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  • How Wagner Group, Mercenaries With a Wider Agenda, Impact Civil Society

    How Wagner Group, Mercenaries With a Wider Agenda, Impact Civil Society

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    Founder of Wagner private mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin (here pictured with fighters), claims that Bakhmut is now in Moscow’s control. However his claims are disputed by Ukraine.
    • by Fawzia Moodley (johannesburg)
    • Inter Press Service

    JOHANNESBURG, May 24 (IPS) – The Wagner group, a shadowy mercenary group that has been operating for many years in African countries such as Sudan, Mali, the Central African Republic, and other mainly Francophone countries, has again been thrust into the limelight due to its involvement in the Ukraine war on behalf of Russia.

    Wagner’s and other Russian private military companies are believed to have a presence in 18 countries in Africa – and its influence goes far beyond security matters.

    Julian Rademeyer of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime told DW.com, “Wagner itself has developed over time as an organization that’s gone from being a purely private military contracting entity into a multiplicity of business alliances and relations and a network of companies. Some of them are front companies across the countries in which they operate on the African continent.”

    He sees the Wagner Group as primarily a Kremlin military tool to boost Russia’s economic and military influence in Africa.

    Rademeyer’s colleague and lead author of a study titled Russia’s military, mercenary and criminal engagement in Africa, Julia Stanyard, told IPS, “The Wagner Group is unique as an organization in the breadth, scale, and boldness of its activities. However, our study also shows that Wagner did not emerge in a vacuum: The group’s activities and characteristics reflect broader trends in the evolution of Russia’s oligarchs and organized crime groups, their respective relationships with the Russian state, and their activities in Africa.”

    “The group comprises a network of political influence operations and economic entities such as mining companies.

    “It appears to target unstable governments embroiled in civil wars and forms alliances with the ruling elite and offers them military support and weapons.”

    This is exactly what happened in the CAR, where the government has been fighting multiple rebel forces since December 2020. A beleaguered President Faustin-Archange Touadéra reached out to Russia shortly after taking power in 2016.

    “He received Russian military instructors and weapons, and Wagner mercenaries soon followed,” says CIVICUS, a global alliance promoting civic action.

    In return, Wagner receives economic and mining concessions. According to the New York Times, the group has been involved in mining operations in the CAR, where it has secured contracts to mine gold and diamonds.

    Stanyard says: “The group comprises a network of political influence operations and economic entities such as mining companies.”

    While the governments and sections of their population have welcomed the group, Wagner’s been accused of gross human rights abuses, with local communities reporting forced labour and sexual violence.

    Human Rights Watch says it has collected compelling evidence that Russian fighters have committed grave abuses against civilians in the CAR with complete impunity since 2019. The HRW interviewed 40 people between February 2019 and November 2021 about abuses by men speaking Russian.

    Stanyard’s research substantiates the allegations of abuse: “Wagner Group has been accused of using whatever means necessary to achieve its aims, including criminal activity.”

    Russia officially does not recognize mercenaries, but Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian oligarch, has close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Significantly, on Sunday, May 21, Putin reportedly congratulated the Wagner mercenary force for helping in what he called the “liberation” of the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. Reuters quoted Putin from a statement on the Kremlin’s website, saying: “The Head of State congratulated Wagner’s assault groups, as well as all members of the units of the Russian Armed Forces who provided them with the necessary support and cover on their flanks, on the completion of the operation to liberate Artyomovsk (Bakhmut).”

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, however, said Bakhmut had not been occupied by Moscow.

    Wagner’s activities go beyond promoting the military and economic interests of the Kremlin.

    Stanyard says the group is also involved in promoting Russian propaganda and interests by “targeting the social media profiles of Kremlin critics — spamming them with pro-Putin and pro-war comments.”

    Britain, in particular, has expressed concern that among the targets are “senior UK ministers’ social media accounts, alongside other world leaders.”

    “The operation has suspected links to Prigozhin,” she says, quoting a UK report exposing the misinformation campaign by Russia.

    The Wagner Group’s involvement in Africa has raised concerns about the role of private military contractors in the continent’s conflicts. While some African governments have welcomed its presence, others are concerned about the lack of oversight and accountability.

    In 2019, the African Union adopted the African Standby Force Concept of Operations, which seeks to strengthen the capacity of African states to respond to crises and reduce their reliance on external actors. However, the implementation has been slow, and there are concerns that the Wagner Group and other mercenary groups will continue to operate with impunity.

    CIVICUS warns that Wagner’s involvement is “contributing to the closing of civic space. In the CAR, with his position bolstered, Touadéra has further repressed dissenting voices. Humanitarian workers and independent journalists are among those subjected to violence and intimidation by Wagner forces.”

