Richard Spoor
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Anglo Platinum's community relations attacked
Julie Bain
Posted: Tue, 25 Mar 2008

[miningmx.com] -- ANGLO Platinum's operations in South Africa's Limpopo province are once again being scrutinised after the publication of an ActionAid report, which suggests villagers may have been reluctant to leave their original homes to make way for the company’s mines and that the operations may be contaminating water supplies.

It appears that activist lawyer Richard Spoor has been successful in his goal of internationalising the issue, with the BBC posting an article on its website and BBC Radio reporting on the issue on Tuesday as ActionAid requested the South African Human Rights Commission investigate the allegations.

In 2006, Spoor told Miningmx: "We intend internationalising this dispute. The disparity between what the community gets and what Anglo Platinum takes and the harm it inflicts on the community is so gross that it is an obscenity that shouts out to the heavens."

an obscenity that shouts out to the heavens
"If I had not been making a noise the last four years I don't think anything would have happened. The work we did contributed to bringing the spot light to bear on Anglo Platinum and Anglo," Spoor said on Tuesday.

Anglo Platinum in a statement day later said it was aware of the allegations in the BBC Radio and ActionAid Report.

"The reports contain numerous errors in addition to inflammatory statements," said Anglo Platinum.

The Anglo subsidiary said it welcomed the South African Human Rights Commission`s undertaking to fully investigate the validity of the ActionAid allegations.

ActionAid said: "Remote rural communities have lost their land and access to clean water in South Africa as a result of mining by Anglo Platinum."

It estimates thousands of poor people in four villages in the Bushveld mineral complex in Limpopo province have lost farm land and received little compensation in a series of relocation deals with Anglo Platinum.

"There were so many promises," ActionAid reports Isaac Pila, 72, who moved to the new township of Sterkwater to make way for open cast mining on his land, as saying.

"None of it was true. There is no grazing land for the animals and my people are no longer ploughing. They promised that we would live like we did in the village, even better. It's not true. My people are suffering."

ActionAid also commissioned an independent study of the water supply in the area.

"Independent water tests commissioned by ActionAid, show that samples taken from sources near Anglo Platinum's Potgiestersrust Limited (PPL) mine were unfit for human consumption at four out of ten sites due to contamination by high levels of total dissolved salts, sulphate and nitrate," it said in a statement.

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In a report on the BBC website the company's executive head of corporate affairs Mary-Jane Morifi is quoted as saying: "We would be interested in engaging with ActionAid to understand what the results were and where exactly they tested."

According to the ActionAid statement: "Approached by ActionAid for a response, Anglo Platinum said that to date testing of water by the company and the municipality had picked up only one incidence of contamination and remedial action was taken immediately."

The ActionAid study has been used as the basis of a report to be aired on BBC Radio Four on Tuesday. This all adds up to unwelcome negative publicity of Anglo American, better known in the UK than Anglo Platinum which is controlled by Anglo.

The BBC report while asking the question "Who pays the price of platinum" highlights a story which has been reported by the South African media for some time.

The rights of the villagers to stay on their traditional land is a very sensitive one and Spoor, who has been campaigning for the communities and individuals affected by South Africa's mining industry, believes some communities in Limpopo have been unjustly treated.

Spoor said he hopes that the investigation will lead to Anglo "recognising it is in its own interests to sit down and engage with its critics. We are saying that the quality of life of these people is worse than before. To my mind it is a question which can be objectively determined."

He said that the communities could look for compensation or participation in the benefits of mining.

As it stands many communities have already been moved but the Mohlohlo community is still holding out, with about 6,000 of a town of 10,000 already relocated and 4,000 fighting to stay in their homes, said Spoor.

Anglo Platinum has said it has spent up to R700m moving more than 1,300 households to make way for its mines near Burgersfort. The company said it had improved the quality of housing now available for the community and had built roads and schools.