WATCH: Illegal miners take on mining giant in what they call a battle between the ‘needy and the greedy’

In a David vs Goliath scenario an informal miners association has taken on national diamond mining giant‚ Ekapa‚ in a fight for the protection of their rights.

Mining Affected Communities United in Action (Macua) on Wednesday approached the Hawks to establish why an illegal mining case that they lodged in September with the Northern Cape Hawks against Ekapa had not been investigated.

Macua claims that Ekapa‚ which is reprocessing De Beers diamond mine dumps outside Kimberley‚ does not have legal permits to remine the dumps‚ and that they should be criminally charged for illegal mining.

• Zama zamas‚ backed by BLF‚ protest against 'illegal mine'Informal miners in Kimberley in the Northern Cape have protested against mining company Ekapa‚ which the miners claim has been operating without a permit. 

According to the company‚ it has been given permission by De Beers to reprocess the dumps.

Ekapa is currently pitted in a legal battle in the Supreme Court of Appeal with over 800 informal miners to have them stopped from coming onto land on which the mine dumps are situated. The company won an earlier Northern Cape high court ruling to have the miners stopped from mining the dumps.

It’s this decision which Macua and human rights advocacy group‚ Action Aid‚ are currently appealing.

Macua and Action Aid officials met on Thursday with the Northern Cape premier in Kimberley to try to find a political solution to their plight.

• 'There are no rules there' - The life of a zama zamaIllegal miners are at the bottom of the food chain in the illegal mining industry and they follow orders given by kingpins. 

Action Aid's mining extractives project manager‚ Sifiso Dladla‚ said they were assisting the miners as part of a larger battle with government to have informal mining decriminalised.

"The legalisation of informal mining has been shown to have huge financial benefits for countries. All informal miners want is an opportunity to legally work without harassment from authorities so that they can support their families. They have never had an issue with paying taxes."

He said Action Aid saw this fight as a fight between the "greedy and the needy".

"Our role here is to ensure the protection of these miners human rights. We are working with Macua on a national and provincial level‚ to bring their plight to the attention of government.

"We want to ensure that there rights are included under the Mineral Petroleum Resources Development Act‚ which we want to see formalise and legalise artisanal mining."

• 'If we don’t do this‚ what can we do? I don’t want to be a criminal' ... Zama zamas talk about life undergroundShhhk. Shhhk. Shhhk. Twenty-six year old Zimbabwean migrant Learnmore and dozens of other men are busy crushing rocks in the hope of finding some gold. 

Kholisile Dingiswayo‚ Macua national secretary‚ said since September they had been trying to get the Hawks to investigate Ekapa for illegal mining. "We want to know why our members are arrested for illegal mining‚ yet Ekapa officials‚ who don’t have the necessary permits to mine the dumps‚ are not.

"The Hawks told us this week that they would respond to our questions on why this case has not been investigated‚ in two weeks time."

He said informal miners operating in the area‚ removed roughly R5-million worth of diamonds a month‚ which they sold to diamond dealers in Kimberley and Johannesburg.

"The informal miners have been operating in this area for 14 years. Our lawyers have recently discovered that Ekapa has also been operating in the area for years without the proper permits.

"We don’t believe our harassment‚ which includes the company interdicting us from coming onto the land and using security forces to arrest us‚ is fair."

The group's lawyer‚ Johan Lorenzen‚ said they approached the SCA on Monday to have Ekapa's interdict against 860 informal miners over turned.

• Illegal miners forced at gunpoint to carry bodiesAbel Abugalo described in chilling detail how he and other illegal miners were forced by “security guards” to carry the bodies of colleagues who were shot dead earlier this month in Benoni‚ near Johannesburg. 

"We are waiting to here if the matter will proceed."

He said they were also appealing an eviction of hundreds of families of informal miners from land next to the land owned by Ekapa and De Beers.

"That eviction is by the Swedish South African International Housing Company which obtained the land from De Beers. What was suspicious for us was the timing of the interdict‚ which came in September‚ and the eviction application‚ which was made in October.

"We cannot say that they are linked but the timing is suspicious."

Lorenzen said they had established that while De Beers had the right to mine the dumps‚ Ekapa did not as De Beers rights had not yet been transferred to the company.

Ekapa spokesman Gert Klopper‚ who said the company had permission to mine the dumps‚ described the appeal as a last gasp attempt to derail the eviction and interdict.

"We have confidence that the court's interdict decision will be upheld."

- TMG Digital/TimesLIVE