Fin24 reports that unions and a traditional council have taken aim at a non-profit law firm representing community members opposed to the expansion of a KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) coal mine, and have called on the attorneys to reveal their true motives and those of its funders.

In a joint statement released by DMS Attorneys on behalf of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu), the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), the Mpukunyoni Traditional Council and the Mpukunyoni Community Mining Forum last week, the group levelled harsh allegations against All Rise, a law clinic for climate and environmental justice, going so far to label its opposition to the Somkhele coal mine’s activities in KZN as "tantamount to a gross human rights violation". All Rise has condemned these comments as "hugely irresponsible". The statement from the unions and traditional council comes as Mfolozi Community Environmental Justice Organisation (MCEJO), represented by All Rise, recently succeeded in a legal challenge to Tendele’s mining right, which serves as the basis to expand the Somkhele mine for another 10 years. The court’s judgment earlier this month found Tendele had failed to properly follow the legal processes required to obtain the mining right. Its processes were especially deficient concerning public participation and obtaining community consent. The court ordered that MEJCO’s appeal to Tendele’s mining, which the minister of mineral resources had previously rejected, be sent back to him for reconsideration. Tensions have been simmering around the coal mine’s expansion for years and boiled over in October 2020 when Fikile Ntshangase, an activist opposed to the project, was assassinated.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Lisa Steyn at Fin24
• Read too, Interdict threat over new mine, on page 18 of Mail & Guardian of 20 May 2022

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