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| Marble mining in Karamoja - this is not from the mine I visited yesterday as I have been told not to name that site. |
Finding myself in the strangest of situations that I never
could have predicted seem to becoming the norm as of lately. Yesterday was
another one of those days, where at one point I found myself in a car full of
miners driving into the bush to drill. I have always believed in seeing every
issue from the angle of everyone involved, so as I've spent quite a bit of time
looking at the mining from the human rights perspective, yesterday was time to
see it from the capitalist point of view. This decision following a night of
drinks, so not the most thought through of plans, but still at 7 am I was
packed and ready to go.
The first thought that struck me as leaving town was the
horrible condition of the roads, and how moving the heavy loads of stone out
from these site must be a bit of a nightmare. Seemingly though the trucks,
although slow moving at times, make it past the near impassable roads. Although
as their loads are so heavy the ‘roads’ that were there are being completely
destroyed. I can only imagine what the roads will look like as rainy season
hits.
Arriving at the camp for the mining site it is clear that I
have come to a different part of Karamoja than I have seen so far. I am met by
groups of young men, smoking and drinking heavily with sunglasses on, this at 9
am in the morning. I feel like I’ve stepped into the movie Blood Diamond, just
minus the amount of weapons, thank god for that. It is a bizarre reality to
walk around the little village that has sprung up around the mining site. There
is money here, there is no doubt about that. As will happen in most villages in
Uganda, when I start walking around a woman comes up to me and insists I sit
down so I can have chai and breakfast. I sit with her four little kids, who all
speak perfect English. She is the owner of one of the shops in town where I can
see a line of men lining up to get their alcohol for the morning, so her
business seems to be booming. She brings over Chai and a plate of meat with
bread, although a bit chewy surprisingly good meat, as the norm for breakfast
here is usually chapatti or some bread I am surprised to see everyone having
meat for breakfast, even the young kids are given a plate each.
After breakfast I catch up with my mining friends and we
head down to the actual site of the mining. It is as I expected full of men,
young and old, standing under the hot sun breaking rocks apart using the power
of their body and simple tools. The women are busy bringing firewood to use to
heat up the rocks so they can be broken apart easier. The guys I am with
clearly are not comfortable with the way the work is being conducted and keep
telling me how they tried to bring machines here to do the heavy work, but the
workers simply refused them to start up the machines and in one case even tried
to set a machine on fire. It’s not hard to understand why this would happen. If
you bring in heavy modern equipment the manpower of these people would become
obsolete, and with that their jobs.
The men are paid about 100 000 UGX or around 40 dollars to
break apart the rocks and load them into the truck. The 40 USD being for one
truckload, so you can imagine the amount of work that goes into this.
The guys I am with are from all over Africa and the world.
They come here on contracts for drilling, and I would believe they make quite a
bit of money being in a remote part of the world like this. They tell me
stories from their various mining adventures, the worst they say was the Congo,
the fear of getting shot everyday was not quite worth the money made, although
as some had done 2 years there, the money must be good.
I understand the capitalist view of mining, particularly in
a place like this. Karamoja has few regulations on mining and on land in
particular. It is a sparsely populated region, or with pastoralism it seems sparsely
populated as people are moving around. The people here do not know the value of
the minerals their region holds and so it is easy to come in and take the
minerals out at a low cost. As Simon told me: ‘Minerals leave Karamoja as
simple rocks, their value is non-existent until they have left.’
This is not to say that people are not being paid from the
mining sector, obviously they are as I witnessed the village next to the site
profiting of the money the many men working in the mines have. There are also
many truck drivers coming through the region, who add their part to the
economy, although as I've been told HIV/AIDS has now become more prevalent with
the influx of people from other parts of Uganda and the world, and the truck
drivers are often blamed for this. So the money is there, but I find it hard to
see a sustainable improvement in the local economy from the mining sector. The
majority of those paid actual wages are foreign workers, or workers from other
parts of Uganda, who have a level of education that the local people cannot
compete with.
Conclusion of my thoughts today. The mining in Karamoja is
making someone a lot of money, unfortunately the majority of those making money
are not in Karamoja. I don’t see this changing in the foreseeable future. I
just hope that the example of a mining village I saw yesterday does not become
the norm in Karamoja. I said I always feel safe here, this village was the
first place in this region that made me feel uneasy, and I’m glad to be back in
my little home in Moroto.
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