The lounge in which slain KwaZulu-Natal anti-mining activist Fikile Ntshangase drew her last breath before her assassination remains untouched.
Her cream leather couches are immaculately positioned in the centre of the room, illuminated by pixels reflected from her television.
The brown leather back of a chair rests comfortably against the table where she had been seated on the night of October 22 2020, cutting vegetables as she spoke to her friend and listened to gospel music, just moments before gunmen entered her home in Ophondweni, northern KZN, firing six bullets, ripping through the chest, shoulders and abdomen of the 63-year-old grandmother.
“We didn’t change anything, it’s all the same,” Malungelo Xhakaza, Ntshangase’s only daughter, says as she sits on the very chair her mother was killed.
Saturday marked two years since Ntshangase was murdered.
At the time of her death, Ntshangase was deputy chairperson of the Mfolozi Community Environmental Justice Organisation (Mcejo) fiercely opposing a 222km² expansion by coal-mining giant Tendele in the region.
Xhakaza’s world has been turned inside out. The case into her mother’s murder has yet to yield any results, providing little comfort in the painstaking weeks leading up to the anniversary of her death.
The 32-year-old said she had only just begun the process of grieving.
“I’ve had to juggle the roles of a full-time mom, which required me to relocate back home from Durban and move back into the home where my mother was killed. I also had to cope with not dealing with things in front of my son so he could open up to me about what he was going through. We barely had time to mourn my father, who died from cancer three months before my mother was killed.”
Her son, Mbuyile, who was 13 at the time, was at home when the gunmen entered on that fateful day.
He, together with two friends, had been asked by the gunmen to look after their dog as they entered the home.
She said after the murder Mbuyile distanced himself and began acting out towards people close to him.
“We started therapy, he would go to sessions by himself and sometimes with me. When he eventually did open up to me the only thing he said to me was: ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t protect her.’ Can you imagine a 13-year-old having that guilt on his shoulders?”
Overcome with emotion seated on the stoep outside the front door of her mother’s home, Xhakaza broke down in tears as she recalled the strain placed on her family.
Embodying much of her mother’s fearless nature, Xhakaza’s decision to move back home straight after the murder, leaving her job as a call centre agent in Durban, aimed to solidify what her mother stood for.
“I did it for myself, I did it to feel closer to my mom and dad, but also I didn’t want to give whoever is behind this the satisfaction that they can intimidate us. If I move away it means that my mom died in vain. She always said her fight was not about her generation but for the generations to come. If I have to move out of the community she was trying to protect for my kids, it means I am against what she was fighting for and that can never be the case.”
Steadfast in her decision, Xhakaza went as far as declining an offer by the Southern Africa Human Rights Defenders Network to relocate her and her family to a safe house.
Xhakaza acknowledged the complexity and sensitivity of her mother’s case but said she had “surpassed the level of frustration”.
“I’m drowning in depression. I wish this was over. I think finding the killers and having them arrested will help a lot with the healing process. I just don’t want this case to go cold.”
Sheila Berry, director of Global Environmental Trust, an NGO which has been fighting for the rights of rural communities in the region, challenging coal mining on their tribal land, has been assisting Xhakaza with therapy and support.
“Malungelo is extremely proud of her mother's achievements and the important legacy of courage and caring for her community that Fikile has left behind. She is determined to live a life that would make her mother proud. She cannot be another Fikile. She is finding her own unique way to make a meaningful mark in this world, one that is bold and beautiful.”
Ntshangase’s murder fell on the back of a 2018 court battle launched against Tendele’s coal mine expansion by Mcejo, the Global Environmental Trust, Mining Affected Communities In Action, the Southern Africa Human Rights Defenders Network and ActionAid South Africa after the failed appeal to minister of mineral resources and energy Gwede Mantashe.
In May, Pretoria high court acting judge Noluntu Bam ruled in favour of the applicants, declaring Tendele’s mining rights invalid.
Judge Bam further nullified the approval by the KZN regional manager of the department of mineral resources of environmental plans which Tendele submitted to mine a further 222km² — finding the public participation process defective and that before the minister made a decision on the appeal, a full public participation process needed to be conducted.
The entire grant of the licence was ordered to be reconsidered by Mantashe.
Mantashe was further ordered to reopen an appeal lodged by various community organisations which had previously been dismissed.
Nathi Kunene, business development manager of Tendele Mining, told TimesLIVE Premium the public participation process began in July.
“The mine has held four public participation meetings in the community and several virtual meetings with interested and affected parties. In some of the community meeting there were more than 500 attendees. There are additional meetings planned.”
He said the outcome of all of the public participation meetings would be provided to the minister as part of the appeal process.
Ntshangase’s murder has received the attention of international human rights organisations.
In December 2020 Ntshangase formed part of a report by the UN Human Rights Council, which documented the killing of 1,323 activists worldwide between 2015 and 2020.
In September last year Global Witness published a report titled Last Line of Defence, on global industries causing the climate crisis and attacks against land and environmental defenders.
Ntshangase’s story was the opening feature, told through Xhakaza.
While pressure has been mounting on police to make arrests, it is understood the case received national attention. The docket has been being reallocated from KwaMsane police station and assigned to a detective at the provincial office in Durban.
Environmental attorney Kirsten Youens, who represented the applicants, said she had faith that police would make arrests in Ntshangase’s case.
“I know the investigating officer is working hard on the case and that it is well-advanced. I don’t want to say too much, but though there have been are arrests there has been a lot of progress. I know the sergeant involved in the case is determined to make sure the case is airtight and that’s why it has taken a long time. Tracking hitmen in KZN is not an easy job.”
An independent report compiled by Youens and her team of All Rise, an NPO and registered law clinic for climate and environmental justice, will be released via a webinar scheduled for Tuesday.
Titled Everything for Dust: the Collective Trauma of Opencast Coal Mining on Residents in Somkhele, KZN, the report will lay bare the collective trauma experienced as a result of opencast coal mining.
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