Our community of Makhasaneni has been fighting Indian giant mining company, Jindal Mine, who for years have been intruding with their plans to dig up iron ore in the lush hills that we have called home for generations. As a result, we formed the Entembeni Crisis Forum, made up of residents, traditional leaders, and commercial farmers opposing Jindal’s project.

( The struggle against Jindal Mining was captured in a documentary called This Land)

As a forum, we have opposed their plans from the beginning when they first attempted to worm their way around the mandatory consultation process, by trying to obtain permission to mine on our land from everyone but our community.

Makhasaneni, in Melmoth, is placed on unending lush fields of green and is known for being a key producer of fruit and nuts like bananas, avocados, citrus fruit, and macadamia nuts in South Africa. The pictures on this petition do not come close to doing our beautiful home justice.

Jindal, like all mining projects, is waving the promise of development at us in exchange for the land we live on and eat from, but we can see past this bait. Besides all the existing examples of mining towns around the country that are poverty-stricken; living in inhumane conditions because of the negative impact of mining, such as living in cracked homes, breathing polluted air, and of drinking polluted water, we have the following list of reasons why we are opposing this profit-centered project:

• The environmental harm to the landscape, water, and air is immeasurable. We were able to see this in 2017 when the mine’s prospecting in our community resulted in the death of our livestock and community farming crops and contaminated our water.
• The mine claims it will only move 350 households, but looking at their mining map, they will actually move around 3000. That is thousands of people moved from the place of their ancestors
• In relation to the point above, that means over 3000 graves will be exhumed and moved - we have seen this in areas such as Somkhele in Newcastle where graves were exhumed and the dead buried in unmarked graves. This not only tampers with our spiritual identity but is also a gross disrespect for humanity and our connection to the land.
• Households, women’s groups, and commercial farmers stand to lose their crops from the impacts of mining
• Goerdertrouw Dam - the main dam from which we get water - serves five municipalities, which, at present, only get water once a week as we battle water shortages. Adding a mine to the equation will make the community unlivable because we will have no water - knowing how much water is used by mines per minute.

These are just some of the reasons that we are fighting to ensure that Jindal is not granted a mining right by our government. But their efforts to bulldoze their way into our community are getting grimmer by the day as we now have to live in fear of daily death threats. Businesses that stand to benefit from the promise of development have been threatening our members in the hope that we will fold. We have had to flee our homes because of the mine’s divisive tactics on a people desperate for money.

The mine lodged its application last year and we as community members and our partner organisations are opposing that application. The submission window for opposition closes on 14 August 2023.

This matter was urgent five years ago, and as the mine’s efforts strengthen, we ask South Africa and the continent to join us in our plea with DMRE to stop Jindal Mining and not approve their application to pillage our ancestral and farming land. We also ask for King Misuzulu Zulu to intervene - his silence and ambiguity while our community is at risk and while people are fatally silenced for speaking up about their land rights is disappointing, to say the least.

Please sign and share this position as far and widely as possible.

#StopJindalMining