Project name: Alternative History Project
Date of interview: 2007-06-10
Location of interview: Maandagshoek, Limpopo
Language of interview: Sotho
Name of Interviewer/s: Dale McKinley & Ahmed Veriava
Name of Interviewee/s: Lucas Serage & Pinky Komane
Name of translator: Emmanuel Mokgoga
Name of transcriber: Moses Moremi
Audio file name: AHP_MAA_SerageLucasKomanePinky_20070610
INTERVIEW WITH LUCAS SERAGE AND PINKY KOMANE

DM: Ok thank you first of all for coming to talking with us can you, please just feel relax as possible, what we are tying to do is to have conversation with your it is not a formal interview. We are, I want to try and some stones particular stories around what's seen happing the mine and the protests and what happened to you, before we do that can you just say your name?

Lucas Serage (LS): my name is Lucas Serage I was born here.

Pinkiy Komane (PM): My name is Pinky Komane.

DM: OK thanks you Pinky and Lucas thanks you again, lets starts with the incidents that we been hearing about with regard to the mine, tell us what happened, what happened when two got arrested? What was going on, what did you do and why were you doing it?

LS: First things that I need to tell you is that when we got arrested they did not tell us why they were arresting us, when we arrived at the police station; they told us that they are arresting us because of public violence. They said I put stones on the road and they gave us 30 minutes to remove those stones and these people who have put those stones have already left the place. They took us at around 2 on Wednesday on the 23. They did not charge us the same day, we got charged the following day .we never gone to court because they told us that the court is on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

DM: Pinky do you want to add on that?

PK: the mine did nothing for us and even when they same to us our chief told us nothing , we told them to go back and the chief called the meeting on the 31 December the chief told those men are coming and the chief was not asking us he was just telling us. They came on the 19 January and started warning. We looking for a lawyer and disturb those men not to work. when the police came they found stones on the road and ask us to remove those stones we told them we don't know who parts those stones they arrested us to Moroke police station, our layer came and applied for a bail, they gave us 1000 bail each and our lawyer negotiated about the bail to be reduced to 50 rand because we are not working. They denied that and the bail was reduced to 500 each then we came out.

DM: can you both tell us why it that you engaged in this protest is? why did you part rocks on the roads and did you feel it was necessary as young people in this community to have that kind of action knowing that probably they was going to be trouble as result of what you are doing ?

LS: We put the stones on the road which was used by the miners to block them.

DM: What we trying to do here is to get the side of the story, so tell us a little bit more about why you are feeling strongly as resident to stop the mine to do this kinds of things, what the problem? Why do you see as young people here what the problem with the mine? What they are doing and what they are not doing and how it affects your lives and the community?

LS: We wanted them to talk to us first and tell us how long they are going to be here for prospective. And there should be our lawyer who can satisfy the people. They just told us about the lawyers which are in Gauteng, which we did not even see them.

AV: How did you hear the mine is coming to town?

PK: We heard from the meeting which was organized by our chief. The chief told us without requesting us that there are people who are coming to make prospections of the place. We knew that what they are looking is available here. We did not agree with the chief and he (Chief) told us we don't want to get rich. And now those people don't help us with anything. When they are working they left oil at our farms were we make the living from farming.

AV: Can I just ask you a question, just a follow up from that one. So the chief agreed when the mine came?

LS: Yes.

AV: How did the community feel about the chief been agreed to the mine coming?

LS: Community became angry because the chief did not consult them first and they (community) believe he is a chief because of them as followers.

AV: How did you, when did you decide you gonna block the roads? Did you decide it at the meeting?

PK: We took the decision at our meeting and we agreed to disturb those men not to go to the drilling point.

AV: So you gone to the meeting then to the mine to go to block the road?

LS: We started at the meeting and we were marching.

AV: How many people were there? Where there a lot of people from the community in the march?

LS: I can't say the number exactly but what I remember is that we were many.

PK: We were many so that we can't even count.

DM: ok I want to ask you something personal, something about why is it both of you were young students' rights? Why is that you feel as students here in this community that you should be involved in doing something like this not just involved in saying we don't like the mine in this community because is not doing what we want, but actually going so far as to get arrested and spent sometime in jail. What is it that making you feel angry and why do you want to do this things?

LS: We thought the mine will provide us with bursaries because they are many people who passed matric with exemptions and merit but doing nothing

DM: And what do you think Pinky?

PK: Our school is not up to the standard, we don't have tar roads and our houses have cracked as a result of the mine and the mine is doing nothing about that.

AV: Can I ask you a question, you know they say the mine is to help, why do you believe the mine is to help this community?

LS: There were suppose to be an agreement first that they want to mine here and they would do this and that.

AV: What I want to ask you now is unlike all the platinum here, do you think that is right the mines comes and take better wealth from the community without developing?

PK: This is our platinum if they took it they should develop our community and they must provide us with the service delivery.

LS: To add on that, we are the poorest village and we are getting our water from the river and that water is not healthy.

