South Africa on Friday marks 12 years since the Marikana massacre, where 34 protesting Lonmin mineworkers were killed and 78 were wounded near the mine in Marikana, North West, on August 16, 2012.
The tragedy happened when heavily police opened fire while trying to disperse the group of striking protesters. In the preceding week, 10 people, including two policemen and two security guards, had been killed.
In an interview with broadcaster Newzroom Afrika, Joseph Mathunjwa, president of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) lambasted government, saying the State sided with the mine, sacrificing the poor workers.
“This could not have happened in a democratic State. This is worse than Sharpeville massacre because at Sharpeville it was the Nationalist Party and apartheid government. This was our government that we put in power, killing its own people, protecting resources that are foreign owned,” he said.
“Eighteen years into democracy, those workers were still earning R3,000 or R4,000 working underground under harsh conditions – 40 degrees Celsius, living in squalor, in shacks and in 18 years this government had not changed anything. Now we are 30 years into this fake democracy led by the fake revolutionaries.”
The unionist insisted that President Cyril Ramaphosa must be held account for his role at Marikana.
“Those who killed the workers, those who sit with white monopoly capital, those who had an interest in Lonmin … our sitting president Ramaphosa had an interest in Lonmin, what have you done as media? Have you given him a call to say how does he feel in the 12 years where 34 miners where mowed down because of his concomitant action email,” said Mathunjwa.
“The president is very relevant, he is the main actor in this massacre. Phone him. Call him, he is the main actor.”
At the time of the tragedy, Ramaphosa was serving as a member of the African National Congress’ national executive committee, a Lonmin shareholder and a non-executive board member.
Ramaphosa’s controversial email which became part of the commission of inquiry which followed the tragedy, was sent on August 15, 2012, just 24 hours before the protesting miners were shot in the televised event that shocked South Africans and people across the world.
In October 2012, at the second day of the public hearings of the commission of inquiry into the tragedy, the name of the then ANC heavyweight and businessman – Ramaphosa – featured prominently at the inquiry chaired by retired judge Ian Farlam.
Advocate Dali Mpofu, representing the miners injured and arrested after the shooting on August 16, 2012, singled out the e-mail in which Ramaphosa strongly condemned the protests, described them as criminal acts and suggested “concomitant action”.
“This (e-mail) was on August 15, at 2.58pm, exactly 24 hours before the people were mowed down on that mountain,” said Mpofu at the time.
“We have e-mails that were being exchanged between Lonmin management, government ministers (of mineral resources and the police), and at the centre is a gentleman called Cyril Ramaphosa,” Mpofu argued.
“He advanced that what was taking place were criminal acts and must be characterised as such. In line with this characterisation (Ramaphosa said) there needs to be concomitant action to address the situation.”
In his findings, Judge Farlam cleared Ramaphosa of responsibility for the police’s actions in the massacre of 34 striking mineworkers at the British-owned Lonmin Marikana mine.
On Friday, Mathunjwa insisted that the brutal killing of the mineworkers, which was recorded live on local and international television news stations was a wake-up call to all South Africans.
“Having a monument is one thing but I think justice is far more important. Yes, you can have a monument (for the killed mineworkers) but at the end of the day, to have a monument without justice being served … I think as South Africans we are quick to forget. The killing of these workers was a wake-up call to all of us as South Africans that it’s not yet Uhuru,” said Mathunjwa.
“This is a fake democracy, we are led by fake revolutionaries. This is what 16 August exposed and we, as South Africans, we couldn’t catch up with that.”
By 2023, Solicitor General Fhedzisani Pandelani revealed that the State had paid out more than R300-million to claimants for the Marikana mine massacre.
