Pack off from our lands or we crush you – farmers tell illegal miners.
A cross section of cocoa farmers in the Amansie West District of the Ashanti region have threatened to engage in a fierce battle with the illegal miners who have in the recent past destroying their cocoa farms and water bodies if the authorities fail to bring such perpetrators to book.
According to the farmers they blamed certain chiefs in the District as the brain behind the unlawful activities of the galamseyers because of their inability to act when a case is made against these miners.
At Pakyi No1 farmers complained bitterly about the degree of damages the illegal miners had caused to their cocoa farms,water bodies and most dangerously the forest reserves.
We have reported such damages to number of chiefs in the District but no positive response have been forthcoming to suggest that the chiefs are involved in the deal.
The farmers added that all efforts to ensure that the illegal miners stop have proved futile and as the adage goes that if persuasion fails, force should be applied, they have no alternative than to use force means to dispel the galamseyers from our lands.
We know that our action would be bloody, but we will carry it on since farming is our only source of our income and therefore cannot afford to be silent for strangers to take us for a ride, Opanin Yaw Mensah indicated.
