For Immediate Release
To Media Editors, Journalists and News Outlets
RE: MACUA WAMUA calls on the leaders of BRICS Nations to break out of the Imperialist super exploitation models of wealth extraction, and to prioritise the social and economic distribution of the mineral wealth within the framework of a Just Transition – from super exploitation, to Social, Economic and Environmental Justice.
As South Africa hosts the 15th BRICS Summit in South Africa this week, we are keenly aware that the BRICS Countries represent a significant portion of the planet’s mineral wealth, and we are left with no illusions, that each of these states have collaborated with multinational Corporations to endeavour to construct legal frameworks which will allow the super exploitation of these minerals for benefit of the few.
In this, BRICS, are no different to the countries from the Global North, who have historically and continue to this day, to extract vast amounts of wealth from the Global South, while leaving the people and the environment devastated.
While BRICS seeks to present itself as an alternative to the Imperialist super exploitative Global North, the proof of their claims must be in how BRICS prosecutes its alternative agenda.
For BRICS to be a genuine alternative we need to see how BRICS countries enforce mining compliance and promote responsible inclusive and sustainable mining practices. If taken South Africa as an example, then we can immediately debunk any claims of an alternative. MACUA has consistently shown that post 1994, the South African mining regime has been marked, not by its difference from its colonial and apartheid history, instead it has been particularly notable in its continuity of the exploitation and exclusion of its historical legacy.
We call on BRICS to lead by example and to ensure that its members implement stricter regulations and monitoring mechanisms to hold mining companies accountable for their actions.
This should include the right of communities to Say No to mining and that the distribution of the wealth generated are shared in more inclusive and sustainable ways and to ensure that the wealth that is generated at a local level is used at the local level to build agency and to ensure local development. BRICS must insist that measures to prevent capital flight and profit shifting are strictly enforced and that bottom-up development is prioritised.
We call on BRICS leaders to reject the economic models which has produced unprecedented levels of inequality in the Global South, and mores specifically in Southern Africa, and to take responsibility for their complicity in the ongoing exploitation of the people and the land, and to acknowledge that they preside over regimes that are no different to their colonial forbears, except in the composition of those at the helm.
We call on BRICS leaders to stop lying to the people and to act with moral compunction when signing deals with multinational corporations that end up extracting wealth from the people to benefit a few, while the mass of people starves and live in poverty.
We call on BRICS countries to reject the greed which underpins the Mineral Extraction Sector and the Neoliberal Capitalist System and to embrace the struggles of the poor and marginalised so that a Just New World order can be established.
By embracing the struggles of the poor and marginalised, BRICS need to ensure that those who feel it…lead it. Making deals in expensive hotels, while those who bear the brunt of those decisions are excluded, can never lead to a just new world, and will only serve to enrich the few, and impoverish the masses, like the colonial systems have always done.
We remind those BRICS leaders who will no doubt be spewing excessive amounts of progressive rhetoric over the next few days, that any struggle for justice starts with our unyielding call for NOTHING ABOUT US…. WITHOUT US.
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