Minister doesn’t see or hear evil amid crisis

Des van Rooyen may be forgetting one of the most important mandates of his new portfolio, writes Sechaba ka’Nkosi.

There he was, our erstwhile finance minister Des van Rooyen, declaring his unparalleled loyalty to President Jacob Zuma. That his four-day reign at the helm of the National Treasury was the shortest ever in the history of this country did not bother him.

Not once did it cross his mind that his brief succession to Nhlanhla Nene caused havoc untold in the market – sparking a sell-off in the country’s bond market and leaving the currency in a freefall.

Neither did it worry him that since his appointment as co-operative governance and traditional affairs minister he has not said one word. Not one word about the chaos that has surrounded the by-elections in Tlokwe municipality.

Not a whiff about what is becoming an even worrying possibility that South Africa may not be able to hold local government elections this year as anticipated.

Nothing!

What appeared to be more important to him were his claims that decorated former Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) commanders such as Siphiwe Nyanda and Mavuso Msimang had betrayed the people and colluded with the hated white capital to oust Zuma.

It is now left up to him, he tells us, and Kebby Maphatsoe – the former MK commander who ducked duty and abandoned a camp in Uganda (long after the liberation war, I might add) – to be the torchbearers of the revolution.

But what Van Rooyen conveniently forgets is that his short-lived appointment to the Treasury was partly as a result of his close proximity to North West Premier Supra Mahomapelo – one the Gupta family’s most prominent cheerleaders.

And that in his obsession with Zuma, he is forgetting one of the most important mandates of his new portfolio – fostering good relations between traditional leaders and their subjects in rural South Africa.

For if he did, he would have known that there is a brewing crisis that is fast getting out of control in a little village called Xolobeni.

Brewing crisis

In this far-flung corner of the Eastern Cape’s Wild Coast, a low intensity war is already in full swing between a section of the community and their chief, Lunga Baleni, over mining rights.

The fight involves a poor peasant community on the one hand, and Baleni and an Australian company called Transworld Energy and Mineral Resources on the other.

The community claims the company allegedly gave Baleni a handsome payment to allow it to mine the titanium located in huge deposits beneath the dunes.

It is said Baleni and the Australian Stock Exchange-listed company want to mine titanium in these beautiful ancestral lands of the Amadiba community.

The company acquired mining rights in many areas Down Under and has now set its sights on mining titanium in Africa’s most advanced economy.

But the transaction has come at a cost. It has ripped a once-peaceful community apart and split families between those who see riches in the dunes, and those that fear the mining will impact on land that includes graves, fields for grazing and raising crops, and land for harvesting medicinal plants and other natural edible herbs.

The choice is to either side with such a big international mining interest or maintain a way of life steeped in spirituality to preserve their culture.

Last week the little community buried the face of the resistance: Sikhosiphi “Bazooka” Radebe.

Activist gunned down

Radebe, the leader of the Amadiba Crisis Committee (ACC) was gunned down in cold blood outside his house in Xolobeni two weeks ago.

For nearly 10 years he led the 300 families in Xolobeni because mining would be a long-time nightmare to their rural existence. He fought legal battles against Transworld Energy and Mineral Resources because he and the community did not believe the company had automatic rights to mine in the area.

But eight bullets cut his life short and made him another statistic in the defence of the communal lands. Many other ACC leaders have disappeared in mysterious ways – never to be found. There are claims that Radebe could have been a victim of an association with the taxi industry. Others insist he died because of his opposition to the mining project.

Whatever the reason, Radebe’s death points to a growing crisis in the community – a crisis that needs Van Rooyen and another beneficiary of the Gupta benevolence – Mineral Resources Minister Mosebenzi Zwane – to intervene.

For Van Rooyen is specifically charged with ensuring that traditional leaders such as Baleni behave within the bounds of the constitution. And Zwane has to ensure the free reign mining houses enjoyed under apartheid does not go unchecked.

But asking Van Rooyen and Zwane to intervene in this crisis is like asking Khulubuse Zuma to be a poster boy for poverty.

Or to ask the hugely empowered Zuma to share a bit of his spoils with the former workers of Orkney and Grootvlei mines – families that are now condemned to perpetual hunger after he, Zondwa Mandela and Thulani Ngubane reneged on their pledges to keep the Aurora mines going and instead fattened their bellies with the proceeds.

Further crisis

But what could we expect from Van Rooyen, a man who, on the verge of presiding over a R1.5 trillion budget and making sure that the 54 million people who call this country home got a slice of the pie, was forced by the reality of the markets to flee before he could sink us into a further crisis.

His misdirected pledge on the eve of the historic Constitutional Court judgment on Nkandla should therefore leave normal headed people shivering. But it should also give a sense of relief that the markets jettisoned him far away from the coffers of the Treasury in a matter of hours.

So while the community of Xolobeni lives to fight another day for their land, Van Rooyen lives to fight on for Zuma.

Little wonder then that veterans of a proud organisation such as MK, which gave South Africa Shirish Nanabhai, Chris Hani, Solomon Mahlangu, Marion Sparg, Ashley Kriel, Mthetheleli Mncube and Mzondeleli Nondula, are now led by charlatans such as Maphatsoe and Van Rooyen.

Even Gugulethu, Nolwandle, Siph’esihle and Khanyisa – my daughters who were born long after I had voted at least thrice in a democratic South Africa – know that the two do not represent bona-fide ex-combatants who made sacrifices for them to be free.

The pair only sings from a tune they and their ilk have practised diligently at an expatriate family home in Saxonwold.

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