The Bucklands Community Development Trust has called for the immediate closure of a site where it claims illegal mining is taking place.
THE BUCKLANDS Community Development Trust has called for the immediate closure of a mining site where it claims illegal mining is taking place.
A community protest was held at the mine in Douglas this week and a memorandum of grievances was handed over to the police and the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy.
The convenor, Jan Smith, stated that they were tired of illegal informal miners and companies stealing their diamonds, with the trust being the rightful holders of the mining rights of the communal land in Bucklands.
“We have opened numerous criminal cases and consulted with the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy but nothing is being done. The companies that are mining our land illegally are refusing to leave despite several interventions taken by the Bucklands community,” Smith said at a protest on Thursday.
He added that they had appointed a contractor, Rashied Adams, who had “stood by the community”.
“He never got a chance to mine on the land as a result of the refusal of the other companies to leave the site. The community is subjected to intimidation by armed security from the company, where a bag of unlicensed firearms was seized last year,” said Smith.
The memorandum calls for lot 256 Bucklands to be declared a crime scene for the collection of evidence and the impounding of all equipment and machinery used in illegal mining operations.
“All case dockets must be speedily finalised and any diamonds, mining records, cellphones and bank records that were mined by the companies must be retrieved.”
