Police make community rescuers at Stilfontein sign indemnity forms before helping trapped miners:
Police have made it clear that they will not be held liable for any deaths or injuries which might occur during community rescuers’ efforts to help illegal miners trapped in an abandoned mine in Stilfontein in North West.
Law-enforcement authorities would not endanger the lives of police and soldiers by allowing them to go underground to rescue them, national police spokesperson Brigadier Athlenda Mathe told the Mail & Guardian.
“Firstly, there are hazardous gases that are flowing there. There is a high risk of loss of life, and according to our intelligence, these illegal miners may be heavily armed,” Mathe said.
Community members who have decided to help the miners, have been made to sign indemnity forms which will exempt the government from liability should they be killed or injured, she added.
“We have been getting calls from the community saying they want to fetch their loved ones, so we are dealing with a complex situation. We are making them sign indemnity forms.
“We have consulted the owners of the mine and the department of mineral resources and energy who have confirmed that it is not safe to go down there,” Mathe said.
“We have taken them through the dangers and consequences of going down there and, despite that, they demand that they would want to go and rescue their loved ones. It is a last resort. It is not safe and we have reiterated this to these community members but they have signed and, based on that, we have allowed them.
“If there’s any risk, injury and death, the government will not take responsibility because we have taken them through the dangers, consequences and so on.”
Mathe said South Africans were quick to forget the crimes associated with illegal miners, refering to an incident in 2022 on the West Rand where eight women were gang raped, allegedly by a group of illegal miners.
She said the South African Police Service (SAPS) would not negotiate with criminals.
“We have got a job to do as the SAPS and we are not backing down. What is happening down there is illegal and we are simply enforcing the law.
“We are not going to celebrate crime. We are not going to allow crime to thrive under our watch. We are doing what we are supposed to do and that is to prevent and combat criminality.”
Mathe’s comments follow those of Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, who told a media briefing this week that the government would not attempt to rescue those trapped at the mine but would instead “smoke them out”.
“We didn’t send them there and they didn’t go down there for the benefit … of the republic. So, we can’t help them. Those who want to help them, must go and take the food down there. They will come out; we will arrest them,” she said.
On Thursday, the overall commander of the operation in Stilfontein Kaizer Modiba confirmed that police had cut the supply of food and water for two days.
During a visit to the site by the M&G, residents were gathered outside the mine, with some helping to bring up those trapped underground. At least 200 men, women and children sat waiting to see if their loved ones would emerge.
The rescuers were using a rope about 1 600 metres long, which they lowered into the ground, in the hope that someone would grab it and be pulled up. While M&G was in the area, a decomposed body was pulled to the surface using the rope.
One community member who went underground, who did not want to be named, said thousands of people were still trapped there. They were surface but were weak, hungry and did not have light to help them find their way out. Many people had died underground, he added.
“The place is stinking, people have died there. The people are not refusing to come out — there’s no food and water there and they do not have the strength to come out,” he told the M&G.
“It’s also too dark there and there’s no light which makes it difficult for them to move. So, they requested torches and or batteries for their lights.
“We just assisted now to get a body out and it’s not the only one because there’s another still underground. It’s been three days since we started assisting.
“They [the authorities] are refusing them food — and they are killing them. We feel like what is being said by the minister and the police is killing them.
“If we decide, as the community, that we will stop rescuing them, they will not want to do it. They will just watch these people die underground, meaning they are condoning these people being killed.
“They just want to gain popularity by using the plight we are facing here. Their job here is just killing people. Even when a criminal is arrested for murder, you give them food.”
Another resident, who only identified himself as Thato, said police were making rescuers sign indemnity forms so they would not held liable for injuries and death and they should apply the same principles when dealing with those willing to risk their lives to mine for gold underground.
“Why is it that they don’t allow us to take the risk every day so we can mine in peace without any interference from the government? We want the government to give us a permit to allow us to go in at our own risk,” Thato to the M&G.
“They should make us sign the indemnity forms through the year and allow us to get in and also allow us to sell whatever we get in the open market.
“The other problem is that, when a person comes out, the police arrest them and we do not know what’s happening. I do not have a family member here but I’m here to assist those underground because I know them.”
Police spokesperson Mathe insisted that it was not true that the illegal miners were trapped, saying they were refusing to come up.
“If they were trapped, it would mean they were conducting legal operations. They are refusing to resurface,” she said.
