Foto: Estacio Valoi/Namnhumbir/Artisanal miners in the vídeo which became viral in facebook years ago ilustrating human rights abuse /November 06, 2021
By Estacio Valoi
The twelve mining companies that officially operate in Cabo Delgado channeled between January and December 2022 around 3,634,153,836, 94 billion meticais. The sector’s biggest contributor to the province’s finances is Montepuez Ruby Mining (MRM) which last year drained 3,048,572,745.74.
MRM is a joint venture between Britain’s Gemfields listed on the London Stock Exchange and Miriti owned by General Pachinuapa, a respected veteran of the national liberation struggle against colonial rule. The value that MRM put into the state coffers corresponds to 83.89 percent, according to data obtained by the CJI.
In the locality of Nhamanhubir, in the district of Montepuez, where MRM produces its wealth mining and trading of rubies, Hafido Ialamo, a 27 years old artisanal miner who has been mining through an association, faces daily struggles for survival that go through dodge the authorities, under penalty of being found and tortured. “It hurts to see our wealth leave here and make a few rich and the majority remain in poverty. Companies almost never buy our rubies, despite the fact that we are legalized for that purpose”
In a state where the government act on behalf and protecting transnational corporations, making the impunity of multinationals very visible in a collusion of both parties government and corporations in the systematic violation, of human rights in general leaving communities and/or the Mozambican people to be handed over to their luck with no one to turn to to solve their problems, where the mining companies dictate the rules, almost above the “State”.
Estacio Valoi / Namanhumbir /Ex trabalhadores Garimpo da Gemfields/MRM Oct/November2022
Giant miners vs small miners
Even with an economy that has been decapitated by the conflict linked to violent extremism since 2017, in the province of Cabo Delgado, with an estimated population of around 2,329, 261 inhabitants (2017 census), there are, according to the 2021 mining registry, more than 72 mining concessions, some in activities such as rubies, graphite, gold, oil and gas and others “DUATS sellers.” Only a few contribute prominently to the province such as rubies. https://cjimoz.org/news/a-longa-marcha-as-concessoes-dos-minerais-de-cabo-delgado/
In a study carried out by the Agency for Economic Development in Cabo Delgado (ADEL), artisanal mining in Cabo Delgado involves more than 125,000 people, including men, women and children. The study shows that men are more dedicated to digging (89%) because it requires more effort, women are dedicated to support activities (41%) and washing (25%), while most young people and children are dedicated to washing (44%) and support jobs (26%). Garimpeiros-Artisanal miners are mostly organized in informal groups composed by up of 3 to 10 people, all united by family or friendship relationships. There are also at least 11 associations, with 1,378 members (78% men and 22% women) of which only 3 are legalized.
There are thousands of Mozambicans involved in the extractive industry. Though is difficult to measure the exactly numbers . The artisanal miners who move billions and serve as a livelihood for thousands of Mozambicans, are denied the right to directly benefit from these resources. The biggest ruby industries refuse to support artisanal miners, as well as buy minerals from these associations. Its small concessions legalized by local governments, such as in Namanhubir, have been victims of intimidation made on behalf the multinationals. As a result the increasing of violations and abuses against human rights.
The violation of human rights is not limited to rubies, but to all mining areas, with “El Dorado” which has become a battleground for land expropriation, people beaten, others shot or buried alive. In addition to this, there is secrecy in contracts that most benefit multinationals in the acquisition of concessions and their exploitation, where the Land Right USE (DUAT) worth more than customary law and the community which has been living in this land ,expolits it to over 70 years is obliged to have a DUAT!!!
The government protects big corporations, penalizing those like Hafido Ialamo who claim their rights. And the state and state of criminalization, the marks of expanding corporate power and shrinking civic space, is a reality.
Estacio Valoi / Namanhumbir /Ex trabalhadores Garimpo da Gemfields/MRM/November 20, 2021/ September 5, 2022
The giant Gemfields is one of the miners widely denounced as prevaricators, and masterminds of such crimes, but those who gave oders they have never been brought before the local courts.
