While world leaders and NGO delegates from around the world converged in Copenhagen for the 15th UN climate change conference, thousands of activists, writers, academics and artists gathered at Klimaforum, an alternative climate summit. Here people were given a space to meet, discuss and create radical solutions to climate change.
The following audio piece features interviews with representatives of different countries across sub-Saharan Africa who were at Klimaforum. Wahu Kaara of the Kenya Debt Relief Network provides a critique of the UN climate change conference and addresses the significance of the Copenhagen mobilisation for movements in Kenya; Demba Moussa Dembele, from the Jubilee South campaign in Senegal, talks about the need for sufficient funds to flow from the North to the South to compensate for ecological and climate debt; Julia Agwu from the University of Nigeria in Nsukka gives an analysis of gender and climate change and the impacts of climate change on women in Nigeria; and finally, Mabule Mokhine of the Greenhouse People’s Environment Centre in Johannesburg explains the process by which land dispossession in South Africa was consolidated at the end of the apartheid and the need for collaborations between global grassroots movements.
Blessol Gathoni (r), an activist with the Kenyans for Tax Justice campaign talks to residents of Shauri Moyo about the government’s proposed VAT bill. Credit: Zahra Moloo/IPS
NAIROBI, Jun 14 2013 (IPS) – On a side street in Nairobi’s bustling neighbourhood of Shauri Moyo, Faisal Ngila shouts to street vendors, motorbike taxi drivers and pedestrians. “Do you know taxes are increasing in Kenya?” he asks, handing out flyers urging Kenyans to say “no to Unga (maize flour) tax” by dialling a phone number that will register their signature on a petition.
Ngila is one of 17 activists involved in the campaign Kenyans for Tax Justice, speaking out against a new Value Added Tax (VAT) Bill, known popularly as the “Unga tax bill”. In trains, buses, football stadiums and community centres, the activists are trying to raise awareness and compile a petition against the bill.
GEITA, 3 June 2013 (IRIN) – On the outskirts of the northern Tanzanian town of Geita sits a cluster of makeshift tents constructed from plastic sheeting and bits of wood and metal. The area, which resembles a refugee camp and is known by residents as Sophiatown – or colloquially, Darfur – is inhabited by farming families who were displaced in 2007 to make way for one of the country’s largest gold mines.
“[One day in 2007] I was attacked by police at 5am,” Mwajuma Hussein, a 75-year-old farmer from the village of Mine Mpya in Mtakuja Ward, told IRIN. “They arrested three people and beat them, and then they dumped us here.” Hussein is one of an estimated 250 people displaced from the village. This camp has been her home for the past six years.
Locals say they are losing their livelihood as large mines are being granted huge concessions [Al Jazeera]Al Jazeera, June 2013
Geita, Tanzania – In northwest Tanzania, less than a kilometre away from a sprawling open pit gold mine, hundreds of people are engaged in a complex and arduous task. While young men emerge from deep pits equipped with hammers, picks and torches, women pound large chunks of grey rock into smaller pieces for further processing into the mineral which brings in Tanzania’s largest source of foreign investment: gold.
Magema, within the village of Nyamalembo, is one of the last remaining strongholds of artisanal and small-scale miners in the Geita area. But they are not officially allowed to be here. The land that stretches for more than 196 square kilometres around the Geita Gold Mine is occupied by AngloGold Ashanti, one of the world’s largest gold mining companies. The miners say they were given an eviction notice to vacate the area in early May.
“When Geita Gold Mine arrived 13 years ago, we small-scale miners were carrying on our work as usual at another mining site,” said Raban Masunga as he turns off the torch strapped around his head. “But now, the hills have been sold. The land has been sold. Everything has been sold to the company. This is the only place left for us and we can be evicted any day.”
Before multinational mining companies arrived in Tanzania, the mining of minerals was largely conducted by small-scale miners. A report from February 2013 by the International Institute for Environment and Development states that globally, small-scale mining employs 10 times more people than large-scale mining.