DM: So that makes me want to ask another question for you to tell another part of the story which is, ok you have the mine, they heard what the mine is doing about coming in not consulting you, your chief making deals maybe you don't like so you do this kinds of activities but as younger people as students here how do you think this problem in your community the fact that you have to get water from the river, how do you think those things are going to be solved? Who do maybe you can get the bursary from the mine or maybe that only good for the students, maybe not for the rest of the community, so what do you think its going to begin to solve to problem and you see the poverty in the community not just about what the mine might be doing there to get the platinum?

LS: I think if at first we had an agreement with the mine maybe we should have reached agreement that the mine should benefit us all and it should provide us with water.

DM: Do you agree Pinky?

PK: If the mine which came into our yard to drill should provide us with water and electricity because that side of Ga-Mpuru they don't have electricity. We even buy water.

DM: Can I come back to something. I want both of you if you tell me how it is that conditions that you live in here, no water (meets), the distances to school, how is it in the daily life, give us an indication of what is like for both of you when you wake-up in the morning till the end of the day? What the daily life for you and how does this poverty and the things that you don't have affects your life as students and as young people?

LS: We travel long distances to school and when we are going to the river we use wheelbarrows. People wash their clothes with that water and the animals also drink that water.

PK: It took us 30 minutes to school and even to the river it took us 30 minutes but those from Ga-Mpuru took about 1 hour to school. The water which we are drinking is not safe but they kept on saying we are rich because we have platinum. The miners took our platinum and leave us like that.

DM: So have you or some of your brother and sisters, your family become sick because of the water, diarrhea, and the stomach? I mean is there being sickness?

LS: There was the guy who got Trafford and got to the hospital they told him to stop drinking that water is not safe but we didn't stop because we don't have a choice, we have to drink that water as is the only one we've got.

DM: The one thing I want to get you, I want to get to you talked about why you became activists in the community, the mine and the things that you want to see the mine do. What do you think as student you are learning about South Africa, about that are in government, what do you think the local municipality should be doing in Maandagshoek because what you told us so far is the mine will come and deliver, provide the water, isn't the water, roads and transport and everything, isn't it that suppose to be with the local municipality? What do you think the local municipality should be doing here?

LS: I don't see anything which was done by the Greater Tubatse municipality except to pour soil on the roads and when the rain comes its just cleans all the soil and left the roads with stones.

DM: Ok I am asking, I understand are not helping, I'm saying as, do you think, I'm trying to get the sense from both of you here, you are young people, you are going to be graduating from high school, you are going to be trying to get jobs and other things. What do you think role of those that are elected, those that are put there by government, what do you think their role is in this kinds of communities? That's what I'm trying to find out?

PK: We should have paved roads, provide us with water and electricity and disabled people should get proper care.

LS: Our school looks old and there is no water. Our principal is trying by all means to get water for our trees.

AV: Pinky I want to ask you just for now, it's a little bit of a difficult question just because its ask you to think about yourself a broad but if someone ask you do to describe yourself, who you are now and who you want to be, how would you do that?

DM: What are your dreams? (All laughing).

AV: Right now today you know what are the things that makes you strong woman, what are those things?

PK: I want to grow up and I want to have a sewing company as I know how to sew.

AV: Can I ask, I mean before we move to, push focus on you for a bit, how did you learn sewing?

PK: My mother has a sewing machine and I used to look at her when sewing. She used to give me some stuff to sew them.

AV: And how do you see, like you know when you are going and blocking the mine road, do you see that there is a relationship between what you wanna do, owning your own sewing place and that do you see the two been the , do you see doing the one as helping build the other one?

PK: We blocked the road because we want the mine to build those projects, I want to see my self having my own sewing factory.

AV: And yourself same question?

LS: I want to see my self educated, working where I can be satisfied, places like at the mine as a miner and that should be the mine's responsibility to get us educated.

AV: You know me, my name is Ahmed Veriava and today I live in Hillbrow in Johannesburg and who I am as a person its got to do with, like for instances because my father was a doctor and my mother she worked in the bank. The two of them worked to send me to school but also when I was growing up I got involved in politics and you know the struggle against apartheid and then at university the struggle there and so when I grew up I wanted to do what I'm doing now, which is to steal people's stories and tell people what we are fighting our right to tell our stories, now that what I got here right. I'm curious to know how you believe you got to be the person that you are today. I wanna know if they got the sense of now they got to be the person they want to be today? When I see you guys I'm inspired to you, you know, you are youngsters who are fighting with great bravery and I'm curious to know where do you think that great bravery of yours comes from?

LS: I was inspired by the miner and that is why I'm saying the mine should take me to school so that I can become a miner one day.

AV: Ok and yourself Pinky?

PK: I want to see my self furthering my studies and I also want to have my sewing project and selling my brand to retailers.

