Minister Ntshavheni’s words smoked out the poor

Just over two months ago, Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni was asked whether the government would send help to illegal miners “trapped underground” and out of food and water.

Her response resonated with many South Africans who consider themselves law-abiding citizens and have zero tolerance for criminals. “We will not send help to criminals. We will smoke them out. Criminals are not to be helped but persecuted…”

Last week, the bodies of 78 dead illegal miners were brought to the surface after a court forced government’s hand to bring them to the surface.

It would be simplistic to pin the deaths on Ntshavheni and the government but linking their unnecessary deaths to her utterances is not far-fetched.

The ANC has always trumpeted itself as the champion of the poor and marginalised in society. While Ntshavheni was right in that the government did not send the illegal miners down the shaft to their deaths, it is the same government that has stalled on introducing some sort of order and organisation to the illegal mining sector.

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When she said the government intended to smoke out the miners, she could not have foreseen the outcome that the country witnessed last week – but surely she knew that no sane human being will choose to go down to the depths of the earths knowing they will surely die. Her words criminalised poverty.

Mahatma Gandhi said: “Poverty is the worst form of violence.” Ntshavheni’s beloved ANC has presided over the closure of many gold mines over the 30 years it has been in power.

Communities like Stilfontein, where this tragedy unfolded, were built around the existence of gold mines. There is nothing that government has done to alleviate the poverty that descends upon such communities once the mines close.

If Gandhi is to be believed, the government stood by and watched as poverty unleashed the worst form of violence on these communities and only turned up when criminals had enticed the victims with dreams of untold riches under the earth, only to come up as corpses “smoked out” by Ntshavheni’s government.

Minister of Minerals and Petroleum Resources Gwede Mantashe has been in the mining sector for almost all his adult life, first as a worker, then a unionist and then as a minister, so he knows firsthand the life cycle of a gold mine and the effects of its closure on the surrounding communities.

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As a miner and a general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers, he knows how mining conglomerates sucked all the juicy gold out of mines and how government did not ensure that they left the mines in a state safe enough not to be enticing to criminal syndicates, who take advantage of the poor conditions of the now ghost towns and mining communities.

Mantashe and Ntshavheni are comrades who together should be focused on ensuring that, even if artisanal mining is never legalised, on their watch the unnecessary loss of life does not continue to happen.

They have the power to do so and, morally, they have chosen to be the guardians of the poor that they now choose to “smoke out” of trying to stave off hunger.

Criminality should never be tolerated but, equally, creating conditions that require the poor and hungry to make decisions that require making a choice between staying poor and dying underground should be considered criminal.

Stilfontein will not be the last tragedy the ANC will preside over if they continue to bury their heads in the sand.

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