“This is a last resort by a caring government. We have tried by all means to get these illegal miners to resurface safely and, despite our efforts as SAPS, they have refused to resurface.
“We went as far as printing flyers in different languages to say come out or use different shafts that you can exit, but they have not done so.”
“As the SAPS, we would get advice and then look at all possible solutions to try and get these people up and resurface. We would use this information to make the necessary responsible decisions. Based on that we allow them to go in, yes, it is a crime scene but it’s not tampering. There is no crime scene on the surface but the crime scene is at the bottom.”
Responding to allegations that some of the illegal miners were being forced to work there, Mathe said the police were aware of these allegations and they were being investigated.
“We do hear that there are others who want to resurface but are being stopped from resurfacing because of intimidation,” she said.
A lit Christmas at Nxamalala awaits:
Thursday.
The stage-managed defection of senior leaders of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) to the Umkhonto weSize (MK) party appears – as predicted here some time ago – to be chugging along merrily as the year comes to a close.
Jacob Zuma’s party has been nibbling away steadily at the EFF since it gobbled up the smaller parties to the ANC’s alleged left in the weeks after the elections, with its appetite increasing rather than decreasing on a defection by defection basis.
The path between Winnie Mandela House and Nxamalala village is becoming increasingly well worn these days and is set to be trod by more pairs of previously red shod feet ahead of the EFF conference – and the kick off of the festive season.
With a month to go before the Red Berets go to their third elective conference, one time national chairperson Dali Mpofu is the latest to abandon ship and jump on the Nxamalala bandwagon.
Mpofu follows Floyd Shivambu, Mzwanele Manyi, Busisiwe Mkhwebane and Magasela Mozobe into the ranks of the Zuma party; the latest in a long line of Julius Malema’s former comrades to desert him.
No conference food, delegate bags and four days of massaging the leader’s ego for the knife in the back brigade this December.
The MK party doesn’t do elective conferences.
uBaba has supreme power to appoint – and disappoint – when it comes to who gets what and who goes where in MK, so Floyd will get to spend his festive Decembering, rather than trying to survive another elective conference.
Malema is set to be elected uncontested along with a slate that sees Goodrich Gardee replacing Sivambu as deputy president, third term loading as head of what is left of the party he launched after being expelled from the ANC in 2012.
A win for team Malema is guaranteed, but there will be far more celebration going on at Nxamalala over the festive season than there will at Nasrec, where EFF national people’s assembly will take place.
Zuma’s annual Christmas shindig is gonna be even more lit than usual, with both the removal of the ANC’s parliamentary majority and the EFF’s leadership of the opposition to celebrate.
The state capture squad are all back on the public purse – this time as MK Party members of parliament or representing it in the KwaZulu-Natal legislature – so there will be another big win to celebrate there.
Things are gonna be lit.
Crowded too.
It’s not just the wave of defections that are taking place from the EFF.
The ANC is still losing members to the Zuma party and its former deputy provincial chairperson Willies Mchunu is now the KwaZulu-Natal convener of MK.
Mchunu has always been a Zuma loyalist and had been agitating in favour of working with the MK party in the province since the elections, so his move to the old man’s party was inevitable.
But Mchunu’s won’t be the last resignation letter that ANC provincial secretary Bheki Mtolo receives between now and Christmas, so a full house at Nxamalala when the festivities kick off on Boxing Day is guaranteed.
Crowded, but fortunately, uBaba has plenty of room for his guests in the rondavels that were built as part of the “security upgrade” at his homestead back in 2009, courtesy of R238 million unlawfully plundered from the public purse.
They were meant to be for his police protectors, back when he first became head of state, but given the old man’s reputation for playing the long game, perhaps this Christmas may have been what he really had in mind when he had the firepool fitted.
The rondavels were looking a bit run down the last time I was there and the pool could have done with a scrub and a new Creepy Crawley, but that was long before uBaba’s new party arrived on the political scene.
Zuma’s fortunes have improved, somewhat, since then.
The MK party MPs who were fired to accommodate the state capture squad in parliament say they are all giving the old man R10 000 a month each, so he should have the money to finally clean the pool and give the amphitheatre a coat of paint.
Shivambu’s not likely to complain if he hasn’t though.
Floyd will also be hoping that the old man has forgotten that it was him who helped lead the campaign in parliament to force him to pay back the money for the rondavel he will be sleeping in over Christmas, so the last thing he will be doing is complaining about the quality of his lodgings.
