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The groundWork Report 2006: Poisoned Spaces Manufacturing wealth, producing poverty Written by David Hallowes and Victor Munnik October 2006 ISBN 0620374527 Published by groundWork , P.O.Box 2375, Pietermaritzburg, 3200, South Africa Tel: +27 -33 342 5662 Fax: +27 -33 342 5665 Email: [email protected] Web: www.groundwork.org.za Cover page: Mittal Steel’s factory in Vanderbijlpark (Iscor) Photo by Victor Munnik foreword Foreword Today, we celebrate Human Rights Day on the 22nd of March because of the struggles by Sharpeville residents in the Vaal Triangle against the Apartheid state, which resulted in the callous murder of at least 69 residents during a peaceful protest in 1960. Today, in this very same geographical and political space, resistance is emerging to the present corporate-led model of development that entrenches environmental, social and economic injustice. People are rising in resistance to the state's support for this model of development and proclaiming the challenge of democracy to deliver on another future. groundWork is privileged to work and participate in the challenge to change the Vaal Triangle landscape. Whether, together with local people, we will be successful in creating and finding new democratic spaces to ensure a Vaal Triangle that delivers on the promises of the Freedom Charter and a democratic South African Constitution in the short to medium term is left to be seen, but the spaces we challenge for, and those that are created and held by local communities, will be the basis for long term change. groundWork's interaction in the Vaal stems from a trip to Sasolburg in April 2000, when I, together with Desmond D'Sa, a member of the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance, met and talked with local community people to try to understand the problems they faced living on the fenceline of the Sasol petrochemical cluster. It was an amazing road journey that started at 4 o'clock in the morning and took us through the backwaters of rural Free State, to arrive in Sasolburg seven hours later to meet with community people we had only spoken with over the phone until then, and then back to Durban at 11 o'clock that same evening. The first drive through Sasolburg sent shivers down my back – it terrified me, and it still does. Blue and yellow flares, tasting the smell of chemical emissions and being overpowered by the intensity of the visual intimidation of this industrial complex, was an experience that I have since relived in Poisoned Spaces- groundWork - 1 - foreword various places in the Vaal Triangle. Since 2002 groundWork has developed a strong relationship with communities in the Vaal Triangle and has worked at developing relationships, both nationally and globally, between the Vaal communities and other civil society members who experience similar environmental injustices determined by global corporate-led states. Corporate led injustices perpetuated against the people in the Vaal began in the apartheid era and are still starkly evident today, with environmental injustices perpetuated daily by state supported industrial pollution. This is a place where people are impoverished and denied their constitutional rights, not least of which their right to an “environment that is not harmful to their health and well- being”, by capitalism. This groundWork Report, our fifth in seven years, reflects on the challenges faced by people in the Vaal Triangle, builds upon the previous reports in the series and seeks to create a resource for people to strengthen their struggles, not only in the Vaal, but also nationally. - 2 - Poisoned Spaces - groundWork acknowledgements Acknowledgements Thanks to the many people who gave their time to help with the making of this report. The idea of making the Vaal Triangle the focus of the fifth groundWork Report was largely inspired by the formation of the Vaal Environmental Justice Alliance (VEJA) in 2005. VEJA is composed of 12 organisations who have been active on different fronts of environmental justice. VEJA brings both the people and the issues together in a common front for the first time and so takes the struggle for people's rights and environmental justice to a new level. Organisations participating in VEJA are: - African Genesis Heritage Environmental Club; - Boipatong Environmental Working Group (BEWG); - Christian Knowledge Independent Churches Forum (CKICF); - Friends of Steel Valley (FoSV); - Justice and Peace Desk of the Catholic Bishops' Conference, Bophelong; - National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa); - Samancor Retrenched Workers Crisis Committee (SRWCC); - Sasolburg Air Quality Monitoring Committee (SAQMC); - South African National Civics Organisation (Sanco), Sedibeng region. - Steel Valley Crisis Committee (SVCC); - Tsebo(Adult Education and Training); - Vaal Working Class Community Coordinating Committee (VWCCCC) Activists from the member organisations took time out to show us around and introduce us to many other people in the Vaal Triangle. Our thanks to all for their extraordinary generosity in making us welcome and sharing their stories and insights. Our guides were Caroline Ntaopane and Belinda Ratau of SAQMC in Sasolburg and Zamdela; Matshediso Tsotetsi-Dhlamini of BEWG in Vanderbijlpark, Boipatong and Steel Valley, Phineas Malapela of VWCCC in Sebokeng and Evaton, and Thandekile Dodo of Tseboin Bophelong. Poisoned Spaces - groundWork - 3 - acknowledgements The people that they introduced us to are not all activists within organisations but all are deeply engaged in the life of the area. They include Suping Mabifi and Elizabeth Mabifi of Zamdela; Themba Mjikane, chair of SAQMC; Mabuti Mlangeni of the Chemical, Energy, Paper, Printing, Wood and Allied Workers Union (CEPPWAWU); John Mbele, Israel Molefe, Freddie Mabaso and Setjele Mofokeng of BEWG; Lennox Msomane of Sanco and the Minister's Fraternal, Strike Matsepo of the Steel Valley Crisis Committee, Chakufmann Qhokoyi of Sebokeng Zone 15 and Ernest Sigaqana and the men of the KwaMasiza Hostel; Bafana Makhanya and Johannes Malindi of the Samancor Retrenched Workers Crisis Committee; Solomon Mtwala and Themba Joel Moko of the Wilderbeesfontein Evaton Community Organisation; Cyril Diwu of Bophelong. We gained additional insights from a groundWork workshop with VEJA on air quality, facilitated by Bobby Peek, Siziwe Khanyile and Rico Euripidou. groundWork also organised a community exchange hosted by VEJA in the Vaal Triangle. Visiting organisations included the Voice of the Voiceless from Secunda and the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance. Collectively they gave us a good insight into the broader community of environmental justice organisations confronting industrial pollution and discrimination in spatial planning. Anina van Wyk and the staff of the Vaal Teknorama Museum were most generous with their time while Tony Kent of the Bateleur's flew us over the area. Thanks also to Johann Tempelhoff, Jacklyn Cock, Stefan Cramer, TshepoSibusi and Neville Felix for discussions and information. A reference group for the research team included Nina Benjamin, Peter Dwyer, David Fig, Siziwe Khanyile, Raj Patel, Bobby Peek and Salim Vally. A meeting of the group was a stimulating event in itself, fertile with ideas and suggestions, and the group's comments on the research proposal and on a draft of the report were most helpful. Mark Butler has co-authored previous groundWork Reports but was unable to participate in writing this one. He nevertheless contributed substantially to conceptualising it and participated in the first research visit to the Vaal Triangle. The team at groundWork were, as always, a pleasure to work with. This research is limited in terms of the longer term engagement with the people and environmental justice organisations of the Vaal Triangle. That commitment rests with groundWork and this research was intended contribute to it - 4 - Poisoned Spaces - groundWork acknowledgements without displacing it. Special thanks to Siziwe Khanyile who facilitated and accompanied our visits to the area. The maps were produced by Brian Garman and based on those developed by Matrix Environmental Consultants for Yvonne Scorgie's 2004 report on air quality in the Vaal done for the Legal Resource Centre. This report has also drawn on previous groundWork Reports, on a report on energy policy by David Hallowes for the Sustainable Energy and Climate Change Project and on Jackie Cock and Victor Munnik's account of struggles over Iscor's pollution of Steel Valley. This groundWork Report is dedicated to the memory of Thandekile Dodo who represented the adult education organisation Tsebo on the VEJA committee. He suffered from polio as a child and endured constant pain and ill-health throughout his life. He died on 17 July 2006. Dodo lived as an activist, fighting for access to education for poor children and organising adult education programmes as well as teaching classes. He also saw the broader context of poverty and linked the cause of education to that of environmental justice. Poisoned Spaces - groundWork - 5 - contents Contents Introduction ..........................................................9 Contested development ................................................10 Regimes of power ..............................................11 Resistance ....................................................12 Crisis and change ..............................................14 1. The Vaal in South Africa..............................................17 The concentration of power ...........................................18