Did Human Beings Die At Lonmin's Marikana Mine?

In less than 15 minutes of police opening fire with automatic rifles and all sorts of other firearms, 34 protesting mineworkers lay dead and more than 60 injured. It all happened during the fateful evening of the 16^th of August 2012 on a hill named Wonderkop (Wonderhill) - outside the premises of Lonmin’s Marikana platinum mine near Rustenberg, South Africa – one of the top five platinum mines in the world. In one week  -10^th to 16^th August - 44 South Africans were killed – ten died at the hands of the warring factions of protesting mineworkers and a whopping 34 died when police opened fire with live ammunition at the protesting workers. For nearly a week, the workers went on a wildcat strike and took to holding a 24hr vigil on top of Wonderkop - armed with various sorts of deadly manual weaponry such as pangas, assegais and spears.

By Wednesday the 15^th of August, mine management asked the police to take full charge, and the rest has become part of South Africa’s unholy history of tragedy.

Our police commissioner – Ria Piyega - in her press briefing  (17^th August) predictably defended both the use of live ammunition and the killings using the self-defense argument. Prior to her press conference, she showed some video footage of how two policemen had earlier been killed by the protesting workers and an aerial video footage of naked protesting workers performing rituals on the hill.  These rather gory video clips were ostensibly offered as part of her ‘argument’ in defense of the actions of the police. They were designed to depict how unreasonable and dangerous the protesters were.  She was subtly ‘blaming’ the dead workers and their surviving colleagues for provoking their own killings. Few were fooled by her call for there to be no blame - she blamed the workers fully and exonerated the police totally. Even if we accept the plausible proposition that the police were acting in self-defense and that they might have felt a self-righteous need to revenge the earlier killing of two policemen – questions of proportionality remain.

Was it absolutely necessary to kill 34 workers?  

Next to appear in Marikana was president Jacob Zuma (17^th August evening) – flanked by senior government and business leaders - reading a terse statement expressing dismay at the incident, pledging a judicial commission of inquiry and visiting some of the injured in hospital.  On the 19^th of August, Zuma declared a week of national mourning for victims of violence including those who died in Marikana.  This was an impressive and carefully orchestrated show by Zuma, cutting short an important visit to Mozambique and through the widely publicised visits to the injured, he attempted to portray his government as one that cares and listens.

But did 44 people have to die before the presidency and government showed its caring side?

Soon thereafter, an avalanche of noble visitors and interventions descended on Marikana. The Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources – Susan Shabangu also appointed her own task team to probe the underlying labour issues. Julius Malema went to deliver his militant message to the bereaved and protesting workers. Minister in the Presidency, Collins Chabane led an inter-ministerial team to Marikana on Monday the 20^th of August – a team set up to investigate the violence that is gripping the country. Religious leaders descended on Marikana to counsel the bereaved and preach the message of reconciliation.

Again, one must be pardoned to ask: Did 44 people have to die in order for all these noble interventions to be conceptualized and executed?

What now and how do we move forward as a people?

The recognition of the humanity of the protesting mineworkers as well as a recognition of the validity of their concerns is the place to start, perhaps the only place to start if any healing can occur. This needs to happen at several levels and in several ways. The category of mine workers at the center of the wildcat strike and the Wonderkop vigil - rock drillers – are the lowliest category of those who toil in the belly of the earth. They are drawn from sections of society regarded as the lowliest and the most rural.  They are also paid very little – R4000 a month at Marikana – and are expected to ‘understand’ it.

Said to be the least educated, we also noted how in the comments and actions of some of the leading political, labour and police role players, the miners were portrayed as uninformed and gullible pawns – without reason and without minds of their own - in the hands of unscrupulous (rival) unionists and sangomas. As if many of the policemen who mowed them down do not themselves consult sangomas!

So ‘uniformed’ are these mineworkers that they apparently either have no regard for due industrial process or they are not even aware of it. How could they even imagine that they could negotiate with management without the involvement of the National Union of Mine Workers (NUM)? Consider the ‘unreasonable’ demand for a 300% rise from R4000 (less than $400) a month to R12500 a month!  Which mine boss in their right minds would want to pay a mere rock driller such a lot of money! 

All these insinuations and innuendos are part of the subtle justification for the massacre and refusal to regard their demands as reasonable. Who could reason/negotiate with such an uneducated, unreasonable, unthinking, gullible, armed and dangerous lot? Unleashing live ammunition on them was, as the police commissioner said, the best that our disciplined police could do to deal with the marauding hordes of dangerous miners!

The disdain with which mine workers in general and the rock drillers in particular are held showed in the way they were spoken about, portrayed and treated throughout the week. And yet we all act surprised that these miners are so angry and so untrusting of management, trade union leaders, police and politicians alike.

Both the conditions in which they work as well as the conditions in which they live testify to the lowly position miners occupy in the eyes of their employers, whose Marikana mine is surrounded by makeshift dwellings of incredible squalor. As Hugh Masekela sings in his song titled ‘Stimela’ – the mineworkers still ‘live like dogs in the mines.’ The astounding and old tug-of-war between NUM and AMCU (the two rival unions in the South African Mining sector) has amazingly intensified even after 44 people have been killed. This too is a variation of the same theme – the extent to which the humanity of the mineworkers is denied.

At the beginning of the week of mourning as declared by President Zuma – starting Monday the August 20^th 2012 - Lonmin management issued the most jarring of uncouth statements - a statement at odds with national mood and dismissive of the impact of the deaths on the surviving workers. They issued an ultimatum for all striking workers, some of whom had remained on top of the hill where their colleagues were killed, to return to work or else. Mine management, obviously concerned with costs, production, balance sheets and falling shares, wants the show to go back on as quickly as possible - as if we have not just lost 44 lives. What more evidence of the denial of the humanity of the miners can one give?

With the involved labour unions seemingly more concerned about their rivalries and the politicians probably more concerned about the impact of the violence on foreign investors, who will focus on the relentless assault on the humanity of miners? Can any of the goals of the labour unions, Lonmin management and government be achieved in any sustainable manner without addressing issues that pertain to the humanity of the mineworkers? 

For me the basic question South Africa has to answer in order to move on from the tragic events of Marikane is whether all the people who died at Marikana are human. If they are human, the two labour unions – NUM and AMCU- must move beyond the power games they are playing with the lives of the mineworkers. It is time for AMCU to take a long hard look at its recruitment and bargaining strategies. It is time for NUM to consider the growing perceptions that it is a conflicted union swimming in contradictions. Some will argue that the very birth and rise of AMCU from inside of NUM is a symptom of the contradictions. There are allegations that the NUM leadership have lost touch with the workers and that the leadership are preoccupied with ANC politics high-level business deals instead of focussing on their membership. COSATU must take the same hard look at itself. After all many of the policemen who participated in the shootings might be members of another COSATU affiliated union, namely POPCRU.

If the workers are human, government will engage in more than the knee-jerk, poorly thought-out proliferation of publicity stunts aimed at appeasement of investors and mineworkers as well as the saving of face. If they are human, perhaps Lonmin might just realise that expectations of an improved wage, better working and living conditions might just be valid and even reasonable.

(c) copyright tinyiko sam maluleke