In Tanzania, it is estimated that large-scale mining may have made upward of 400,000 people unemployed, contributing to further impoverishing the rural poor in a country that already ranks among the 10 poorest in the world.
Scavenging for gold
N’gombe Lukala Kadaso said after the mine was built, residents of Nyakabale realised that proceeds from mining were not going back to the community. Many like him took to scavenging waste rock.
“The way I work is I pound the rock, then I look back to see if the company’s cruiser is coming,” he said. “If it’s there, I have to run. People have been beaten, had their legs broken, some were disabled. Others lost their lives near the mining site. There is no justice, but we must make a living somehow.”
One year ago, 17-year old Mhoja Leonard was reportedly searching for waste material at AngloGold Ashanti’s mine when he was shot and killed by a security guard. His father, Leonard Salala, said he has received nothing in compensation from the company for the “cold blood murder” of his son, save for 10 kilos of rice, a bag of meat, and some water.
“The company agreed to cover the burial costs, but said we would discuss further compensation. Since then I have heard nothing,” he said. “They are not supposed to kill people. There is a court of law.”
Leonard Salala said his son was shot and killed by a mine guard [Al Jazeera]
“AngloGold Ashanti expresses deepest sympathy to the family and friends of Mr Hoja Leonard. The death of anyone on our concession is something we take very seriously,” the company said. In a letter to Salala, AngloGold Ashanti said it was not liable for the death of his son. In a statement to reporters, the company said the company said its security, is “outsourced to a company named Group 4 Securicor (“G4S”) and the security officials involved in the incident were working for G4S and not for Geita Gold Mine (GGM).” It added that Mhoja Leonard was nowhere near the waste dump area, but rather “had made an unauthorised entry intrusion” into the “GGM Heavy Mining Equipment workshop”.
“GGM conducted two thorough internal investigations into the death of Mr Hoja Leonard and we understand a G4S employee remains in police custody pending a hearing about the matter…” the statement added. “We can confirm that engagement with G4S has taken place regarding Mr Leonard’s death… GGM [Geita Gold Mine] has further enhanced its control mechanisms relating to a reduction in the use of firearms and the use of rubber bullets.”
Some miners claim that numerous people were recently killed, and their bodies thrown into into Nyankanga dam, a dam located on the mine’s lease area. According to AngloGold Ashanti, there were 24 third party fatalities in 2012, “many of which were the result of unsafe illegal mining methods, including void collapses … further fatalities were the result of drowning in the Nyankanga Dam”.
As for those in the mine dumps, the company said such people are “intruders and trespassers” that “enter the waste rock area and other areas, often with a criminal intent and despite knowing the dangers, and this poses a significant risk to their own safety”.
As a result, the company said it would undertake a number of measures to develop an Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining Strategy. However, no land within the concession’s 196 square km could be considered for small-scale miners, according to AngloGold Ashanti’s executive vice president for the African region, Richard Duffy.
“We cannot afford to have artisanal and illegal mining in the existing areas, so we are looking for areas adjacent to or close by the lease area,” Duffy said in a telephone interview.
While AngloGold Ashanti claims its inability to grant land within the concession to small-scale miners has to do with security risks, corporate finance consultant and co-chairman of African Eagle Resources, Euan Worthington, said profit gains are also a factor.
“A company is there to make money. If they gave a piece of land to the locals and it turned out to be a bonanza, they would look very stupid in the eyes of their shareholders,” Worthington said. “And you don’t want to be in the news for having an accident or pictures of people clambering all over your property.”
Although small-scale miners are not allowed to remain within the concession area, Duffy said the company’s presence in the area has benefited communities in other ways.
“We are committed to using local employees and local supplies. We are currently completing our portion of a $10m water project in partnership with the Tanzanian government,” he said. “We run a school at Geita and support an orphanage …We certainly try and make a positive contribution. We understand that our being there has had an impact, and we try to minimise the negative impacts of that.”