    Likewise, in Mali, French media outlets have been banned and “the junta banned the activities of civil society organizations that receive French support, at a stroke hindering civil society’s ability to help people in humanitarian need due to the conflict and monitor human rights abuses.”

    The issue of private military contractors in Africa is not limited to the Wagner Group. Other companies, such as Academi (formerly known as Blackwater), a private firm hired by the U.S. that became synonymous with civilian killings in the Iraq war, have been involved in conflicts in the continent, often with little oversight or accountability.

    Dyck Advisory Group (DAG) was also involved in Mozambique in areas where the country is trying to deal with the Islamist insurgency. DAG claimed to have worked closely with the government to keep the insurgency at bay before the Southern African Development Community (SADC) sent deployments to Cabo Delgado province. Wagner was reportedly also involved in the conflict but left after experiencing a number of losses.

    The use of private military contractors has raised questions about the role of states and the responsibility of corporations in conflicts, as well as the need for greater transparency and accountability.

    IPS UN Bureau Report


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    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Finding Ways to Feed South Africas Vast Hungry Population

    Finding Ways to Feed South Africas Vast Hungry Population

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    Nosintu Mcimeli and Bonelwa Nogemane of the Abanebhongo People with Disability (APD) started with an agroecological project to improve food security in South Africa’s Eastern Cape (left). A soup kitchen feeds the village children (right). Credit: ADP
    • by Fawzia Moodley (johannesburg)
    • Inter Press Service

    JOHANNESBURG, May 11 (IPS) – In the deep rural village of Jekezi in South Africa’s Eastern Cape, most young and able-bodied people have fled the area, leaving behind people with disabilities, the elderly, and children.

    It’s in villages like this one that the stark statistics of one in five South Africans being so food insecure they beg to feed themselves and their families could be a reality.

    The village instead supports its fragile community through an agroecological project, Abanebhongo People with Disability (APD), co-founded in 2020 by Nosintu Mcimeli as an example of food sovereignty in action.

    Food security in South Africa, the second wealthiest country by GDP, is low. According to 2019 data, Statistics SA says at least 10 million people didn’t have enough food or money to buy food.

    Impacts on Physical Development, Mental Health

    The impacts of this are devastating; hunger not only impacts physical development but also people’s mental health. Siphiwe Dlamini, writing in The Conversation, recently reported on a study that found that those who could not afford proper nutrition resorted to eating less, borrowing, using credit, and begging for food on the streets, which was the most harmful coping strategy for mental health.

    “We found that over 20% (1 in 5) of the South African households were food insecure. But the prevalence varied widely across the provinces. The Eastern Cape province was the most affected (32% of households there were food insecure). We also confirmed that food access in South Africa largely depends on socioeconomic status. People who are uneducated, the unemployed, and those receiving a low monthly income are the most severely affected by inadequate food access,” wrote Dlamini, a lecturer School of Physiology, University of the Witwatersrand.

    The situation in the region is also dire, with a UN World Food Programme (WFP) report in 2020 revealing that 45 million people were severely food insecure in the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

    South Africa has long been afflicted with widespread hunger, but the onset of Covid, an ailing economy, climate change, fuel and food price increases, interest hikes, and the impact of the Russia-Ukraine war has deepened the food crisis.

    However, Vishwas Satgar of the SA Food Sovereignty Campaign (SAFSC) says even before Covid, the number of hungry people was close to 14 million – and “women shoulder the burden of the high food prices, sharing limited food, skipping meals, and holding families together.”

    The irony, Satgar says, is that the country can feed all its people.

    “We produce enough food, but it’s essentially for export. The stark paradox in the commercial food system is that it is just another commodity; most people can’t feed themselves. The poor eat unhealthy (cheaper) food, and we have an obesity problem.”

    Satgar says a change of strategies is needed to feed the poor.

    “Despite overwhelming research proving that small-scale farmers feed the world, many people have the perception that large-scale industrial farms are the ultimate source of food. South Africa, with an expanded unemployment rate of 46.46 percent (start of 2022), cannot afford to lose more farm workers. Agroecological farming can transform the rural and urban economy with localised farming practices that absorb many unskilled and semi-skilled people,” he says.

    The SAFSC, the Climate Justice Charter Movement, and the Cooperative and Policy Alternative Centre (COPAC) are building a new food system to avert a catastrophe.

    Food Sovereignty 

    “We call this the food sovereignty system, which is democratically organised and controlled by small-scale farmers, gardeners, informal traders, small-scale fishers, communities, and consumers.