Business and Human Rights in Mozambique
In the province and Nampula, there is the Irish company Kenmare, which explores heavy sands in Larde and Moma. The latter has been accused of violations against local communities in the past. Regarding recent complaints, the governor of Nampula says he is unaware of cases of human rights violations at the level of companies operating in the province.
Who restores dignity to Mozambican workers in the ruby and graphite exploration sector in Cabo Delgado? May 2023- Mozambican labors assigned to companies that explore rubies -Gemfields in Montepuez and graphite Twigg Exploration Mining Ltd in Balama, have seen their human and labor rights violated, even by the institutions that ensure legality in the country, in this case, prosecutors, courts and even local labor directorates.
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Mapa das concessões
https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1W7YgSeqnt9mFWZiAGiZkKXMwdaTwGUs&usp=sharing
On several occasions or almost always, the Mozambican government relay on the force of repression against those who demand their rights. According to some studies, systematized institutional violence in Mozambique goes back decades since the political independence achieved in 1975 and subsequent constitution of the Mozambican State. Public security, as well as the guarantee of human rights, has been systematically trampled on, which leads to the heightening of social tensions at certain times, by this same State, through the police.
According to Fanito Salatiel, Lawyer and Humanitarian Activist, in Mozambique although in hierarchical terms the Constitution of the Republic is the Mother Law, all other ordinary laws are subordinated to it. “Even at the level of the constitution there are a series of precepts at this level that legitimize a series of prerogatives where one of which is this freedom for Mozambicans to associate in order to be able to organize and defend the interests of these organizations, this is the constitutional limit , this is legal opening”. Says Salathiel to the CJI.
And he adds “my view point is that in fact with the expansion ofthe corporate power, it is a fact and it is true that this limitation ends up affecting those rights, let’s say basic rights of the community, fundamental rights. As you know, these transnational megaprojects are very strong from an economic point of view and many times when they are into communities, they make a series of promises and we see and we do have several examples such as in the case of VALE and now the most recently Cabo Delgado… I come from the province of Cabo Delgado and we have some examples, in Namahumbir wedo have a mining company , in Balama, in Ancuabe and in other places… What we have actually seen is the exacerbated use of force, often over force and unnecessary. Use of force is totally illegal, there is no doubt about that.”
Foto: Estacio Valoi /Tete November/2021/empty shells of tear gas fired by the Mozambican Intervention Rapid Force against local demanding their rights from the government and the extint VALE coal mining
The violence of the state
Some of the people in the world’s poorest countries earn their living from artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM), and best practices in artisanal mining (ASM) and human rights remain an unresolved issue.
In the study called State Violence and Public Security in Mozambique after independence, where 30 police officers were questioned, 80% answered that torture is taught in the police training process, that is, during training. Recruits, on the other hand, are unnecessarily punished, mistreated and abused by their instructors, which is inscribed in the trainee as a component of instruction and to be taken into account in the exercise of the police profession. The remaining 20% stated that although they are always advised to respect the human rights component in their work, this is null because what remains in their imagination is always their past experience on the training ground”.
In turn, the State, through the police and ignoring effective public policies that would minimize the problems of the disadvantaged population, uses violence as a means to silence these social tensions. On this violent character of the Mozambican State, Chaimite (2014, p.86) points out that: “Both in 2008 and in 2010 and 2012, popular protests provoked, in a first phase, a repressive action by the government, in an attempt to curb it. Thus, the government’s first reaction was to consider them illegal and mobilize police forces to restore public order” https://www.redalyc.org/journal/3211/321161767026/html/
“In this process of legitimizing violence, if the State creates and implements laws at the service of justice, then the violence used in the exercise of the same will also be considered fair because it serves the interests of society. When the illegitimate nature of acts is highlighted, national security appears, as a rule, as the last major legitimizing resource (BARBOSA, 2013, p. 14).”
The issue of compulsory resettlement resulting from mining in Mozambique is developed by the State in order to acomodate the multinationals to carry out their activities. This process becomes even more complicated because the State that causes the expropriation is also responsible for protecting the affected population.