Broader pattern
The David and Goliath-like battle between large multinational mining companies and small-scale artisanal miners and scavengers is not unique to Geita. At least 14 people were killed in the past three years in Tanzania’s North Mara mine, which is run by African Barrick Gold and 74 percent owned by Toronto-based Barrick Gold Corporation.
Increasing reports of human rights violations by mining companies the world over have elicited outrage among campaigners, particularly in the United Kingdom, where a number of mining companies are listed on the London Stock Exchange.
In response to queries about AngloGold Ashanti’s human rights record, Duffy said the company acts accordingly.
“We investigate any and all allegations of human rights violations. We take those very seriously and operate in accordance with the UN voluntary principles of human rights. One of our core values is that the communities should benefit from our being there, and human rights is a core part of that.”
The company suggested that “any member of the community with credible evidence or information relating to fatalities or security and human rights violations on site to formally contact the Tanzania Police Service for further investigation.”
The Tanzanian Commissioner of Minerals did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
AngloGold Ashanti, like many companies, subscribes to the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights (VPSHR), a set of voluntary principles established in the year 2000 that assist companies in providing security for their operations while also promoting human rights. The VPSHR have been criticised by organizations like Global Witness for being vague and hard to enforce.
Campaigners from the London Mining Network want the UK government to enforce stricter oversight upon companies listed on the London Stock Exchange, and to bring forward legislation that is internationally binding.
Until then, the struggle between companies such as AngloGold Ashanti and Tanzania’s small-scale miners and waste-rock collectors continues. The people of Nyakabale remain outraged at what they perceive as ongoing injustices by both the company and the Tanzanian government, which they accuse of corruption and complicity.
Kadaso, the waste-rock collector from Nyakabale, said he believes the kinds of abuses he has witnessed would never occur in the West.
“This investor, I would ask him to think about us here near the gold mine,” he said. “This is our home, not his. If I took my property and invested in his home, as a white man he would never tolerate the same kind of treatment he gives me as a citizen of Tanzania.”
RAMALLAH/AL-JIFTLIK, 11 January 2013 (IRIN) – As night descends in the Jordan Valley in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), a family in the village of Ras Al-Ahmar lights a small paraffin lamp in the tent they call home.
There is no electricity here and the nearby Palestinian villages are enveloped in darkness. The only visible cluster of light is from a nearby Israeli settlement.
AL-JIFTLIK/WEST BANK, 31 December 2012 (IRIN) – For those who recently watched images of the Israeli bombardment in Gaza, the wide open hills of the Jordan Valley in the West Bank appear as a stark contrast. Flocks of sheep accompanied by their herders cross the hillsides, home to some of the most fertile land in all of the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) and unrivalled even in Israel.And yet despite the abundant land and resources, Palestinians living in the Valley are some of the poorest in oPt, lacking even the most basic infrastructure.
SEBHA/OUBARI/MURZUQ, 24 May 2012 (IRIN) – Since Muammar Gaddafi’s fall seven months ago, Libya’s non-Arab minorities, including an estimated 250,000 Tuaregs, have begun more vehemently to insist on their rights.
“Gaddafi’s policy was ‘keep your dog hungry so that he follows you’,” said one Tuareg activist, al-Hafiz Mohamed Sheikh. “This means keeping people in need. With Tuaregs, he said many times that we would have our rights, but he never fulfilled his promises. Sometimes he would favour some individuals, but not whole communities.”
SEBHA, 14 May 2012 (IRIN) – A tenuous peace has taken hold in Libya’s southwestern city of Sebha more than a month after tribal clashes killed at least 70 people, with tensions still high between communities living here, many of whom have their own armed militias, according to local residents.
“You see that place?” Adoum Abaka, a Tubu from Tayuri, a poor neighbourhood of Sebha inhabited mainly by Tubu and Tuareg families, told IRIN, pointing to a nearby building on a hill with gaping holes where the walls used to be. “That is where some of us hid when Tayuri was under attack by the Awlad Sulayman [tribe]. We were fighting with Kalashnikovs. One person was killed there.”
