We stand with the informal miners at Stilfontein and other areas
Workers International Vanguard League (WIVL) condemns the ANC-DA GNU for their blatant starvation tactics on the informal miners currently underground at Stilfontein. Cutting off their water and food supply and threatening to attack them is reminiscent of the tactics of the genocidal Zionist thugs and their US imperialist backers.
For those with short memories we refer to the exposure by Ashman, Fine and Newman in the Journal of Southern African Studies on the grand scale illegal capital flight by the official mining companies, such as Anglo American, etc. They report that illegal flows as a result of these mining corporates and international banks were of the scale of 5,4% per annum of GDP from 1980 to 1993; 9,2% pa from 1994 to 2000; 12% pa from 2001 to 2007 and only in 2007 itself, when Mbeki was president, a massive 20% of GDP was stolen by the imperialist mines.
What did the government do? It offered them amnesty. Most of these mining criminals did not even bother to apply for amnesty, so confident they were of their arms of state capture. All these hundreds of billions of Rands of wealth could have ended unemployment , could have built decent houses for all, could have provided quality free education for all and still have many billions left over.
Compare this to the few pennies the informal mineworkers take every year.
We call for the urgent prosecution of the large mines that were/are involved in illegal capital flows. These mines should be expropriated without compensation and placed under workers control.
We call for an immediate end to the siege against the mineworkers held hostage by the government. They should have free access to water and food and medical care. We support the demands of Macua in supporting these workers.
There should be an urgent program to retrain the informal mineworkers and to provide them with the necessary support to mine under the safest possible conditions, with proper health and safety measures in place.
WIVL
16 Nov 2024
www.workersinternational.org.za
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