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Article

27 Jan 2015

Author:
Titus Gwemende (Oxfam’s Southern Africa Program Advisor on Extractive Industries), in Oxfam America

Oxfam official says advocates for transparency in extractives sector increasingly threatened

"The dark side of celebrated mineral deposits in Africa: Rising risk for activists"

I recently went to the resource-rich Palma district in Cabo Delgabo province. The paradox is that the inhabitants of Palma itself remain very poor, unsure of what the future holds...I was accompanied by staff from a prominent environmental rights and advocacy organization working in the Palma region, Centro Terra Viva (CTV) and two others from a leading international development partner in Mozambique. What was supposed to be a routine visit became a rather tense conversation, resulting in the government officials at the district office denying us entry into the area. I was stunned.

It soon emerged that key community leaders had been harassed and threatened with unspecified action if they continued to attend meetings hosted by NGOs like CTV that were working on resettlement issues. I soon learned that while this standoff with district government officials was the first time this was happening to me, it was certainly not the first time environmental NGOs were harassed in Palma. Harassment tends to precede violence, so threats against community activists must be taken seriously.