It’s gonna be lit.
The Democratic Party has learned nothing about defeating Trump:
In a historic turn of events, the 45th president of the United States of America left the White House after a humiliating defeat after the 2020 elections. He did not concede his loss and never congratulated his successor Joe Biden.
But Donald Trump made sure to let the new administration know that he would be back on Pennsylvania Avenue. The words he spoke four years ago came true in the early hours of 6 November, when he was elected the 47th president.
This is the second time in the history of US elections that a one-term president has been re-elected. Grover Cleveland was the first to stage such a political comeback as he served from 1885 to 1889 and then 1893 to 1897.
Despite two assassination attempts and being convicted of 34 felonies, Trump emerged successful. And this time around he won the popular vote, unlike in 2016 and 2020.
Just a few weeks ago Trump was a man staring into the abyss. He was going to jail. Therefore, winning the presidential elections of 2024 was crucial to him — it was personal and probably the only way out of his legal battles.
At first, the former president was poised to face off with Biden. It wasn’t long after their first presidential debate of 2024 that the Democratic Party realised that they were in trouble, thereby prevailing on Biden to step down and pave the way for his vice president, Kamala Harris.
She would only have 107 days to run an effective campaign to defeat the Trump machinery. The amount of money Harris raised in that short time was unbelievable. It is reported that she raised over $ 1 billion.
But Harris fell short of being a convincing candidate with a message that resonated with the people. A good number of analysts argued she was unable to put brakes on Trump’s Make America Great Again campaign. He has a base of supporters who, no matter what he represents, will not think of voting for anyone else.
The mainstream media and some polls kept suggesting that this was the closest race in recent history. The established media kept insisting that this election could go either way, even though Harris was leading in all swing states within the margin of error. This simply meant Harris was losing. There is no way that she was leading all seven swing states within the margin of error of 3 points.
Also, Trump carefully played the victim, and people began to see his arrest, charges and even court hearings as injustice, and most of the country began to see this as unfair treatment.
But all in all, Harris had no coherent message for the people. Her appeal of bringing back the politics of joy only lasted the early days of her campaign and failed to stick.
Harris was manufactured from the get-go. She was not subject to any litmus test to prove herself; she didn’t have to do primaries with anyone but was rather handpicked by her boss, Biden, then endorsements started flocking in.
When voters listened to both candidates, they began to see Trump as a fighter, especially in the days after the first assassination attempt, and Harris looked more like someone who was being led by the hand to victory.
Harris was well aware of this perception and she tried hard to convince the public that she was tough, that she had, for example, prosecuted transnational gangs as the former district attorney and attorney general of California. Unfortunately, to most Americans she never appeared tough.
If the Democrats had convinced Biden to step aside earlier, hold primaries, and then go for a convention to elect the next candidate for president they would have produced a far more competitive candidate and someone who could have taken on Trump more effectively.
The rush to put Kamala forward was unnecessary and a recipe for disaster. And the idea that rallying celebrities to endorse your campaign, with the hope that such endorsements will have a trickle-down effect, has proven to be unworkable since the 2016 run of Hillary Clinton.
The Democratic Party has learned nothing about defeating Trump. They made the same errors now as they did in 2016. The party has shifted away from being the party of the Fifties and Sixties, during the time of leaders such as JF Kennedy. The Democratic Party of then was the anti-war party, the party that stood for global peace, the party of the working class and middle Americans.
The Democrat Party of today, which is basically a party of delusion, is up for wars anywhere and everywhere. They do nothing to address problems of the working class at home, such as high food prices, homelessness and lack of opportunities and jobs. Instead, the party is consumed with identity politics, the woke stuff and other not-so-important issues of our time.
They need to change course, do some soulsearching and find a message for the people — a message of hope and equal opportunities for all. This is very close to what Trump was trying to sell to the American people — and we saw the election results.
Harris was no match for Trump. She might have run a decent campaign, raised a lot of money and got endorsements from prominent people but Trump enjoys a loyal fan base which is immovable.
Harris attempted the presidency alone in 2019; she was one of the first candidates to drop out of the Democratic Primaries then. How could she really think that she would be a good candidate for the same party in the 2024 elections? The Democrats have no one to blame but themselves because this election was theirs to win without any difficulties but, as usual, they messed up with the wrong candidate.
Aaron Ng’ambi is a geopolitical analyst and newspaper columnist, leadership instructor and a social entrepreneur.
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