BENGHAZI, 3 May 2012 (IRIN) – In one of the many rooms where detainees are held at Ganfouda detention centre in Libya’s second largest city, Benghazi, Suleiman Mansour*, a young Somali from Mogadishu, spends his days locked up along with 15 other migrants. They lie on mattresses propped against the walls, which are scribbled with names and slogans: one says “I love Somalia”.
“I’ve been here for four months,” Mansour told IRIN. “I left Mogadishu in August last year and was arrested in Kufra before they brought me here. Some of us have documents, but they are still being kept in Kufra.” The desert town of Kufra, lies at a point where the borders of Egypt, Chad and Sudan meet.
TRIPOLI, 1 May 2012 (IRIN) – Six months after an uprising brought down Muammar Gaddafi’s government, thousands of displaced Libyans are still living in abandoned construction sites, empty student dormitories or with host families, too afraid to return to their homes.
“We want to go back but cannot,” said Abdul Aziz al-Irwi, who lives in Sidi Slim camp in the capital, Tripoli. “Some people from another camp tried to return about two months ago, but about seven of them were captured by forces from Zintan and imprisoned.”
Al-Irwi is from the Mshashiya community, an ethnic group from the Nefusa Mountains in Western Libya who were targeted during the uprising by opposition fighters from Zintan, allegedly for being allied with pro-Gaddafi forces. Zintan is a small city also located in the Nefusa Mountains area.
“I am here because Gaddafi’s forces came to the town of Mshashya, so we had to leave,” he told IRIN. “They used our town to bomb other areas. We went to Gharyan, and then came to Tripoli.”
Records from the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, show that an estimated 14,500 internally displaced persons (IDPs) were living in Tripoli as of March. Across Libya, the total number of those still displaced is estimated at 70,000.
Apart from the Mshashiya, others included the Qawalish, also from the Nefusa Mountains, the Tawergha, a group of Touareg families from the west, and those perceived as being loyal to the previous regime from al-Zawiya, Bani Walid and Sirte.
A sizeable group of the displaced living in Tripoli and Benghazi cities were Tawergha. They were accused of participating in Gaddafi’s assault on Misrata, murdering and raping thousands of people. Reprisal attacks ensued, forcing their entire town of more than 30,000 to flee their homes. Today, the Tawergha-Misrata case remains a particularly sensitive one in post-Gaddafi Libya.
Until recently, the dark-skinned Tawergha minority – former slaves brought to Libya in the 18th and 19th centuries – lived in a coastal town of the same name 250km east of Tripoli. With the rise to power of the rebels, the Tawergha are now on the defensive. The sign leading to their city has been changed to New Misrata and its population told not to return.
Needs and security
According to UNHCR, an estimated 100-150,000 people were displaced in October 2011, but that number has reduced progressively with many returning to their communities, including in Bani Walid and Sirte.
Camp managers at Sidi Slim say conditions are difficult, and the monthly supply of food delivered by agencies and Libaid, the humanitarian arm of the Libyan government, is not enough for each family.
“In our opinion, food is not a problem,” Muftah M Etwilb, the Chief Executive Officer of Libaid, told IRIN. “There are other needs like education, health and protection. Health is free of charge for all Libyans, but still some people in the camp need immediate services from a dispensary. The other issue is proper housing. We are trying to get the government to provide alternative housing since some of these camps are owned by international companies.”
Providing protection for the displaced communities, particularly from armed militias still roaming the main cities, remains one of the biggest challenges to date for the transitional government.
“Since August 2011, we have been subjected to arbitrary attacks and detention,” Abdelrahman Mahmoud, head of the Local Council of the Tawergha in Tripoli, told IRIN. “If Tripoli is safe, then the camps are safe, but if it is not, then we are not safe,”
In February, militias raided the Marine Academy where about 2,000 Tawergha had taken shelter, killing seven people and abducting three men. Witnesses claim the militias were from Misrata.