    That’s where Mcimeli comes in. She tells IPS her activism journey began after she left a company that worked with people with disabilities in Cape Town. She contracted polio as a baby because her domestic worker mother could not take her for immunisation. “I have a disability in my right thigh and leg.”

    She was working as an informal trader when she was given the opportunity from SADC, “which was releasing millions of rand to train SA women for activism in any kind of project.”

    Mcimeli was one of 80 women trained in 2012 and 2013.

    “In 2014, I was transferred to Copac for activist schooling. That’s when I met Vish (Satgar). I then decided to come to the Eastern Cape to plough back my activism skills.”

    It was here that she co-founded the APD, and it has become an example of food sovereignty in action in Jekezi in the Eastern Cape.

    Mcimeli says the ADP started an agriculture project.

    “Because in rural areas there is communal land, it’s free, so we formed groups to start communal gardens. Then I realised that there are people who are bedridden, so I started enviro gardens in nearby villages. At the moment, we have 24 of these, and they are working.”

    She works with four young women but wants to include more young people in the projects.

    A donation of a water tank and a borehole brought a promise of fresh ‘forever’ water to the village of Jekezi. Credit: ADP
    A donation of a water tank and a borehole brought a promise of fresh ‘forever’ water to the village of Jekezi. Credit: ADP

    Forever Water—Free and Healthy

    During the hard lockdown, the ADP got a big water tank from the local municipality and started a soup kitchen.

    “We got donations of masks and sanitisers and food from Shoprite. Then a colleague of mine organised radio interviews for me, and a company that provides boreholes heard me asking for more water tanks. They said they had a lifetime solution and sponsored a community borehole. It was installed free of charge in a local schoolyard. It’s forever water—free and healthy and available for everyone, not just our projects”.

    One of ADP’s beneficiaries, Bonelwa Nogemane, says: “I have a family of seven including a disabled four-year-old; we are often hungry because the food is too expensive. I joined the ADP to help my family and community to grow our own food.”

    While the ADP is making a small dent, the problem is much bigger, and activists warn that unless a solution is found to the hunger crisis, South Africa is in danger of producing a lost generation of intellectually and physically stunted future leaders.

    A study published in BMC Public Health on the link between food insecurity and mental health in the US during Covid found that: “Food insecurity is associated with a 257% higher risk of anxiety and a 253% higher risk of depression. Losing a job during the pandemic is associated with a 32% increase in risk for anxiety and a 27% increase in risk for depression.”

    Campaign to Save Children from ‘Slow Violence of Malnutrition’

    Marcus Solomon of the Children’s Resource Centre, which has launched a campaign to save SA’s children from the “slow violence of malnutrition”, says: “The consequences of this are dire for the affected children, with an estimated four million children in SA having stunted growth because of malnutrition and another 10 million going hungry every day.”

    Activist Shanaaz Viljoen from Cape Town says: “My personal experience on a grassroots level is rather heartbreaking. The children we work with are always hungry due to the situation in their homes.”

    In addition to an alternate food system, Trade Union Federation Cosatu, the SASFC, Copac, and others believe introducing a Basic Income Grant will go a long way towards addressing the hunger crisis in the country.

    IPS UN Bureau Report


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    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Artisanal Miners Face Onerous Obstacles to Become Legal

    Artisanal Miners Face Onerous Obstacles to Become Legal

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    It’s a struggle for artisanal miners working in South Africa to be legalised due to onerous requirements. Credit: NAAM
    • by Fawzia Moodley (johannesburg)
    • Inter Press Service

    JOHANNESBURG, Mar 24 (IPS) – Greed, poverty, irresponsible legal mining giants which exploited and then abandoned South Africa’s mines, together with the government’s failure to enforce regulations on the mining giants to rehabilitate mines before closing them, have created fertile ground for a thriving illegal artisanal mining sector called Zama Zama, many of them run by criminal syndicates.

    South Africa’s economy has largely been mining based, and under apartheid, white-owned mining companies exploiting lucrative gold, diamond, coal, and chrome grew rich, using cheap local and migrant labour from neighbouring countries.

    Post-apartheid, the ANC government has tried to bring black ownership and small-scale miners into the mining sector and, more recently, attempted to decriminalise artisanal miners who use rudimentary tools and are largely involved in surface mining.

    According to submissions made by the Legal Resources Centre (LRC), the Benchmarks Foundation, and the International Labour Research and Information Group (ILRIG), policy weaknesses, lack of enforcement, bureaucratic bungling, and red tape have ensured that the status quo from apartheid remains largely intact.

