BY KEDIBONE MOLAETSI

THE COMMUNITY leader in Greater Tubatse community said they have been denied their right to protest by the Greater Tubatse Local Municipality and Anglo Platinum Mines.

Elton Thobejane said that they will not stop them from protesting. “The community is going ahead with the protest but we will do it in a form of a picket. We will be picketing outside the municipality offices from there and then move to Anglo Platinum Mines and picket from 01:00pm until 03:00pm.
“We are picketing against Land grabbing by Anglo Platinum Mines. The mining company is illegally mining on the land we are using for farming. The community is not happy about this because we were not properly informed that the land has been sold off to the mining company.
“Our right to protest was denied at section 4 meeting that was called yesterday. The meeting was attended by the chief municipal manager, Mohlala and Safety Liaison Manager, traffic police; SAPS cluster Commander Maepa, public participation manager, municipality legal adviser, Anglo Platinum’s Lebang Gaobepe and ward councillor, Mphofele. Mohlala insisted that we should address and discuss the memorandum at the section 4 meeting and we refused,” Thobejane said.

He said they were asked to tell them what the march is about, but were not willing to address their memorandum at that meeting. Thobejane said this led to a big debate, and the mine representative said they cannot protest because it’s short notice to them. “We informed them that we have given enough time to plan all the logistics as we had submitted our notification on the 23rd of August 2015. This is more than the 10 days’ notice required by the Regulation of Gatherings Act. But Gaobepe insisted that we can’t march and as a result we were told that we did not have ‘permission’ to protest,” he said.
The community leader said this becomes a norm in Limpopo as it is not the first time where municipal managers insists that aggrieved people must discuss their memorandum in a section 4 meeting with the mines in order to stop people from protesting.  “The memorandum is a political matter between us and the mining company. The municipality does not have a legal right to involve itself in what demands we are making of the company.

“Our picket will be supported by the Right2Know Campaign, which continues to fight to ensure our democratic right to protest is respected. We will not be silenced. The right to organise, protest and speak out is central to all community struggles for social justice,” he concludes.

-TDN

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