Government to begin a rescue operation at Stilfontein, court hears

The government will begin a rescue operation at the Buffelsfontein Gold Mine in Stilfontein, the Pretoria high court heard on Friday, after it emerged on Thursday that there were 109 dead bodies in shafts 10 and 11 of the mine. 

The operation would get under way “hopefully as soon as this weekend”, said Pieter Alberts, chief director for legal services at the mineral resources and energy department, in an affidavit to court.

He said the Minerals Council of South Africa (which used to be the Chamber of Mines) had “graciously agreed to contribute to the substantial costs” of the rescue — estimated to be about R12m.   

Alberts said an access road for the crane that will lift the miners to safety still needed to be completed, which may take another two days. “The heavy rain has not made things easier,” he said. The crane would work in 10-hour shifts, lifting people in small groups, said government counsel Cassie Badenhorst SC in court. 

A desperate handwritten letter from the miners was received on Thursday asking for face masks because of the smell, and Jeyes fluid “to wash away the maggots that’s on the bodies”, said Lawyers For Human Rights’ (LHR) counsel Anna-Marie de Vos SC in court on Friday.

LHR approached the court urgently late on Thursday night and the application was heard on Friday morning. The illegal miners, fearing arrest, are trapped underground, unable to get out without being assisted.

In court papers to the Constitutional Court in December, miners’ community organisation Mining Affected Communities United in Action (Macua) said the police were directly responsible for the humanitarian crisis that has unfolded at shafts 10 and 11.

Operation Vala Umgodi was intended to combat illegal and illicit mining but it was based on a “fatally flawed” assumption: that shafts 10 and 11 were linked to the Margaret shaft, which provided a viable exit for the miners, said Macua. Instead, there was no link between the Margaret shaft and the two shafts where the miners are now trapped. 

Macua has gone to the Constitutional Court, which is treating the case urgently, but each day that passes poses more risk for the miners, said De Vos on Friday. Pretoria judge Ronel Tolmay said this matter should have long been resolved and, “if we have a grain of humanity”, the parties would not leave court without some sort of resolution.

It emerged in the court papers that the government had been in a war of words with Buffelsfontein Gold Mine about who was liable to bear the R12m costs of the rescue.

Alberts said on January 5 there was an urgent “stakeholder meeting” called by mineral and petroleum resources minister Gwede Mantashe and attended by senior politicians and officials including police minister Senzo Mchunu and representatives of the mining company. 

It was “resolved at the meeting” that the company was responsible for the rescue operation and “must commence with the same urgently”. But, said Alberts, the company said it did not have the funds to pay. Another meeting the next day did not take the matter any further.

On January 7, the mineral resources and energy department issued a statutory directive instructing the company to implement a rescue and saying the company had a legal duty to extract the illegal miners. Its lack of action constituted “a serious violation of the company’s statutory obligations and puts the lives of the estimated 550 illegal miners at risk”.

The company responded that “at all material times” it had been made to understand the government would pay for the extraction of the miners. The mine was not liable and the claim that it was putting lives at risk was “legally and factually untenable”, said a letter from its attorneys Werksmans.

The immediate impasse seems to have been resolved by the Minerals Council stepping in, but De Vos said LHR would ask the court to monitor government’s implementation of the rescue because “promises made in the past have not been complied with”.

“That’s why we’ve got 109, now 108, dead bodies down in the mine that need to come up,” she said. One body had been retrieved. At lunchtime, the court was still adjourned to consider Alberts’ affidavit. 

TimesLIVE