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Fifty years later, many of the issues problematised by post-independent generations remain with us today and we are resolute that they must and should be addressed. It is amongst the huge ironies of the sector, that according to the Mckinsey Report entitled “Reverse The Curse: Maximising the Potential of Resource Driven Economies of December 2013”, that “69 per cent of people in extreme poverty are in resource-driven countries and that almost 80 per cent of the countries, whose economies have historically been driven by resources have per capita income levels below the global average.” This is a situation that must be untenable to us all, to governments and international organisations as much as it should be to mining executives, financiers, investors and professionals.

Central to the African Mining Vision is, therefore, the development of the sector on the continent, out of the enclaves, into a sector that can “catalyse and contribute to the broad-based growth and development of, and is fully integrated into, a single African market.” We have to get serious and work sector by sector, and region by region on the building of down-stream linkages into mineral beneficiation and manufacturing and up-stream linkages into mining capital goods, consumables and services industries.

Africa is also a large producer of the mineral Columbite-tantalite (or coltan, the colloquial African term) and as the second fastest growing cell phone market in the world, also needs to look at this sector, as a producer rather than as consumer only. We often talk about African growth being driven by demand for its commodities in Asia and other parts of the world, but as our economies reach the critical tipping point of sustained 7 per cent and above growth, with greater diversification and industrialisation, and with our population set to reach two billion by 2050, we must also pay attention to stimulating and meeting domestic African demand.

Kemal Özkan, assistant general secretary of IndustriAll, said the deaths of 33 gold miners when a tunnel collapsed at a Rio joint venture mine in Indonesia last May could have been avoided.

But said Rio's board believed both safety and environmental issues would not be improved by the company pulling out of the operation in Papua.

He claimed that the Indonesian human rights commission found that the operators of the Grasberg mine, owned with US company Freeport, "had the ability to prevent this from happening but didn't"."The lack of effort jeopardised the lives of others. The gravity of this case is serious," he quoted Indonesian human rights commissioner Natalius Pigai as saying in a report into the incident.

From the perspective of the global South, the primary extraction of raw materials like coal, the subjugation of popular autonomy, the implementation of debt as a form of social control and the continued expansion of climate change are clearly intertwined.

Under its current form, that is imperialism-controlled, debt is a cleverly managed re-conquest of Africa, aiming at subjugating its growth and development through foreign rules.

Speaking at the memorial service for the miners killed by South African police (above), Julius Malema reprised these themes on Thursday, calling again for nationalization of the mines: The democratically elected government has turned on its people.

“Development is coming, but the development is going to certain areas and certain people,” Mr. Chachoka said, taking a break from trying to coax enough food from his scraggly field to feed his six children.

Yet, after a substantial drop in the first postwar decade, gains against poverty have slowed substantially, analysts say, leaving millions stuck below the poverty line and raising tough questions about whether Africa’s resource boom can effectively raise the standard of living of its people.

the new gas and coal deals are wrapped up in multibillion-dollar megaprojects that rarely create large numbers of jobs or foster local entrepreneurship, according to an analysis by the United States Agency for International Development.

"This is a new colonial era. This time it's not government; it's corporations," Lemos says.

"I think everything is new to them, but according to our social department, the people are very happy because they have all the infrastructure," Adachi says.