Medupi Power Station site visit: following complaints on exhumation
The Commission for Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities (CRL Rights Commission) will be conducting a second site visit on exhumation, destruction and access to graves in Lephalale - Limpopo province.
The Legal Services & Conflict Resolution Unit of the CRL Rights Commission received complaints in the past three financial years from various communities in Limpopo, Mpumalanga and Eastern Cape Provinces, respectively. The complaints concerned the destruction of graves for developmental purposes such as mining, building/developments, etc.
In many respects, the complainants alleged that the graves of their deceased family members were exhumed without consultation and/or without them given consent for exhumations to take place.
This, according to the complainants resulted in them not knowing where the remains of their
deceased family members are, or others ultimately know where the remains are located but
cannot identify them since such remains are in other instances buried in one grave or in various graves without tracking number allocated by the concerned municipality.
Other complainants alleged that the graves are destructed by farm owners on account of the fact that such graves are located on the farm owner’s private land, thus leading to the denial of people’s rights to access graves of their deceased family members.
After the first visit which was in August 2014, public hearings conducted were aimed at
engaging the public around their concerns pertaining access to graves, destruction or graves
and exhumation of graves; solicit the main challenges about the subject matter; etc.
The CRL Rights Commission deemed it proper to undertake a second visit in order to: meet and engage ESKOM about the graves at the Medupi Power Station; Conduct site inspection at Medupi; Conduct site inspection at other places, including farms, where graves are alleged to be located; advice the public about their constitutional rights and the limitations thereof with specific reference to the subject matter, and generally on cultural, religious and linguistic rights; and be able to use the information sourced to engage relevant organs of state, and proposed improvements to the law should a mischief be identified.
The site visits will be conducted as follows:
Date: 13-14 November 2014
Time: 9h00 onwards
Places to be visited include: Medupi Power Station; Groenfontein (Steenbokpan); Scoco
mine; Jakkalsvlei; Farm pensloot 313 LQ; Vienna (Garra Makokoko;
Enquiries:
Tirhani Mabasa
Communication and Marketing
Cell: 083 659 4974
Tel: 011 358 9112
Email: mabasat@crlcommission.org.za
Twitter: @CRL_Commission
