Photo Credit: Daily Dispatch
The Amadiba community on the Wild Coast of South Africa urgently need your support. They have been bravely fighting against a proposed mining operation on their ancestral lands for over a decade now, managing to hold the Australian mining company, Mineral Commodities Ltd (MRC), and the power of the state at bay through their courageous and determined stance to never allow mining on their land. The Amadiba Crisis Committee (ACC) is the body elected by the community in 2007 to represent them in their struggle against the proposed mining operation. But last week the struggle took a new, violent turn when the chairperson of the ACC, Sikhosiphi ‘Bazooka’ Rhadebe, was brutally assassinated at his home late in the evening of Tuesday 22 March. On that same day he had managed to reveal to other members of the ACC that their was a hit list with the names of anti-mining activists, and his was the first name. It is clear that the remaining activists are now also in serious danger.
The response in solidarity and financial contributions has been amazing, but the ACC still urgently needs as much financial support as it can get, in order to:
- Assist Bazooka’s family with the costs of his funeral
- Transport community members and activists to the funeral so that the passing of Bazooka may be respected and so that the funeral can be a show of community unity and resolve in continuing the fight against the proposed mining
- Assist with the costs of hiring a private pathologist to ensure a proper autopsy is conducted on Bazooka to ensure an accurate account of how he died is secured
- Support the ACC in its daily activities of coordinating the struggle against the proposed mining. It is particularly in urgent need of such financial assistance as it is critical that at this moment the struggle is intensified to push back against the forces that are now resorting to murder in their attempts to suppress the communities’ resistance to the proposed mining operation.
To make a financial contribution to the Amadiba Crisis Committee (ACC) now, however big or small, you can do so by direct bank transfer, through GivenGain or through the Sustaining the Wild Coast (SWC) website:
Direct Bank Deposit:
Sustaining the Wild Coast
First National Bank
Randburg
Acc no: 62157997639
Code: 254005
Swift: FIRNZAJJ
Physical address: cnr Main Ave/Republic Rd, Randburg
Reference: ‘Bazooka Cause’
Through GivenGain:
To make a financial contribution through the crowd funding website, GivenGain, please go to the following link: https://www.givengain.com/cause/3699/campaigns/17130/
Through the SWC website:
www.swc.org.za/donate.php (please also be sure to reference your donation as ‘Bazooka Cause’).
All funds raised will be administered by SWC, and utilised exclusively for this cause.
We thank you for your kind contribution to the Amadiba anti-mining struggle.
Please also circulate this appeal as widely as you can in your networks, social media, websites etc. The response has already been amazing, please help us keep this up! Please also use the hashtags #RIPBazooka and #StopWildCoastMining in your social media work.
For further information, contact: Mzamo Dlamini 072 194 0949; Nonhle Mbuthuma 076 3592982
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