During at least the last five years of the record of investigations carried out by the CJIM, statistically, the violence index in the extractive industry has been increasing in Mozambique in a practice where hundreds and hundreds of cases have been registered.
Just by way of statistical illustration, around 90% of the mining companies operating in Mozambique have registered cases of police violence against Mozambican citizens and also from beatings, shootings, loss of land, deaths or repression of strikes.
In Cabo Delgado Province alone, several cases were recorded on the ground by the center, from the Anadarko gas project (USA) and ENI (Italy), currently the French company TOTAL, which are operating in the exploration of the Rovuma basin on the coast of Cabo Delgado , ruby mining by MRM/Gemfields, gold mines in Muaja and graphite mines in Balama.
Cases of violence in mines “militarized zones”.
Locals say the region has been turned into a “militarized zone” where state forces and a South African security company have allegedly beaten residents and killed illegal miners.
In April 2016, the Mozambican Attorney General (PGR) Beatriz Buchili under allegation of violent crimes in the concessions did visit the mining exploration areas in Montepuez in order to investigate the alleged cases of violence. Jorge Mamudo, an artisanal miner, said that on 7 July 2014 he was shot in his right leg by an Interventyion Rapid Force member (FIR) , in Ncoloto within the MRM concession area. Between January 2013 and January 2015, the Montepuez prosecutor’s office prosecuted more than 10 cases against police officers, plus 35 to 40 cases related to armed robberies allegedly carried out by police officers stealing from local people and miners.
In 2017, the Mozambican Bar Association classified this Wednesday as “inhuman, degrading and macabre” scenes of torture perpetrated by the Rapid Intervention Unit (UIR) againts artesal miners in ruby mine in the north of the country.
In February 2017, Mozambican police had beaten and violating the rights of some Tanzanian miners during their deportation for working illegally in the country. Mozambique denied the allegations and Tanzania said it was looking into how its citizens were treated.
Other places investigated by the Center were the province of Tete with emphasis on coal mining, where police violence on behalf of the folowing companies Vale do Rio Doce (Vale, Brazil) and Rio Tinto (Australia), Jindal, and with Vulcan in 2022 police violence continues . A worrying pattern of land grabbing, violence, pollution and death in Mozambique’s Tete province contradicts a Brazilian coal mine’s claims of “responsibly sourced coal”. of Mozambique and the security forces are on the side of those responsible for the damage.
Estacio Valoi/ Areias pesadas.“As nossas vidas não significam nada”: O custo humano da Mineração Chinesa Haiyu Mozambique Mining em Nagonha-Nampula, Moçambique/ April/22/2017
In the province of Nampula, exactly in the district of Angoche where the Chinese company Haiyu Mozambique Mining operates in the exploration of heavy sands, the police station itself was set up inside the mining company’s facilities in clear protection of the company and not the population, in which some people of the community ended up being detained and imprisoned in that same police station.
Still on Nampula, International Amnesty did present the results of a study which took two years held out in the In Nagonha community. The study entitled “Our lives worth nothing” addresses the consequences of the exploitation of heavy sands by Haiyu Mozambique Mining, which endangers the lives of the 1,360 inhabitants of that community. According to International Amnesty researcher David Matsinhe, the exploitation of heavy sands started in 2011. Haiyu’s practices transformed the topography of the area and affected the drainage system of the wetlands and these changes had negative impacts on the environment and the local people.
Zambezia-31 July 2018 — Inhassunge was awarded a concession to a Chinese company to extract heavy sands for mineral exploration.
In the Province of Gaza, Areias Pesadas do Chibuto at the epicenter of land expropriation, concession of 10,554 hectares in the Locality of Canhavano, Administrative Post of Chibuto, to extract and process heavy sands to the company Dingsheg Mining, S.A. and its partners Foreign Economic Construction Group (AFECC) and Empresa Moçambicana de Exploração Mineira, S.A. (EMEM) Moatize coal, S.A., the President of the Republic, Filipe Nyuse was the main poster figure also concession to a Chinese mining company, the scenario is not different.