“The guards from the Marine Academy didn’t have any weapons. When the Misrata brigades came in with weapons, they just moved aside,” Emmanuel Gignac, UNHCR head of mission told IRIN. “What you see now is individual cases inside or outside camps, for instance the Tawergha, including kidnapping for ransom. You can attack people from Tawergha and there is total impunity.”
Amnesty International and other groups have also documented testimonies from among the Mshashiya and Qawalish in Tripoli, who say they were detained and tortured by militias.
Responsibility
A common refrain heard among agencies and ordinary Libyans is that the government needs to assume responsibility for a host of problems, and internal displacement is no exception. To address the humanitarian needs of IDPs across the country, Libaid is organizing a national conference in May involving government ministries, agencies and representatives of the displaced.
“It is not exactly a neglected issue, but it’s not the number one priority in Libya. People also have to deal with security, and with the upcoming elections,” said Etwilb. “But we want to make the IDP issue visible on the day-to-day agenda of the government.”
Contacted for comment, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Social Affairs said: “We have made available a fund of 400 dinar [US$ 320] a month for people who wish to rent a house outside the camps,” Naima Etaher said. “Concerning the non-Tawergha people, a lot of their houses were not destroyed, and it’s safe to go back, but they just stay in these camps to take advantage of the government.”
But families in Sidi Slim camp saw things differently.
In the sweltering heat of a room occupied by a Mshashiya family, people gather to look at footage on a mobile phone which they claim is of destroyed buildings in their home town. “I want to go back. We have been in Mshashiya for over 1,200 years,” said Khalifa Saad Mabrouk, tracing on the floor with his finger what his farm looks like. “I have my trees there, and my houses, my land.”
When asked if remaining in Tripoli or moving elsewhere would be a solution, Mabrouk and his family were unequivocal. “Absolutely not. Even if conditions here are okay, we want to go home.”
Reconciliation
What has still not been addressed, and will determine when people might return to their abandoned homes, are the underlying political tensions fueling animosity between different groups and deterring reconciliation, say observers.
The upcoming conference organized by Libaid is aimed at dealing with the short-term humanitarian needs of displaced populations, but not the political issues. “We try not to politicize the conference,” said Etwilb. “There is a risk if we just make it very open.”
Likewise, the “Reconciliation committees”, set up by recently by the government to restore relations between different communities, can only deal with minor disputes. “We are trying to get people out of prison, but we are not able to do much for people who killed, raped or stole,” Naji Regebi, a member of one of the committees, told IRIN. “The more serious issues will have to go to the justice system.”
Some Tawergha like Ismael Shaaban, an elder in Fallah Ladco camp in Tripoli, believe both sides should go to court. “We will hand over anyone who is guilty to the Libyan government, but we also want people torturing and abusing Tawerghans to be brought to justice,” he said.
Others like Khadija Absalaam (not real name), whose three sons she claims were detained in Misrata, are more skeptical. “We don’t want peace with the Misratans, we just want a wall between our two cities,” she said. “We can live without communicating.”
The Misratan Local Council, in response to concerns raised by Human Rights Watch about widespread torture and crimes committed in detention centres and toward the Tawergha, denied responsibility saying: “Treatment in the city’s prisons is good….many accusations have been wrongly and falsely attributed to Misrata revolutionaries.”
For the Tawergha and Misratans, long-term reconciliation will need a fully functional formal justice process. But, given that the government is still “settling down” in the words of one official, that is not likely to occur until after the elections, scheduled to take place in June. And even then, true reconciliation on the ground is likely to take time.
“Even if the humanitarian issues are dealt with by organisations, it is not enough,” said Gignac. “It is about coming to terms with the past and it is going to be a long process.”
![Locals say they are losing their livelihood as large mines are being granted huge concessions [Al Jazeera]](https://zahra-moloo.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/LOCAL_MINERS_3697.jpg)
![Leonard Salala said his son was shot and killed by a mine guard [Al Jazeera]](https://zahra-moloo.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/LOCAL_MINERS_4059.jpg)
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