Norman aka Benjy, Rasta lives in Ikemeleng.
He is a trainee monitor on the Monitoring Action Project ( See Link)
No Jobs
After so many attempts made by the employment forum, building the relationship with the mine management and National Union of Mines (NUM) was not a fruitless exercise.
in the month of June 18th we met with Aquarius where Mrs. Moraka was present. The community requested good working relationship. We inform Mrs. Moraka about all our attempt and persuasion to draft a list of unemployment rate in Inkemeleng. On 23rd June 09 we handed the list to Mrs. Moraka who referred us to meet with ward councillor to attach his signature on the list. We consult with the councillor to inform him what Mrs. Moraka has told us, and that his participation will be kindly needed.
After we meet councillor we both draft the letter that to be submitted to her, so she could involve the management .Mrs. Moraka was very happy about our plan and insisted that we need to stand firm about our point ,and appreciated what we did. She committed that she will talk to Murray and Robert to review the policy on recruitment on labour. We then decided that we will meet on agreed date
Xenophobic Wars?
As mining is depending heavily on migrant workers , this results in Rustenburg being one of the towns affected by the influx of people who comes from different places in search for employment . Thus emerges places like informal settlements that become the nearest places for the employees to live in. The one reason being not enough accommodation for them.
As our village of Ikemeleg is one of the places that has been affected by this migrant workers, tension between the non citizen with the citizen is very rife when coming to sharing the little resources that we have as community.
As we are living in this situation where by we still have to queue for water for almost a day this is were you hear of the most hatred talks amongst the Africans. Whereby people boasting of being better than others in terms of being citizens. Whereby you hear people who are entitled to vote expecting to be the first one to be served.
People who are doing business in Ikemeleng are not good in the way they relate with others because they claim that they pay tax while others don’t pay, seeing it unfair because they stand to lose while others benefit unfairly.
We are high lighting this issue while it is still time for we expect serious measures to be taken to redeem this plague of hatred amongst the Africans. Because all this fuels tribalism and gangsterism.
We feel again that ignoring this will be a serious blunder, for we feel that delaying in implementing what was in the national anthem called services delivery will also contribute to that dilemma, As we will hear people who did not qualify to vote accusing the voters by voting for nothing as they suffer the same conditions .This is the situation we are living in ikemeleng.
Rumours of War
The latest protest in Ikemeleng leads to Mayoral Attention
THE people of Ikemeleng vowed to themselves that even if they lose their life it will mean victory to their future, as its being for a long time they were scared to fight for what is the right to live.
It all started from Friday the 7th August 2009, when the community gathered themselves to meet in order to come up with what could be the best strategy to raise their concern in the way that they could be heard. It was on this meeting where resident thought that the best way was only to block the road leading to the town of Kroondal so that no one can pass through. People had had enough about all stories that the ward communities brought to them. They complained that they could no longer tolerate the excuses that were made every time about them not being able to forward this and that due to lack of finance, which are not the problem of the community.
All the people who were attending the gathering agreed that the holiday of Monday 10t, h, would be the last day to plan for how we forward our grievances’ to the executive mayor of Rustenburg.
On Sunday the 9th the ward councillor then decided to call a mass meeting of which many view it as a plan to stop the communities plan to protest. This meeting was not well attended. And truly it was his plan all the way. He told everybody in the meeting who was ready to block the road that they will meet the mighty hands of justice. But that didn’t even scare not one of the people. The people believed as they heard through the media that it was their right to fight for their right if they were peaceful.
On Monday again whistles blowers were busy gathering everyone to the play grounds as had been agreed. And this became the biggest gathering ever of the community and was a test to their future. Everyone was there to hear for him/her selves what was going to happen the next day. Everybody who came to the meeting supported the protest with their whole heart, shouting it’s time for revolution. We agreed that by 2 in the morning whistles blower must start by awakening everybody, so that they would assemble at our play grounds then from there, we would go to block all the entrances to and from Kroondal which we finally did peacefully.
During our demonstration police came but instead of any words, we heard sounds of the shooting guns and all hell broke loose. Everything went another way round, people then started to stone every passing cars to make sure that damage was encountered. Then they started chasing us with their machines
Some people got arrested and others were slightly injured. But at the end of the day the mayor did come and promise to come again on Friday, were by he will hear the community crisis.
The people also assured him that any failure on his part will lead to another serious protest, and that he should not undermine us. That was the protest that brought the attention that the community has been looking for, in order to know what’s holding back their development.
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