Furthermore, 1 – Invested USD 460 million. An Iranian firm called Kenmare … The mining company is located on the coast of Nampula province, several people have allegedly been chased and beaten by security guards from Kenmare, which exploits heavy sands in Nampula province, according to the NGO Solidariedade Moçambique. The multinational denies the accusations. And Mutoa reveals: “Unfortunately, two months ago, in Topuito, we were surprised by the fatal shooting of two people from that community and that embarrassed us a lot. Armed Forces were on patrolin the mining”.
In 2013 for example, “African Mining Vision”, a document released in Ethiopia, focuses on how Africa can better address the issue of extractive resources. Usually some agreements are not fulfilled when it comes to facing the facts. As it happened before in the forestry sector, today in Mozambique is happening in mineral concessions which are being approved like mushrooms. Once again the authorities are taking over the concession, bebefiting a small group of people and corporations.
According to Castel-Branco (2008), mining activity in Mozambique has the potential to generate a huge flow of revenue
Nelio Manuel. Mining exploration and the expropriation of local communities, the case of Vale in the district of Nacala Velha, Mozambique.
“And if these revenues were used to generate reserves and opportunities for broad and diversified development of the productive, technological and commercial base, then Mozambique could turn the extractive industry into a lever of real development, a fact that is that all is opposity than it should be , the cost of living continued sharping for the most of the population, especially in rural areas.”
Criminalization of your own people
The marks of corporatism protected by Mozambican government in which everything is repressed with the use of police force that has become notable during the last two decades and for Professor, Academic and Political Analyst Jaime Mucuane from the Eduardo Mondlane University this practice is evident in Mozambican society and those who demand their rights are treated as criminals and the physical space is closed to those who carry out social activism, “In evaluating governance in Mozambique in recent decades, there has been an authoritarian shift and this is a fact, during these demonstrations, the excessive use of strength, those transgressions that sometimes manipulate the law, the constitutional right to demonstrations and others, it is clear that the country is in a process of autocratization, it is accelerating towards an authoritarian country and it is clear in several areas, it is also reflected in several studies that Mozambique is no longer a defective democracy and is now transformed into a country with moderate authoritarianism.
At the epicenter of the extractive industry for Mucuane the scenario is similar
“When we talk about mining areas where communities are removed from their own lands in favor of mining companies, if they complain then they are arrested, beaten, shot, the government that should protect its people, instead does protect the mining companies. ,,This is unsustainable for certain people. It is not possible to maintain this level of poverty that is increasing over time, that the country is increasingly receiving large investments in the extractive industry, it is where there are large investments but that these investments are not reflected in the development of the population, and of course there is a risk that people will revolt against this sort of thing. We know very well that among the many causes that have already been identified for what Cabo Delgado is, one of them has been this, the existence of a feeling of injustice, young people are not benefiting from it and there has even been a violation of their rights in part of these great investments in mineral resources”.
Cases from Tete that have a considerable environmental impact. “We are seeing now, the VALE mega project, the legacy of this, the environmental pollution with negative effects that are still to come, so these are examples of what is happening in our country, situations like these and naturally when people have an awareness that there are many resources exploited but that they do not have access to them, which can be a trigger for some revolt, instability.
Then there is one. In some parts of the world, this exploitation goes beyond these issues. So is means a certain risk that we have high investments that exploit great wealth but that this investment is visible to society and mainly to those who are directly affected and who feel the effects of their actions”.
Who protects, who serves the constitution and other laws protecting the multinationals!
Fanito Salatiel, Lawyer and Humanitarian Activist, according to him; – “in Mozambique, in terms of hierarchy, we have the Constitution of the Republic, which is the Mother Law and all laws are subordinated to it, and even at the level of the constitution there are a series of precepts at this level that legitimize a series of prerogatives where one of which is this freedom for Mozambicans to associate in order to be able to organize and therefore defend the interests of these organizations, this is the constitutional limit, this legal opening.