    The LRC contends that retrenchments due to mechanisation or closure of unprofitable mines have increased illegal mining. The lack of enforcement of laws relating to the rehabilitation of closed mines has created space for criminal Zama Zama and artisanal miners who are perforce illegal to operate in disused or abandoned mines.

    Artisanal miners in the North West province of South Africa at work. Credit: NAAM
    Artisanal miners in the North West province of South Africa at work. Credit: NAAM

    With the publishing of the Policy on Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining in March 2022, artisanal miners all over the country are forming cooperatives in a bid to be legalised. But it is an uphill battle to get permits.

    The LRC also warns of further conflict and xenophobia because the law precludes foreign Zama Zama from getting permits. However, Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy Gwede Mantashe says: “It must be clear that once an individual illegally enters our country and engages in illegal economic activity, such an individual cannot be sanitised through being issued with a small-scale mining license.”

    Robert Krause, an environmental researcher, says that the roots of the problem lie in “the mining houses shirking their environmental rehabilitation responsibilities as well as failure to invest in a post-mining economy for workers and the surrounding community.”

    There are nearly 6000 ownerless and derelict mines, many of them “abandoned by mining capital before the present regulatory dispensation under the National Environmental Management Act and the Financial Provisioning regulations.”

    Krause says there is “a persisting pattern of large mining houses selling off their mines towards closure to companies they know full well will not be in a position to carry out their rehabilitation duties.”

    Legal loopholes and lax regulation by the regulator enable this.

    “The companies that end up with liabilities frequently go insolvent, and the financial provision for closure is often treated as just another claim.”

    He says, “Mine abandonment fuels illegal or artisanal operations, as low-grade ore is left behind, convenient entrances remain open, and people in need of work are thrown out of the economy.”

    When the profitable reserves are depleted, there’s an employment crisis. Then, the option for survival, mainly where closure is not done properly, is to become a Zama Zama.

    Krause says the artisanal miners need material support and capacitation from mining companies and the state, “instead they are still often treated like criminals while violent criminal syndicates flourish.”

    According to an Oxpeckers environment journalism probe a few years ago, “a fortune has been set aside for mine rehabilitation in South Africa. But large mines are not being properly closed, and the money cannot be touched.”

    Oxpeckers say that although the money cannot be used for rehabilitation while a mine is still operational, the DMRE can use it if it is abandoned.

    “The department is yet to provide an instance in which this money has been used, however. Instead, most mines are not deemed legally closed, and the money cannot be touched.”

    But Mantashe says: “It is estimated that it would cost over R49 billion to rehabilitate these mines. The Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) receives R140 million per annum for the rehabilitation of mines. With this allocation, we can only rehabilitate at least three mines and seal off 40 shafts per year.”

    The minister revealed in September 2022 that 135 shafts in the Eastern, Central, and Western Basins in Gauteng (province) were sealed over three years. The DMRE intended to seal off another 20 in the current financial year, prioritising the Krugersdorp area where Zama Zama gang raped a film crew in July last year.

    Mantashe says that the rehabilitation of mines is a long terms project: “We must appreciate that it would take a long time to completely rehabilitate all these mines at this rate due to budget constraints and security threats to officials executing this programme.”

    Advocates for the legalisation of artisanal miners say the government needs to provide resources to fund environmental assessments and facilitate a local buyers’ market via a national buying entity to sell their mined products.

    “People in South Africa need to finally see the benefits of the mineral resources of South Africa, as in the past colonial and Apartheid practices coupled with large-scale mining have deprived the majority of this benefit,” the LRC group says.

    Clearly, this is a pipe dream, as the struggle by artisanal miners to get permits to become legal has underlined.

    The irony is that their legalisation will not only allow them to earn a living but also pay taxes and end their constant harassment by criminal elements and the police alike.

    IPS UN Bureau Report


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    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • We Want to Be Legal; We’re Not ‘Zama Zama’ Criminals Say South African Artisanal Miners

    We Want to Be Legal; We’re Not ‘Zama Zama’ Criminals Say South African Artisanal Miners

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    Artisanal miners at work. Credit: Supplied
    • by Fawzia Moodley (johannesburg)
    • Inter Press Service

    JOHANNESBURG, Jan 23 (IPS) – Mining towns across South Africa have become hostage to a booming but bloody illegal mining economy.

    Wealthy kingpins, mainly from neighbouring Lesotho, run criminal syndicates and recruit poverty-stricken workers to go into disused underground shafts to dig for the country’s mineral wealth. Dubbed ‘Zama Zama’, many of them are former mine workers retrenched by the big legal mines and who know the ins and outs of the dangerous but lucrative mining operations.