DM: Ok I want to both of you have lives ahead of you, you know you are young, is thinking about being a miner or maybe running a sewing business and the other things. When you look at your community here do you think you will want to stay in this community and contribute or as your dreams like I want to go to Nelspruit, I want to go to Johannesburg or somewhere else? Do you think it's possible to realize your dreams here in this community with being here or do you think that you gonna have to leave?

LS: I want to see myself living in Gauteng at the suburbs. (All laughs) The children in the suburbs get better life and proper education. Here in the village children get addicted to alcohol at the young age. No proper education in rural areas.

DM: Pinky?

PK: I want to live in Gauteng because we are suffering here. The mine does not do anything for us, it does not want to take us to school, and maybe if we can be in Gauteng we can get better education.

DM: So both of you maybe, are saying and I understand, I mean I live in Joburg myself and I can understand that you want to go and have other opportunities and different life. What do you think is going to happen with this community if all the young people leave, if they go and get jobs, then we have older people, children and women? Do you think its important for young people to stay here in this community for the help of, for the life of the community because if all the young people move away and then maybe the community will die? Ja, what do you think, I'm just asking your opinions you know I mean you have expressed your opinion, do you think its important not you individually but just generally?

LS: There are people who think they are wiser than us who move from here to certain places but still signing our papers as the resident of this community and these makes the mine to make us suffer.

DM: Ok: Pinky what do you think?

PK: I think we are suffering. People from nowhere come to our village and sell our place. We are afraid that this could led to us being killed or arrested again because we can't stop fighting for our place.

DM: Ok, just two/three more question that I have, both of you, did you both voted, were you able to vote in the last local elections last?

LS: Yes.

DM: Pinky?

PK: Yes.

DM: And are you happy with, you voted because you wanted to elect somebody whose going to represent, are you happy with that, with what the person you voted for and the party do you voted for, are you happy with what is been done since the local government elections? You don't have to tell us who you voted for, I'm just saying are you happy with the way things have done, how those people have represented you?

LS: I am happy with those people we have elected, government is distributing the money but there are other people at the lower level whom I think they took our money for their own benefit.

PK: I can say we are happy and at the same time not because we tried to write letters to them but they just throw them in the bin and say we are stupid and uneducated.

DM: You told us about what you like to do and that you might want to live in the future and everything else, but in the broad sense, you know sometimes when you wake up in the morning and you say haa!!! I had a nice dream, you feel nice or you jump up and you had a bad dream and you are not feeling good, if you look at the next five years from 2007 maybe to 2012, do you feel about how the future holds for you and for the place where you live?

LS: If we continue fighting with the mine I see bad things happening in the future but if we can negotiate and reach the agreement I think we will have the good future.

PK: If we can continue fighting these miners I think they would be forced to come to the table to negotiate better deals. If we leave them they will just take our minerals and left us suffering.

Emmanuel (interpreter): Because you are still young and students and you have already been arrested, how do you feel been a prisoners? What was life inside the prison?

LS: I was hurt, life in jail is not good and the other thing that I would like to say is that Moroke police supports those miners because they told us that they punish us in order to prevent us from disturbing the miners. You can not even get satisfied with the food you eat.

PK: It's painful in the prison. On the 28 they did not give us food saying that they are punishing. I think it is clear that the police were supports the mine. When we are going to report a case they don't take us serious they just throw away our docket.

Emmanuel: Because the mine is still coming are you still prepared to continue to demand your needs from the mine?

PK: We are prepared to protect our land. Those men should sit down with us and agree on what we want then we can agree with them to mine here. And we will continue to go there and if they arrest us we are prepared to stay in prison.

LS: We are prepared to fight even if they can call the police, they can arrest us but we would be fighting for our place. We want to be satisfied all of us not individuals.

Emmanuel: Because after you got arrested for burning the machines and blocking the road, the mine has hired bodyguards for "Kgosi" and the counselors that they are working with. How do you feel about the mine hiring those bodyguards to protect people who are selling your land?

LS: It hurts because those people are the one who sold our land and it's just amazing to see that they have bodyguards. We don't fight with them.

PK: Because they know they are the once who sold our land they hired bodyguards. We are not fighting them. They just realized after we have burnt the machines that maybe we can come to their homes and burn them too and that's not our intentions, we only fighting with the mine.

Emmanuel: What do you want to say about Shariff, a respected person who has been in prison for 14 years and his wife is a minister of education, because you were arrested and jumped classes and the responsibility is in the hands of Naledi Pandor, what do you say about Naledi Pandor and his husband Shariff?

LS: Shariff Pandor was someone which the country respected and with the situation like this it's just amazing to see what his intentions were. We have been in prison for 14 days as school children and we are left behind with the school work. We didn't expect Shariff Pandor to be the one who is causing these problems for us because he had fight for this country and it came as a surprise to hear that Pandor is the minister of the Nkwe Platinum Mine.

PK: Pandor was someone which we respected and he fought for our country, so even us we want to fight for our land and we got arrested and spent 14 days in prison. We are school children and we are left behind with the school work.