On January 30, 10 days before the opening of parliament and the president’s state of the nation address, an email from the Amadiba Crisis Committee (ACC) landed in my inbox.
The ACC comprises communities in the Amadiba coastal region in uMgungundlovu and was formed in 2007 to stop the proposed titanium mining in Xolobeni, Eastern Cape, by Transworld Energy and Mineral Resources, a wholly owned subsidiary of Australian Mineral Commodities.
Since then, the ACC has grown into a powerful force and expanded its focus to include fighting other initiatives that lead to environmental degradation and compromise the wellbeing of the people and environment on the Wild Coast.
Their campaigns include opposition to aspects of the South African National Roads Agency's (Sanral) planned N2 Wild Coast Road (N2WCR) and Shell’s seismic exploration. The ACC rejects the planned 10km road through uMgungundlovu and proposed an alternative 15km inland route.
They also insisted that the decision to build a road cutting through communal land should be made in consultation with communities, in line with “living customary law” and Section 25(6) of the constitution.
This is at the core of contestations against the government, mining companies and organisations such as Sanral throughout South Africa.
Courts have already affirmed the importance of meaningful consultations with affected communities and the right of people to make informed decisions, including the right to say “no”.
All over the country, the government and government agencies have repeatedly disregarded court judgments and colluded with mining companies to undermine rights enshrined in the constitution and the law.
Consequently, with the rare exception of news about court victories and some announcements about solidarity actions, such as when the ACC sent bakkie loads of home-grown fruits and vegetables to desperate communities during the KwaZulu-Natal floods, ACC emails and media statements are almost always about communities being bullied and the dirty tricks used by government officials, Sanral and ANC acolytes determined to reap profits instead of serving people, no matter the costs to humanity, the climate and environment.
The more than decade-long campaign of aggression and intimidation has sown discord and mistrust in the community, including intra-community violence.
The sustained hostility against the ACC as well as those in other communities who are fighting for land, dignity, bread, liberty, and environmental justice is the true state of our nation, where activists and whistle-blowers are eliminated and “disappeared”. The ACC email of January 30 sounded the alarm about a plot to kill two of their leaders, Nonhle Mbuthuma and Thwesha Silangwe.
The sustained hostility against the ACC as well as those in other communities who are fighting for land, dignity, bread, liberty and environmental justice is the true state of our nation, where activists and whistle-blowers are eliminated and ‘disappeared’
Mbuthuma and Silangwe represent the ACC in negotiations with Sanral. They are assisted by a team of specialists, including engineers, spatial and social planners.
Like most civil society engagements of this nature, the ACC funding by donor organisations is open and transparent.
In 16 years, they have amassed a solid track record, built an impressive knowledge base and networks with other organisations and communities in the country, on the African continent and around the world.
From the start, the government, ANC officials and their henchmen were dismissive of Xolobeni community activists.
They thought their political intrigue, divisive tactics and mobilisation of those traditional leaders who do their bidding would see the ACC collapse. When that did not work, they unleashed underhand viciousness, including further threats of violence and murder.
In 2016, the chair of the ACC, Sikhosiphi “Bazooka” Rhadebe, was gunned down by two unknown assailants. Rhadebe became another name in the growing list of community activists murdered with alarming frequency and reckless disregard for human life and the law.
Shortly after Rhadebe’s murder, Mbuthuma received death threats and taunts that she was “next”.
This is part of a national pattern of lawlessness and killings that continues during President Cyril Ramaphosa’s “new dawn”, as also seen in multiple killings of leaders of shack dweller social movement Abahlali baseMjondolo and other organisations.
The Mail & Guardian reported in October last year that 24 activists and supporters of Abahlali baseMjondolo have been killed. We do not know how many activists and whistle-blowers of whatever affiliation have been killed, “disappeared” or had their careers and lives destroyed since 1994.
When a whistle-blower approached the ACC and told them of plans to assassinate Mbuthuma and Silangwe, supported by “concrete evidence” of the plot, the ACC and activists around the country knew this could not be taken lightly.
Furthermore, they obtained a recording of a government meeting on November 28 2022 in Jama village, where Alfred Nzo District Municipality mayor Vukile Mhlelembana admitted there were community concerns about the N2WCR.
He did not state what these were and how the government and Sanral planned to address them. He conveniently did not reveal that his failure to arrive at meetings delayed progress and stalled negotiations between Sanral, ACC and Alfred Nzo District Municipality.
Instead, in the presence of the finance minister Enoch Godongwana, transport minister Fikile Mbalula and Eastern Cape premier Oscar Mabuyane, he launched into a diatribe and war talk about opposition from “outsiders, people not born here, who are not even black”.
