South Africa: Women Stand Their Ground Against Big Coal

analysis

Battles between coal mining companies, the municipalities that host them and affected local residents are now drawing blood with last week's rubber-bullet shootings and arrests of activists (including key women organisers) fighting coal and demanding a decent life in Emahlahleni (formerly Witbank).

This battleground stretches east across the continent's main coal seam, out to Mozambique's Tete Province. There, Mama Life (we use a pseudonym to protect her from reprisal), a local farmer affected by coal digs, displacements and pollution by Vale, the Brazilean mining company, pleads, 'What is the point of development? We bear the cost of development, but do not receive the money made from mining. How do we fight back ... ?'

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