The most striking thing about Joseph Mothibedi is his voice -- it is raspy, a metallic whisper.
It's the sound of a man slowly dying.
His thin fingers trembling, Mothibedi leans over his simple hot plate and puts a tea kettle on the boil.
The
58-year-old former gold miner looks reduced in his old blue work shirt.
It hangs off his bony shoulders as he spreads margarine on a slice of
white bread for afternoon tea. He slowly sips it in his barren brick
house near an old mine-dump.
"Just listen to my voice," he says, "I have problems with my lungs. I can't even walk fast or far. It is very hard for me."
Mothibedi is stricken with silicosis, an incurable lung condition that affects gold miners in southern Africa.
An incurable burden
Silicosis
develops over long periods of time. Fine silica dust lodges deep inside
miners' lungs as they extract gold, day after day, year after year.
As
the silica particles accumulate, lung function becomes severely
limited. The miners have shortness of breath, lose weight, become prone
to heart disease and, in the most severe cases, an early death.
Several studies estimate that there are
at least two hundred thousand current and former miners in the region
suffering from the disease. Researchers have called it a pandemic.
On
Friday, thousands of gold miners were given the go ahead to proceed
with their landmark class action suit -- the biggest in South Africa's
history -- against mining firms.
South Gauteng High Court Judge Phineas Mojapelo ruled that there is "sufficient common action to satisfy a class action."
"Almost
the entire gold mining industry is involved in this case. The scope and
magnitude of the proposed silicosis case is unprecedented," said
Mojapelo.
The suit, in part backed
by prominent U.S. litigation firm Motley Rice, alleges that the
companies should have known the harmful effects of silica dust in their
mines and didn't do enough to stop it.
The
South African Chamber of Mines, which counts several of the defendants
in the suit as its members, told CNN that the companies have been
working to improve dust management and eliminate silicosis risks and are
offering to set up a medical fund for the plaintiffs in the case.
"The
companies are all defending themselves in the class action. However,
they do recognize that silicosis is a significant legacy issue," says
Alan Fine, a spokesman for the industry group.
Activist doctor
Rhett Kahn says companies were "motivated by greed" to underplay the impact of silicosis.
But Doctor Rhett Kahn doubts the sincerity of those companies. He has treated silicosis patients for decades.
"The
companies don't care about the miners, their dust levels are high. I
believe they are illegally high," Kahn says. "In a country that is
supposed to be the democratic flagship of the world, this is totally
unacceptable."
Kahn and his wife
Janet run a small general practice clinic in Welkom, a somewhat faded
mining town that was once a thriving center of the gold industry that is
long past its boom years.
Miners,
many too sick to work, come to Kahn's busy practice from around Welkom,
but also from neighboring Mozambique and Lesotho to get help. Janet
guides them through the maze of medical paperwork. Rhett says they
sometimes wait here for days.
A history of neglect?
The history of gold mining in South Africa is one of riches and neglect.
The
veins of gold found in the Witwatersrand in the late 1800s sparked a
gold rush that transformed the country's largely agricultural economy
into an industrial powerhouse. In 1970, more than 20 percent of South
Africa's GDP depended on the mining sector, including gold. Lately, its
importance is much diminished.
The
foundation of South Africa's wealth was built on the backs of black
miners. Mining industry segregation was a crucial element in the racist
policies that culminated in decades of apartheid rule.
Despite
the risks, millions of black migrant workers from rural South Africa
and neighboring states flooded the mines as cheap labor.
Until
1993, white miners were paid substantially higher compensation for
silicosis-related illnesses. According to researchers like Jock
McCulloch, silicosis rates were vastly underestimated among black miners
for decades.
McCulloch and other researchers say that the rates haven't got any better since apartheid ended more than twenty years ago.
"It's as bad as it was during apartheid," says Kahn.
How much for a life?
Miners
with proven silicosis can apply for compensation from a government fund
-- but many die before the complicated paperwork is complete.
Mothibedi
says he got a one-time payment of around 5,000 dollars in 2008. It was
meant to last him a lifetime. Now, he depends on disability grants.
When Mothibedi grew up in nearby Lesotho, he saw the mines as the only opportunity to further himself.
"When
I started to work in the mines I wanted to just make money and go back
to school and study," he says. "But when I started seeing people making
money I thought I could save money and start my own business."
He
slowly moved up to one of the few more senior jobs at the mines that
black miners could hope to get during apartheid, all the while sucking
in the dust that that would ruin his lungs.
Silicosis put an end to Mothibedi's dreams.
"I feel helpless. This sickness has destroyed everything in my life," he says.
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