We Have Eyes But We Cannot See- Dingleton, A Public Tragedy Which Remains Hidden

“Awakening on Friday morning, June 20, 1913, the South African native found himself, not actually a slave, but a pariah in the land of his birth.” Fast forward to 2018 in a post-Apartheid South Africa, where the land question remains seemingly a critical issue for the rulers of the territory. 

Only this time the aim is to reverse the injustice that launched millions of broken souls into the South African social psyche.

With an election approaching and the ruling party under serious challenge by a population growing increasingly impatient on the delivery of the promised “better future for all”, the governing party ramped up its political rhetoric on the land question and launched a broad and sweeping public engagement process. 

The process often appears as a kind of Land TRC, where long suffering victims are afforded a platform to let off steam but where justice will remain a promise for the distant future.

The distant future is unfortunately not a luxury that the community of Dingleton community can afford.

Awakening on Wednesday morning June 20, 2018, The Dingleton natives found themselves surrounded by an army of private armed security who were there on the orders of Anglo-American to, what the residents describe as, intimidate and force them to move off their land.

In a classic case of Déjà vu, A modern-day colonial dispossession plays out with the same characters, on the exact same day, a few generations removed, and South Africa, in the midst of a reawakening of the land debate, trundles along the everyday humdrum of accumulation by dispossession as if we have come to accept the fate bestowed on us by Plutus.

Dingleton was a small mining town, literally and figuratively hidden behind the Anglo American Khumba Iron Ore Shishen Mine just outside of Kathu.  Today it is a wasteland of broken promises and shipwrecked dreams. Anglo has demolished 90% of the town after relocating the majority of the community to a township outside Kathu.

But a determined group of about 50 families, made up of legal title holders and renters, many of whom have been living in the town for more than 30 years have remained to stand their ground to demand proper and adequate compensation while the multimillion dollar company, which reaps enormous profits off the land, has insisted on only paying for the bricks and mortar of the homes that the families grew up in and where they had invested their life savings.

Like a corporate bully who knows that, as Goliath, it can out muscle, out money and last any David, The mine has resorted to tactics of intimidation, which includes colluding with the Municipality and the State, to remove the police, post office, shops and public transport and has most recently started to demolish all the surrounding buildings, using brute force and rubber bullets against the objections of the community.

During the forced demolitions the water pipes appear to have deliberately been damaged and residents have been left without water.

All the while, the modern day colonial bully type behaviour of the mine, includes progressively encroaching on municipal land, fencing it off illegally and blasting dangerous explosives closer and closet the remaining houses.

The municipality and the local ANC have all washed their hands of the remaining community, who despite remaining within the law, appear powerless to prevent their illegal eviction and forced removal.

While Anglo American can glibly sit back in their lush multimillion rand offices and rub their hands in glee at yet another forced removal and the prospect of bonuses and increased profits  for their senior executives who reside over this modern day colonial dispossession, we should keep in mind that this injustice is something that our law is silent on and which allows mines to mine anywhere they are given a licence to mine without any consent from the owners of the land.

While South Africa debates a Land TRC, the reality of land expropriation without compensation is playing itself out under our very noses. The land is being expropriated without a fair compensation, from a community who should be the beneficiary of expropriation.

There are currently three issues which hamper a resolution to this escalating confrontation between a historical mining bully with deep colonial roots and a small but steadfast community of resisters.

1. The insistence by Anglo American, that according to the law they only need to pay for the bricks and mortar. No value is placed on people`s history, culture and heritage.

2. The willingness of Anglo to provide a proper inclusive resolution to the standoff by acting according to the general direction of mining laws and agreeing to a grassroots controlled trust for the benefit of the community.

3. That the renters, many who are long term residents are provided with title deeds to appropriate housing as envisaged in the national housing policy.

This act of forced and violent expropriation being perpetrated under the shadow of the law is a deep injustice that should not be allowed to continue, and this generation will have to answer for our silence and complicity in the face of yet another community of natives being made pariahs in the land of their birth.