    Paps Lethoko, the chairperson of the National Association of Artisanal Miners (NAAM), says these the Zama Zama spend months in the underground shafts. Their criminal bosses run tuck shops in the dark belly of the earth.

    “The tuck shops sell bread for R200 (normal price around R20), tinned fish for R300 (normally about R25). After months of living in the claustrophobic catacombs under hazardous conditions, the miners end up with about R30,000 (about 1800 USD) and paying more than double the normal amount for food and other necessities to the very bosses who employ them,” he told IPS.

    Zama Zama miners seen in an informal settlement in Johannesburg, South Africa. Credit: Fawzia Moodley/IPS
    Zama Zama miners are seen in an informal settlement in Johannesburg, South Africa. Credit: Fawzia Moodley/IPS

    Lethoko says most disused underground shafts in Klerksdorp, a mining town in the North West province, are run by a wealthy politician from Lesotho.

    “The Basotho miners are forced to pay the security guards up to R20,000 (about 1700 USD) to enter the mines they are employed at. They are treated worse than slaves, just as they were by mining companies under apartheid.”

    Violence is inevitable. Local communities and artisanal miners, who until recently could not become legal, often get caught in the crossfire of territorial battles between rival Zama Zama gangs.

    In July 2022, all hell broke loose after the horrific gang rape of film crew members at a mine dump close to West Village in Krugersdorp on the West Rand. Police arrested 80 Zama Zama, 14 of whom were directly linked to the rape incident but were later acquitted.

    Artisanal miners, who are already struggling with bureaucracy and lack of a proper legal regime to get licenses to operate legally, say the rape incident has damaged their cause even further.

    Lethoko says: “We have been trying to form cooperatives and get permits to operate legally, but the mining companies, the media, and even the police lump us with the criminal Zama Zama.”

    An advocate who was assisting them at the Legal Resources Centre (LRC) agrees: “People and even the police don’t understand that the artisanal miners, essentially local people who have for centuries been mining in survival mode, want to be law-abiding citizens but are hampered by a broken system every step of the way.”

    The LRC published a report in 2016 on the conditions under which artisanal miners operate, and little has changed since then.

    In the North West province, NAAM tried negotiating with mining giant Harmony Gold to allow artisanal miners to continue mining on the perimeters of the mine. “The local people know where to find the gold in the abandoned mine dumps. This is indigenous knowledge because they have been doing it for a long time, but we want to be legal, so we formed a cooperative and had a meeting with the company.

    “The next thing, Harmony’s security prevented them from mining on the land even though it had long been abandoned, and the company applied for an interdict against me and the miners for trespassing,” says Lethoko.

    Worse still, a gold rush followed as news of the abundance of gold in the area spread.

    “The Basotho Zama Zama arrived en masse; they have a lot of money, so they bribed the mine security and took over the area from where local artisanal miners had been barred by the mine.”

    The Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) now recognises artisanal mining but getting permits is expensive and onerous.

    “Artisanal miners live a hand-to-mouth existence; most of us don’t have data or even money for permits, and DMRE officers at the local level don’t seem to know that artisanal mining cooperatives can now be legally recognised.”

    Lethoko says the other problem is a lack of a regulatory framework. “The regional DMRE and most local government officials are unaware that we have the right to be recognised, so they and the police continue to treat us as criminals instead of assisting us to obtain permits.”

    Getting permits is literally a “minefield”. So far, only one co-op in Kimberley in the Northern Cape Province has received legal recognition since the law changed in 2017.

    Toto Nzamo, a member of the Tujaliano Community Organisation, says xenophobic tension erupts regularly as Zama Zama violence spills into local communities.

    It doesn’t help that the Artisanal and Small Scale Mining Policy which recognises the potential of artisanal mining as a livelihood strategy, reserve the permit system for South Africans.

    Nzamo works with artisanal miners and Zama Zama in the Makause informal settlement in Germiston near Johannesburg, who are involved in surface gold mining at a disused mine and are struggling to get licenses.

    “They have to form co-ops, identify the land they wish to mine on, and have environmental assessments done. These people have neither the skills nor the access to the kind of money required. A geologist’s report costs at least R82000; where are these poor people supposed to get that kind of money?” asks Nzamo.

    He says the only way to end the Zama Zama violence and criminality is for the Department of Home Affairs and the DMRE to work together to ensure that foreign nationals who qualify get their papers quickly.

    “The tragedy is that between the criminal syndicates, the big mining houses that are returning to mines they once abandoned because now there is technology available to mine profitably again, and the inept DMRE, decent law-abiding people are being prevented from earning a living lawfully,” the advocate said.

    IPS UN Bureau Report


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    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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