“I refused to sign. I cannot sell out my people. And if need be, I will die for my people.”
These were the powerful words of Fikile Ntshangase, a 63-year-old environmental activist and community leader who was brutally murdered in her home on 22 October 2020. Ntshangase was gunned down in front of her grandchild in reprisal for her adamant fight to stop the expansion of the Tendele Coal Mine in her community of Somkhele, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Her tireless fight to protect her community from the mine’s devastating water and pollution impacts, which have impaired health and livelihoods since operations began in 2006, was a testament to her unwavering commitment. On 22 October 2024, we commemorated four years since her tragic death.
Ntshangase’s assassination is one of countless murders of women and communities that dare to speak out and defend their land from large scale extractive activities such as mining, large fisheries, and plantations. According to Global Witness at least 196 land and environmental defenders were killed in 2023 for trying to protect their homes, community or the planet bringing to a total 2,106 the number of documented defender killings between 2012 to 2023 in the world.
While this harrowing case has been widely documented and visibilised, the threats, murders and repression against communities, and women particularly in these contexts, continue. These cases are rarely given the attention they deserve, whether through legal recourse or by the government. In the wake of Ntshangase’s assassination, WoMin and its allies came together under the Rise Against Repression banner to spotlight land and environmental defenders across Africa who have been killed, raped, intimidated, abducted or faced other forms of repression for their stand against extractivisms in all forms not just mining.
Guns, Power, and Politics
Capital, elites, and individual interests are intricately connected to government’s interests at the expense of the environment. When mines and large plantations take over the land that has sustained local communities over generations, they depend on the state military and/or police to secure these properties and prevent encroachment by the local people. In many cases, the state guarantees ‘security’ for the operations of companies to continue to control and police the lives and movements of the local people.
Ken Saro-Wiwa, a prominent Nigerian author, environmental and political activist who fought against the environmental damage and exploitation caused by destructive oil extraction activities of multinational companies, specifically Royal Dutch Shell in Ogoniland in the Niger Delta, was assassinated along with eight other activists collectively known as the Ogoni Nine. They were held on trumped up murder charges and executed by hanging in 1995. His last words were “Lord take my soul, but the struggle continues.”
Under the military dictatorship of General Sani Abacha, state violence was ratcheted up to safeguard the oil industry and party interests. Twenty nine years later and justice is still elusive. No one has been held responsible for the killing of the Ogoni Nine and while the oilfields and pipelines have been largely dormant since the 1990s, the people of Ogoniland still suffer from oil spills and pollution from major oil pipelines which cross their territory.
Just like the Ogoni Nine, Ntshangase died while protecting the interests of her community, and four years later, no arrests have been made. Murder is one violent extreme, but there are many ways that communities are ‘murdered’ metaphorically. The contamination of water sources, for example, through mining spillages has caused great harm to health and life. Land grabbing robs communities of their capacity to grow food and build livelihoods. In Uganda, Kalangala, communities of Bumagi and Bwenderu were left landless after the signing of a public-private partnership agreement between the government with BIDCO to initiate the out-grower programme known as contract farming, taking away sources of livelihoods for the community. Women bear the brunt as they have the primary responsibility of looking after the home and taking care of sick members of the family. When they dare speak up, they are met with reprisals.
Strategies for safety and protection of land and environmental defenders
Through our work, WoMin has seen that while women in the frontlines of defence are more at risk, women living in communities impacted by large-scale mining are at risk. In Chiadzwa, Zimbabwe, women were subjected to body searches and rape by soldiers and police at checkpoints. Following the discovery of diamonds in Chiadzwa, the Zimbabwe National Army was deployed. The sexual abuse, rape and gang rape in Marange is used by the soldiers and police as a weapon to safeguard the diamond resources from ‘illegal mining’. Women remain silent fearing discrimination, and the stigma associated with sexual abuse. The case of Chiadzwa is not isolated as many women across the continent have highlighted how rape has been used as a weapon to silence them, however very few are willing to talk about the violence they have experienced.
Over the years, it has become apparent that we need to continue to sharpen our tools for organising and centring the safety of communities and activists. This work requires collective strategies and protection mechanisms for women as they continue to resist. For women in these communities, resistance is not an option, but a way of life. Given the deep-seated trauma that exists in many mining communities, spaces for collective healing are also critical.
This October, WoMin launched a resource, Building Activists’ Power to Keep Safe – A Risk and Safety Handbook at the 3rd Women’s Climate Assembly in Senegal, where over 120 women leaders and community activists gathered to address the need for climate action in Africa. The handbook offers practical support for women and communities to strategise, reflect and plan to prevent or minimise violence. Rooted in local resources and practice, the handbook places an emphasis on methodologies for collective protection for communities as they fight for justice and shape their development futures.
