We hear a lot about gang killings and farm murders in this country. Rightly so. However, there is very little focus on a growing trend of brutal assassinations. These point-blank killings rarely make the headlines and those responsible are almost never caught or found – even though they are often known within the community.

A few days ago, Fikile Ntshangase was shot execution-style in front of her grandson by intruders. Mam Fikile, as she was affectionately known, was 63 years old. She wasn’t a politician or a businesswoman. She only wanted to raise her grandson and protect their community from what many view as the onslaught of the Tendele Coal Mining Company, which wanted to expand open-pit mining in Somkele where Mam Fikile lived.

These mining activities are not only considered to be a huge risk to some of the country’s most pristine environments (it is close to the Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Game Reserve) but have created havoc in the lives of the local community.

In her capacity as deputy chairperson of the Mfolozi Community Environmental Justice Organisation (MCEJO), Mam Fikile fought fearlessly against the expansion of the mining.

According to the World Organisation Against Torture, “Tendele was pushing for an agreement to be signed between MCEJO and Tendele to the effect that MCEJO would withdraw its Court challenges against Tendele’s expansion of its coal mine at Somkhele.”

Apparently Mama Nsthangase refused to sign the proposed agreement. She said: “I refused to sign. I cannot sell out my people. And if need be, I will die for my people.”

Sadly, that is exactly what happened – and she is not the first.

In 2016 Sikhosiphi Bazooka Rhadebe, who led a campaign against the proposed mining by a foreign mining company in his community in Xolobeni in the Eastern Cape, was shot eight times outside his house in Mbizana. According to community members, this was after a year of relentless threats and intimidation.

In 2018 Mr. Shange, who opposed the relocation of his community in KwaDube to accommodate onshore mining operations between Mthunzini and Richards Bay, was shot dead, execution-style, while travelling home from Esikhawini. He was travelling with a group of friends – none of whom were harmed.

These are only a few of the cases where community activists - who had nothing to gain and only wanted to protect their communities and the environments they make their very basic living from - were killed and silenced.

Surprisingly (or perhaps unsurprisingly) in almost none of these cases were the perpetrators ever caught.

Activists who are trying to protect communities and their environment have also been the subject of extreme abuse on social media - sometimes unashamedly by senior management members at big mining houses.

Recently a number of activists and journalists were targeted in what can only be described as a “SLAPP” suit by a big foreign mining house. (A SLAPP suit is legal action intended to censor, intimidate and silence critics by taking them to court, thus forcing them to incur high legal costs to defend themselves, until they abandon their criticism or opposition). 

The thing is, often these companies are foreign. They come here to exploit our mineral resources, they create havoc in our communities, they destroy our environment with impunity, and when they face opposition, those who dare oppose them are often threatened and abused.

Yet, our government stays quiet.

It cannot continue.

Today is MTBPS day. It will again be a stark reminder that we need economic growth. No one can deny that.

However, we cannot and must not make the same mistake that many developing countries did. We must not allow foreign mining companies to mine the natural resources of our country, often with total disregard for the environment and the communities who live there, because of a desperation for investment. 

The price that future generations will pay will be exponentially higher than any possible short term gain the country can get from these mining operations.

Shortly before he was assassinated for his environmental advocacy in Nigeria in 1995, Ken Saro-Wiwa said: “We all stand before history.”

The government has to prioritise the protection of our natural resources and the activists who fight for their communities above the profit-seeking of foreign (and domestic) mining houses.

 If they don’t, they have no right to be our government and will be judged harshly by history. 

May you rest in peace Mam Fikile.