Central Kalahari Game Reserve activist, Gakelebone Jamunda, says that the starting of mining process in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve has exposed government as hypocrites because the government has for long been denying that the intended removal of people from the CKGR was meant to create space for mining of diamonds, which is currently being done.
Jamunda told The Sunday Standard that the government should feel ashamed because what they have all along been denying is now going on in the CKGR.
“The government should apologise to the nation for having lied about its intentions of removing people from GKGR. Though I do not know much about governance, I think this deserves an apology from the government to the nation,” he said. “Some of them sided with the government on the issue.”
Asked if they have had any contact with the companies that are mining in the CKGR, Jamunda said there has been no contact with them and that he thinks the companies see them as nothing but trees or animals in the CKGR.
“I do not think they see us as people; they need to contact but they think that we are just trees or stones otherwise, I think, they would have already contacted or at least paid us a courtesy call before they even started mining on our land, which they are going to contaminate with their machines, fumes and other chemicals,” he lamented.
Recently, Gem Diamond, the company which is mining diamonds in the CKGR, announced that it has so far spent P130 million on the development of its Ghaghoo underground mine in the CKGR as the junior miner aims to produce its first diamonds from the deposits by the middle of next year.