EDITORIAL | No arrests for killings of environmental activists is indefensible

Exactly a year ago, Fikile Ntshangase’s life was brutally snuffed out inside her northern KwaZulu-Natal home. As she spoke to her best friend on the phone, with him playing her a new gospel song he thought she would enjoy, gunmen walked into the house. Six bullets were fired and the “feisty” Ntshangase was dead.

It was a murder that made local and international headlines, and thrust the spotlight on opencast coal mining in Somkhele (the project Ntshangase was opposing) and the entire Zululand region, including on the border of the Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park.

It opened up a long-running battle between those who push for environmental protection and those who believe economic development and jobs should come up trumps.

Which side of the fight Ntshangase was on was never in doubt. She was vehemently against the Somkhele mine expansion and had, according to information Sunday Times Daily received at the time of the killing, received a bribe of R350,000 to withdraw her opposition. She vowed to go public with details of the bribe, we were told. A few days later she was dead.

To date, no arrests have been made, despite it appearing almost certain that her murder and her opposition to mining in her community were intrinsically linked.

While it would be easy to look at Ntshangase’s murder in isolation, the reality is that she isn’t the only environmental activist to be murdered in SA in recent years.

On March 22 2016, Sikhosiphi “Bazooka” Rhadebe was killed when two men posing as police officers shot him eight times in front of his family in the Amadiba area of the Eastern Cape.

At the time, Rhadebe was chairperson of the Amadiba Crisis Committee, which was vocally opposed to opencast mining of titanium and other heavy minerals. The committee and many members in the broader community there remain defiant in not wanting the mining to go ahead.

Here too, no arrests have been made - more than five years since the killing.

While their murders have garnered significant media attention, they are part of a growing number of people worldwide who have been killed because of their environmental activism.

Newly formed environmental justice firm All Rise said Ntshangase was one of 227 people killed globally for “defending their homes, their land and livelihoods, and the ecosystems we all depend on” since 2020.

All Rise director Kirsten Youens, who was heavily involved in litigation against the mine’s expansion, said it was vital for SA’s government and parliament to take steps to investigate the murders of Ntshangase and others, and ensure there was justice for their families and communities.

This is a call that should be supported. Government cannot sit idly by while those who fight for their rights have their lives threatened or taken. As times get harder economically, the debate about the environment vs economic development is going to get more heated and polarised. The only way to settle those tensions is to ensure the processes followed are fair, just and legal - and the state must come to the party to make sure this happens.

Ntshangase’s daughter, Malungelo Xhakaza, said on the anniversary of her mother’s death: “I miss my mom, my hero and my rock. I pray for justice and peace.”

It is vital there is justice - for her, for Bazooka and for others who have lost their lives fighting for what they believe in.