He insisted that they “back the chief” and ensure that the “N2 must continue at all costs”, even if it means “death”, and that they should not be “cowards”. He deliberately misrepresented the position of the ACC as “stopping the N2".
Mhlelembana is not the only ANC politician to do this. This is a variant of distortions deployed by others when confronted with opposition.
Last year, Gwede Mantashe labelled the activists who are opposed to the Shell explorations as modern false prophets, akin to Nongqawuse.
During the 19th-century resistance to British land seizure, Nongqawuse’s prophecy inspired the cattle-killing millenarian movement which led to famine and ended Xhosa resistance. (The Nongqawuse story is much more complex than this but cannot be dealt with now.)
These statements are crude but effective as they hark back to the anti-colonial era and defeat of a proud people as well as the period of iimpimpi and stooges of the apartheid government.
They are intended to isolate activists and incite hatred and violence to suppress dissent. Everyone knows what was done to “sell-outs” in the past.
The ANC politicians’ weaponisation and distortion of history cannot change that the ACC activists are heirs to proud and brave ancestors of the Mpondo Revolt.
That late 1950s and early 1960s uprising represented unprecedented resistance against imposition of traditional leaders who were co-opted by the apartheid state, and continuation of land dispossession through land reclamation and manipulation and distortion of African traditional leadership systems under the Bantu Authorities Act of 1951.
While struggles on the Wild Coast are specific to contemporary issues, they are also part of this country’s “unfinished business”, the legacies of colonialism and apartheid.
They also speak to the failure of ANC-led administrations to undo the spatial legacy of apartheid and land dispossession and rebuild South Africa along lines envisaged in the constitution.
Instead, the ANC-led government has entrenched the blueprint of apartheid-era geography, differentiated citizenship and co-option of traditional leaders through its actions, policies and legislative interventions.
An example is the Traditional and Khoi-San Leadership Act of 2019, which reproduced apartheid boundaries with “traditional councils” in the place of Bantu Authorities.
Everything in these territories represents continuity with the apartheid era — limiting rights of citizens, insecure land tenure, subjecting people to traditional courts whether or not they accept that jurisdiction, imposing distorted forms of customary law and in many cases subjecting them to apartheid-era imposed traditional leaders.
Democracy is a proposition that is seldom realised, writes John Berger. Ours requires careful and considered participation of citizens to contribute to democratic life, to constantly challenge government, all political parties and corporates, to contribute to policy and legislative processes and to constantly push existing boundaries towards a deeper, substantive and “living” democracy in which land and dignity, liberty, bread and shelter are guaranteed.
This is what the ACC and other social movements are doing. Far from being dimwits “controlled by whites”, the Xolobeni activists are deliberate and thoughtful about the kind of society they want to live in. They have put forward a vision of development that is based on sustainability, climate justice and celebration of their rich cultural heritage.
Mhlelembana, like other ANC politicians, acknowledge that people have “reason to complain” but say “it should happen in the right way”. What is the “right way”? The ACC have done everything by the book and tried every avenue afforded by our democratic processes.
They attend public meetings and hearings organised by the government, mining companies and Sanral, including those which these entities have tried to hold in secret, sidelining activists.
The ACC holds public community meetings and iimbizo to consult and report back on decisions and actions they have taken on behalf of their communities.
They have approached the courts and, after every court decision, their legal representatives attend community meetings to report back.
Unfortunately, their deliberate approach, thoughtfulness and transparency are what make them dangerous in the eyes of those who hold state or commercial power. Their vision is a threat to those who see the N2WRC as the beginning of billions worth of development projects.
Those who are infatuated with dreams of a “brand new smart city on the Wild Coast” want their “own brand new Dubai” in their “own backyard” and they want it at all costs.
For this, there is no shortage of people who will want to send Mbuthuma and Silangwe to join Rhadebe, Babita Deokaran, Nokuthula Mnguni, Ayanda Ngila, Lindokuhle Mnguni, Noby Ngombane and many others who resisted growing ANC tyranny and comrades with money.
Mhlelembana and others who put the lives of innocent people in danger must be stopped. They must be held accountable for their words that foment violence and hatred.
To allow them to continue with impunity is to rubbish our hard-won freedom and to undermine our constitutional democracy and rule of law. Regrettably, the Ramaphosa-led administration continues to follow the Zuma administration’s pattern by turning a blind eye to murders and allowing killers to continue without fear.
All who love this country must use what powers they have to put a stop to this and ensure that the lawlessness and increasing authoritarianism of the ANC and its friends is stopped.
We should stand with the activists in Amadiba, those of Abahlali baseMjondolo and other social movements and families of slain whistle-blowers because our freedom, our lives and the future of this country are tied to theirs.
• Gasa is a researcher, writer and analyst on land, gender, political and cultural issues
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