The ANC’s policy of trapping and starving ‘illegal’ miners betrays a contempt for human life.
‘Their breath grew shallow, their bodies still. They didn’t die with any great commotion, just a quiet surrender, as if their bodies had finally given up. The hollow, lifeless look in their eyes was a constant reminder of what awaited the rest of us. It was not an illness that killed them. It was starvation. A cruel, drawn-out death that consumed them piece by piece.’
These harrowing words are not from a witness to the conflict in Gaza. Nor are they an account of the Nazi death camps during the Holocaust. No, they are from an affidavit to the South African Constitutional Court by a miner called Clement Moeletsi. Moeletsi was one of hundreds of black miners who were trapped by police in abandoned shafts at Buffelsfontein Gold Mine for two months. Earlier this month, he was rescued by members of the Stilfontein community. Then, he was arrested for mining illegally.
