerleaders told me. When it was all over, and Zimbabwe had lost by an innings and 45 runs, the team took a slow lap around the ground to thank the fans for all the support. Sign up to The Spin Subscribe to our cricket newsletter for our writers' thoughts on the biggest stories and a review of the week's action after newsletter promotion It was one of those defeats that somehow still contained plenty to celebrate and a reminder that Test cricket is not only about who wins and loses and that the value of a game played over multiple days is not just in the finish but what happens along the way. It has been 22 years since England's men played Zimbabwe in a Test and there are people in the sport who would be happy enough if it were 22 more before England played them again. The England and Wales Cricket Board paid Zimbabwe for this fixture, which was arranged to fill an empty slot in the its broadcast deal. There is a lot of talk about splitting Test cricket into two separate divisions. Let the men who run the game have their way and cricket will turn into an endless summer of T20 contests between franchise teams, with Test cricket reduced to a sideshow, with series between England, India, and Australia. Maybe the game would be wealthier that way, but not nearly so much so as it would be poorer for it, too.
Russia Today
18-04-2025
- Russia Today
Blood gold bonanza: Inside South Africa's shadow mining empire where crime, corruption, and desperation strike it rich
The South African government, desperate to deal with powerful illegal mining networks, found itself in a crisis that lasted six months at the disused Stilfontein mine in the country's North West Province. In August last year, the police became involved in a standoff with thousands of illegal miners at the once thriving gold mine, closing off all shafts besides one and telling miners that they would be arrested as soon as they surfaced. The operation at Stilfontein was part of a government-initiated crackdown on illicit mining that started in December 2023 through Operation Vala Umgodi, which means 'close the hole' in Zulu, a language spoken by more than 15 million in the country. The abandoned mines had been taken over by gangs, often led by former mine employees, who sold what was found on the black market. People were co-opted into this illicit trade, either by force or voluntarily, and made to spend months underground digging for minerals. The government says illegal mining cost South Africa's economy $3.2 billion in 2024 alone. As part of the police operation, entry points at various disused mines were blocked, along with food and water supplies, in a bid to flush out the illegal miners, known locally as Zama Zamas ('take a chance' in Zulu). South Africa is a leading mining economy and Zama Zamas drill parallel shafts or open old or closed shafts. Only 26 South Africans were part of the 2,000 artisanal miners who resurfaced alive from the Stilfontein illegal mining operations – the rest were from Mozambique, Lesotho, and Zimbabwe. In January, police completed the operation and rescued 246 people and recovered 78 bodies, with many of the miners refusing to leave the mine because of their immigration status. Mining in South Africa: A long and complex history The first mining operation in the country, a copper project, started in 1852 in what is today the town of Springbok in the Northern Cape province. There was further expansion of coal mining throughout the rest of the 20th century. However, it was the discovery of two sizable diamonds in the 1860s that sparked a diamond rush – the 21-carat Eureka diamond and the 83-carat Star of South Africa, which ensured that the country, already under the yoke of imperialism and oppression, would become a focal point for the mineral wealth that lay beneath its surface. In 1871, the first diamonds were unearthed at perhaps the most famous diamond mine in the world known as the Big Hole in Kimberley, Free State province. Until the mine's closure in 1914, up to 50,000 miners excavated the deepest hole ever dug by hand, extending 215 meters underground. The mine would yield 2,720kg of diamonds and help establish the De Beers mining company, which remains a major industry player to this day, but day to day operations were characterized by racial disparity. Briton Cecil Rhodes served as the mine's governor and later founded De Beers, while more than 1,000 black workers died during mining or from diseases contracted during work. Over 5,000 black workers were admitted to a local hospital with various conditions between 1871 and 1914, when the mine was closed. After World War II, South African mining continued to expand, with the discovery of new uses for minerals and mining products, such as platinum in the petroleum industry to improve the octane rating. The construction of power stations drove the need for fossil fuels, and by extension mining, as the main source of South African power, while the merger of the Venterspost, Libanon, and Kloof gold mines into a single operation by 1968 established a project that has gone on to produce around 15,000kg of gold per year. The number of people employed in mining during World War II grew with up to 158,000 people working in the sector by 1946 – this was also the year the African Mineworkers Union went on strike as 60,000 workers demanded higher wages. But police, backed by the government, clamped down on the protesters and killed 12 striking miners. Apartheid, the government policy of racial segregation, encouraged the reliance on cheap black labor, legitimizing the divisions between a small group of white owners responsible for managing mining companies and large numbers of black workers involved in the arduous manual labor. The Marikana tragedy It was inevitable that the incident at Stilfontein would be compared to the 2012 tragedy at Marikana and the massacre of striking miners by post-apartheid police in which 34 miners and ten security workers at Lonmin mine were killed. The Marikana Massacre was rooted in long-standing grievances within the South African mining sector. Lonmin, the