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WHILE we believe it’s the duty of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage Minister Cde Cain Mathema to defend the police in the ongoing bloody gold wars that have seemingly besieged Esigodini, Filabusi and Inyathi, apportioning blame on the panners won’t make the problem go away.

We believe the police need to take some robust action to prevent further bloodshed in these mining areas.

It can’t be denied that some in the police force have turned a blind eye to the anarchy that has engulfed these places because some of them may be directly or indirectly involved in the chaos.

There’s no doubt that residents of these areas have no faith in the police’s ability to protect them from the ever-present violence. Some cops are probably profiting too much from this business that any clampdown would affect them more.

Cde Mathema acknowledged that these artisanal miners had become a law unto themselves, which then calls for law enforcement to intervene robustly to restore law and order so that residents of the three areas can once more enjoy peace and tranquillity.

For example, prominent gold dealer Baron Dube, who was arrested for allegedly shooting and killing a rival panner in Esigodini, is a well known rabble-rouser in the town’s gold mining claims, but each time he is arrested and taken to court, he is always set free for lack of evidence.

This has led to suspicion that he is well connected to cops in the area and that investigations are lackadaisical resulting in a weak case that can’t stand in court.

These suspicions cannot be wished away until there are convictions and stiff sentences for gold thugs are meted out by the courts to give residents confidence.

That some people have been killed and others left with life threatening injuries in gold wars yet no arrests or successful convictions have been made against perpetrators erodes confidence of the residents in the police in those areas.

Minister Mathema says citizens should report any suspected cases of corruption as it is every citizen’s duty to protect the country’s resources, but those that have borne the brunt of the bloody gold wars will only heed his call if they are confident they will be protected either from the gangsters or cops that are aligned to the gangs.

In fact, the locals have even named these notorious groups as amaGokwe, amaNkayi, amaFilabusi and amaKwekwe, meaning they know and can easily identify them, but keep that information to themselves for fear of reprisals.

If the police in these areas had good relations with locals, they could easily identify and round up these gangsters before more lives are needlessly lost.

These deadly and often bloody gold fights have gone on for too many years posing danger to residents.

Perhaps the police should be investigating to get to the bottom of who is unscrupulously benefiting from these gold wars, who supplies these men with the equipment and chemicals to purify gold.

It’s probably high time police employed crime intelligence so that they’re always ahead of these gangs because the current approach has failed residents and cost too many lives due to greed and corruption.