My view point is that, in fact, with the expansion of corporate power, it is a fact and it is true that this limitation ends up affecting those rights, let’s say basic rights of the community, fundamental rights. As you know, these transnational megaprojects are very strong from an economic point of view and many times when they are inserted in communities, they make a series of promises and in the end we see and have several examples such as in the case of VALE and now the most recently Cabo Delgado.. I come from the province of Cabo Delgado and we have some examples, in Namahumbir we have a mining company there, we have in Balama, in Ancuabe and in other places… What we have actually seen is the exacerbated use of force, often disproportionate and unnecessary. Use of force is totally illegal, there’s no doubt about that.
Some of the people in the world’s poorest countries earn their living from artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM), and best practices in artisanal mining (ASM) and human rights remain an unresolved issue.
In a study held by Agency for Economic Development in Cabo Delgado (ADEL), artisanal mining in Cabo Delgado involves more than 125,000 people, including men, women and children. A study shows that men are more dedicated to digging (89%) because it requires more effort, women are dedicated to support activities (41%) and washing (25%), while most young people and children are dedicated to washing ( 44%) and support jobs (26%). Garimpeiros are mostly organized in informal groups made up of 3 to 10 people, all united by family or friendship relationships. There are also associations at least 11 associations, with 1,378 members (78% men and 22% women) of which 3 are legalized.
Estacio Valoi / Namanhumbir /Ex trabalhadores Garimpo da Gemfields/MRM/November 20, 2021/ September 5, 2022
Still on artisanal mining and its contribution
Taking a holistic view of the health impacts of this mining including occupational, environmental and unique human/social factors, the study highlights poverty as a particular focus of risk for garimpeiros. “They are commonly poverty-stricken in poor countries, ensnared by a variety of poverty traps, which undermine the health and well-being of individuals and communities.”
Although artisnal mining it is an inefficient method, a large number of people can contribute substantially to a country’s total production GDP . Around the world, millions of people work with primitive tools, picks, shovels, and pots to extract the Earth’s valuable natural resources. Commonly reported global estimates of 40 million people in 80 countries (IISD, 2017), compared to approximately 7 million people in “industrial mining”. An estimated 150 million people depend on the ASM industry (IISD, 2017). Although ASM is inefficient, it contributes 20% to 25%.
It is widely considered “indispensable” and “the most important non-agricultural activity in the developing world” (World Bank, 2019). For poor nations, it often offers an important opportunity to alleviate the problems of rural poverty (World Bank, 2019). ASM activities have exploded across the world as the negative and positive impacts are too great to ignore. However, the activity remains informal, because management attempts have produced minimal results on a global scale, specifically in the poorest countries (Debrah et al., 2014).” https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2020GH000325
For Yianni Melas of GEM EXPLORER, GIA (GIA (Gemological Institute of America)
“This is very good because it is everything that Mozambican artisanal miners want for themselves. Be allowed to do mining as well. Honestly, the corrective plan is already in place as they fear being exposed. So I don’t see it as a change and I knew it would be because their interest is not in exposing the truth but in continuing their business. What happened in Mozambique is a crime and corrective action is not punitive action. Impact isn’t just about changing to make up for past crimes, it’s also about exposing and punishing those who committed these crimes that, incidentally, they never admitted to.
True justice is not reform unless crimes are punished. Once the culprits have been found guilty and have paid their sentence in prison, they can be reformed. Taking a criminal who ordered torture and quietly reforming him is not impactful.
Informing the industry what crimes have been committed. European standards of justice in the case of torture are exposure and punishment first and reform last. But for Africans it seems that the case is always being settled out of court, and reforms to bring about change, not justice. And that’s where we differ.
Residents are now demanding more space in and around the company to engage in artisanal mining. Gemfields says no, artisanal mining is dangerous, but can’t they create better conditions for the locals to do it!!? At the bottom is the age-old question: get out of a bad situation or stay home and try to make things better from the inside?”
Estacio Valoi / Namanhumbir /Ex trabalhadores Garimpo da Gemfields/MRM
https://www.dw.com/pt-002/mo%C3%A7ambique-seguran%C3%A7a-da-kenmare-acusada-de-violar-direitos-humanos/a-45371337
Camponeses denunciam a empresa Mozambique Holdings Lda as autoridades policiais em Lugela
https://racismoambiental.net.br/2022/02/02/vale-o-dossie-mocambique/