British mining company that operated the Marikana platinum mine, had faced growing unrest among its workers due to poor wages, unsafe working conditions, and inadequate living conditions. The miners had been demanding a wage increase from around the equivalent of $500 to $1,500. On August 9, 2012, thousands of workers began a wildcat strike demanding better pay and working conditions. The strikers armed themselves with traditional weapons and this led to confrontations with both the police and non-striking workers, resulting in the deaths of several people. On August 16, 2012, police opened fire on the striking workers, resulting in 34 deaths with 78 others injured. The police were widely criticized for being heavy-handed and failing to manage the situation without resorting to lethal force. What became known as the Marikana Massacre sparked outrage as it evoked memories of the violent repression characteristic of the apartheid era and raised questions about how this could have taken place in a democratic South Africa. The mine owner, Lonmin, was criticized for failing to address the legitimate grievances of its workers. In 2015, the Farlam Commission of Inquiry (chaired by retired South African Judge Ian Farlam), established to investigate the massacre, released its report. While the commission criticized the actions of the police, it largely exonerated political leaders and Lonmin executives. The report did, however, recommend that further investigations and potential prosecutions of the officers involved be pursued, though to date, few have been held accountable. Magnificent Mndebele, the head of media for non-governmental organisation Mining Affected Communities United in Action (MACUA), said there was no direct comparison between Stilfontein and the incidents at Marikana, although it was a reflection of how police treat the poor. 'At Marikana miners were murdered by police but at Stilfontein the community actually called the police because people were trapped in the mine,' he said. 'The tactics used by police to close off other shafts and force people out under the threat of arrest was a major issue and many miners refused to leave, some died of starvation as a result.' Mndebele told RT that the illegal miners were 'easy targets' and there were larger, more legitimate players who were benefiting from the illegal mining sector. 'Invariably, the lower-level players, the miners, are targeted and no one goes after the big guys in suits.' He said the South African government had dealt with the issue of artisanal mining as a criminal issue and claimed that it should be viewed instead as a socio-economic issue. 'Unemployment is rife in the country and when the more than 6,000 mines were closed, thousands of experienced miners added to the crisis,' he told RT. 'There should be steps to regulate the sector and develop policies because this type of mining, if regulated will add to the state and tax revenue.' What fuels the illegal mining industry Illegal gold mining has been happening at disused gold mines such as Stilfontein and at more than 6,000 other abandoned mines in South Africa. Sibanye-Stillwater is among the big gold producers in South Africa, alongside DRDGold, Harmony Gold, as well as Gold Fields. A report by the Bench-Marks Foundation, a religious non-profit organization that monitors companies in South Africa and in the region, found that the proliferation of illegal gold miners at Stilfontein is the same as everywhere across South Africa and a significant contributing factor is that abandoned mines are not properly closed, so illegal syndicates gain access to those shafts. Illegal miners infiltrate formal and active operating mines and surface operations as well as discontinued mines. In 2015, the South African Human Rights Commission released the Report of the SAHRC Investigative Hearing – Issues and Challenges in relation to Unregulated Artisanal Underground and Surface Mining Activities in South Africa. It recommended to investigate the value chain attached to Zama Zamas and stated, 'There is a very thin line between legal and illegal when it comes to moving, processing and selling illegally mined gold. The Commission has heard that Zama Zamas are sometimes approached to collude with legal operations (including by mining license holders and refineries) in order for the illegally mined product to be moved – including beyond South Africa's borders – in a manner that enables tax evasion' . In a 2014 report, the World Gold Council noted that vast amounts of gold were smuggled out of Africa yearly. This includes 25 tons smuggled from South Africa worth over $1 billion, 30 tons from Sudan, and 20 tons from Zimbabwe, worth over $500 million. The South African Communist Party's national spokesperson, Alex Mashilo, said the rise of illegal mining is deeply connected to the broader crises affecting southern Africa. 'The capitalist system has failed to create work for all, resulting in widespread unemployment, poverty and inequality. It has also deepened the crisis of social reproduction,' Mashilo said in a statement. 'Many of the individuals drawn into illegal mining are undocumented migrants, often lacking work permits. Some are coerced by recruiters, while others, driven by desperation, come from countries such as Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.' He also stressed that the miners operate in hazardous conditions and risk their lives while fueling an illicit economy that primarily benefits criminal networks. 'Among these networks are white-collar criminals who buy and sell illegally mined minerals for profit. There is also evidence of collusion by certain established mining houses, further entrenching this crisis.' Illegal mining does not occur in isolation and is accompanied by other crimes, including the illegal trade in minerals, firearms and drugs, as well as human trafficking, Mashilo said. As of today, though rooted in colonial and apartheid times, the problems of the mining industry, which is crucial to the economy, remain deep and often clouded by a complexity of reasons.
