South Africa Police Try Siege Tactics on Illegal Mining, Igniting Debate

Around the gaping shaft of a disused mine, the South African police on Saturday waited to pounce on anyone trying to escape to the surface.

Their siege has gone on for weeks, trying to flush out hundreds of men accused of illegal mining in an abandoned gold mine, where they are now camped out near Stilfontein, in South Africa’s North West Province. Officers have cut off the miners’ supply of water and food, guarded every known exit and pulled up or cut ropes used to ferry supplies underground, according to images distributed by the police.

Now, they wait for the bedraggled miners, who some South Africans fear are dying of hunger and thirst, to turn themselves in.

“We are not sending help to criminals. We are going to smoke them out,” a minister in the president’s office, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, said in a news conference on Wednesday. “Criminals are not to be helped, they are to be persecuted.”

The siege tactics, part of national crackdown on illegal mining, have ignited a debate in South Africa about upholding human rights protected by the Constitution and efforts to fight crime in a country with high rates of lawlessness. It has also renewed attention to mining’s dark legacy in South Africa, and the common but dangerous practice of illegal mining, driven by soaring unemployment.

Two more miners resurfaced on Saturday, joining others who have trickled out in recent days, a police spokeswoman, Brig. Athlenda Mathe, said. The police say that as many as 400 miners could still be underground, adding that some are also believed to be armed. The authorities have said they will not risk officers’ lives by sending them down the warren of tunnels.

The police did not respond to questions about how many people have emerged from the mine so far, who owns the mine, when the operation began or how many officers were involved.

The South African government has said it would not send aid to the miners, despite growing public concerns for their welfare. Nor have the police signaled any intent to change tactics.

“We are standing static,” Brigadier Mathe said by phone from the scene.

The South African Human Rights Commission, an independent body established by the country’s post-apartheid Constitution, said on Friday that it was investigating the police operation after it received a complaint from a local community leader. While condemning criminality, the commission urged the police to adhere to the Constitution’s imperatives on human rights.

The siege is part of a national crackdown, called Vala Umgodi, meaning “Close the Hole” in the isiZulu language, launched last December to combat illegal mining across the country. Mining has for centuries been a part of South Africa’s economy, but as the industry shrank and mine owners abandoned unprofitable sites, unaffiliated miners — often called artisanal — began digging through what remained, without legal permits.

As unemployment rates have soared over the last decade, more out-of-work or untrained miners have gone underground. They remain there for weeks at a time, often setting up illegal electricity and water supply systems. Many such miners come from poorer neighboring countries, and some are relatives of migrant laborers who had worked in South Africa, researchers said.

Artisanal mining has also become part of a global criminal network dealing in illicit precious metals, according to the Minerals Council of South Africa, an industry group. Criminal syndicates involved in mining, known in South Africa as Zama Zamas, often operate as armed gangs, ambushing mine security or engaging in shootouts with rivals, the council said. Violence and crime often seep into surrounding communities, creating a secondary market for food, alcohol and sex work, according to a study by the minerals council.

Poor mining communities, like the one where the police operation is underway, have also become reliant on illegal or artisanal mines. In the town of Stilfontein, where many out-of-work people have become artisanal miners in the North West Province, community leaders begged police to allow them to help the miners.

After signing agreements that the police would not be held liable if something went wrong, volunteers set up a system of ropes tied to large rocks around the open shaft entrance. They lowered food and water and lifted ailing miners. On Thursday, a decomposing body was brought to the surface, which the police said they would investigate.

“A person cannot risk his life, and go into those dangerous situations just to get bread and meat for his kids,” Johannes Qankase, a community leader, told the broadcaster Newzroom Afrika.

Stilfontein is one of many dying mining towns in South Africa, said David van Wyk, who researches the legacy of mining in South Africa at the Bench Marks Foundation, a nonprofit that tracks South Africa’s progress since apartheid ended.

There are over 6,000 abandoned mines in South Africa, and trying to arrest illegal miners is “like catching moles,” he said. Instead, the country should have regulated artisanal mining and ensured that companies followed the law when they withdrew from sites, he argued.

“This problem is not a crime problem, it is a business and economic problem,” Mr. van Wyk said.