Marikana is a dangerous precedent, says Vavi

Zwelinzima Vavi

by Genevieve Quintal and Gillian Jones

The Marikana wage deal set a dangerous precedent, the Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said on Wednesday.

“If those workers forced the hand of the company in that fashion through an unprotected strike, what stops Driefontein in doing the same,” Vavi asked delegates at Cosatu’s national congress in Midrand, Johannesburg.

Earlier on Wednesday Vavi had to leave the congress to deal with a strike at Gold Fields Driefontein mine in Carletonville where 15,000 workers have been on an illegal strike for the past 10 days.

Leaders of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) accompanied him.

On his return from the mine Vavi said the mineworkers were demanding a salary of R12,500. This was the same demand made by workers at Lonmin’s Platinum mine in Marikana, North West.

On Tuesday Lonmin workers accepted a final offer of a 22 percent increase giving some workers R11,000 a month.

Vavi warned that other workers would think that they too could get substantial increases by going on illegal strikes.

“We are not saying that workers do not deserve their money, but if we are not careful this may mean an end of the central bargaining system in the country.

“Workers will just embark on wildcat strikes and steam ahead and force us to follow them.”

He called for the congress to come up with a radical commitment to putting workers interests first.

He said the Driefontein workers were having problems with their NUM branch leaders. “[However] they all remain loyal members of NUM.”

The workers said they would not abandon the union just because of their problems with the branch leaders.

Vavi said the workers were demanding that the leaders be dismissed and would not listen to argument that according to Cosatu’s constitution there were processes to follow.

The NUM would hold a special national executive committee meeting on Wednesday night to discuss the issue. – Sapa

Marikana residents accuse police of shooting at them with rubber bullets

Police officers assigned to disperse protesting Lonmin mineworkers were accused of shooting residents of Nkaneng informal settlement in Marikana on Saturday morning.

Several community members emerged with bleeding wounds, which they claimed were caused by police rubber bullets.

Two women sat in a narrow path in the informal settlement, surrounded by sympathetic residents.

One of the wounded, Melita Ramasedi, said they were shot at while watching the police breaking up the crowd of protesters.

“I am deeply hurt by this situation. A police nyala drove past us, we were a group of women and others ran away.

“I just stood there, watching and they shot me in my leg,” she said showing her bleeding leg.

Another victim Ntombe Ncence was visibly upset as she told journalists that she was at the entrance of a spaza shop when she was shot with a rubber bullet.

“I do not understand why the police officers shot me. I was knocking at the door of a shop and police officers inside a nyala shot my leg.”

The bleeding woman said she did not know where her two children had fled to when the skirmishes between mineworkers and police began in the morning.

Earlier, a 24-year-old man said police officers shot him with a rubber bullet while he was repairing his shack in the informal settlement.

Xolisa Ntshantha said he does not work for a mine and had never been part of the protests.

“I was working on my shack and suddenly I was shot from behind. I did not realise where the police officers came from,” said Ntshantha.

“They manhandled me and threw me into the nyala. I was assaulted by police officers inside the truck,” he claimed.

Ntshantha raised his shirt and torn jacket to reveal a large red blister on his back.

Earlier, the protesters gathered at an open veld next to the koppie, where 34 people were killed in a violent confrontation on August 16. They sang, waving weapons, before the police arrived.

At least seven police nyalas drove into Nkaneng, causing workers to scamper in different directions.

The crowd ran into the informal settlement as the nyalas followed them on narrow foot paths.

A cloud of pepper spray filled the area causing protesters and journalists to shed tears and cough.

Earlier, police raided a nearby hostel. Five people were arrested and weapons were confiscated.

Brigadier Thulani Ngubane said the people were arrested during a disarmament operation at a hostel where hundreds Lonmin mineworkers .

Police confiscated a large number of knobkerries, pangas and other dangerous weapons.

Ngubane could not give an exact quantity of arms confiscated, but said “truck loads” of contraband weapons were seized.

On Thursday, Justice Minister Jeff Radebe told journalists in Pretoria that government would “deal very swiftly” with illegal protests.

The situation at the mines did not warrant a declaration of state of emergency, he said. – Sapa

Malema is a ‘lumpen’ says Communication Workers Union

Expelled ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema is a “populist, lumpen and right-wing demagogue,” the Communication Workers Union said on Thursday.

“The CWU condemns the populist, lumpen and right-wing demagogue Julius Malema, who is also known as tenderpreneur,” said the union in a statement.

The union accused Malema of using the recent shooting of 34 mineworkers at the Lonmin mine in Marikana for his own political gain.

“It is not exactly known when this lumpen started to be involved in the mining sector,” said the union.

“The loosely-structured Malema, who suffers from a never-ending verbal diarrhoea, has been scavenging, among others, on deceased workers to gain popularity.”

The union accused Malema of using the deaths to engage in attacks against President Jacob Zuma, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the Congress of SA Trade Unions.

CWU’s slamming of Malema comes on the heels of comments from the National Education Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu), criticising Malema and accusing him of “Nazi tactics”.

Malema spokesman Floyd Shivambu hit back against the unions and defended the expelled ANCYL president’s stance.

“We don’t respond to fools. We don’t dignify fools,” Shivambu said.

Shivambu accused unions critical of Malema of themselves being in factional battles, and serving the interests of Zuma.

“They’re narrow, they have no politics. They’re just a lackey of Jacob Zuma,” Shivambu said.

Since the shooting of the 34 mineworkers a month ago, Malema has been a fixture in the Rustenburg area, speaking to disgruntled mineworkers.

This week, Malema called on mine workers to go on a nation-wide strike to remove the leadership of the NUM. – Sapa

Amplats miners striking for R16 070 per month

Striking Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) mineworkers demanded pay of R16,070 a month at a meeting at the Blesbok stadium in Rustenburg on Thursday.

This was according to Gaddafi Ndoda, who described himself as a member of a newly formed workers’ committee.

“To us, R12,500 is just a basic salary,” he said, referring to the amount raised as a demand among many mineworkers over the past weeks.

“Anglo is the most-paying (sic) mine in the country, so our demand is different from other mineworkers,” said Ndoda.

He said they wanted “nothing to do” with AngloPlats’ Mageu beverage, and wanted their refreshment allowance to be R30 a day.

On Wednesday workers there complained about the quality of the Mageu, an energy drink made from fermented grains.

He said currently workers were not entitled to a safety and transport allowance.

“We want our transport allowance to be R60 daily and [our] safety allowance to be R1500.”

They also wanted the increase in their living-out allowance to be R2000 — up from R1700.

An “executive committee” of six members representing workers outside formal union forums had been formed and they were expected to take a memorandum to the mine’s management in Klipfontein near the stadium, he said.

While heading towards the nearby offices, about half the workers who had been in the stadium accompanied the committee, singing and dancing, amid tight security.

As in the past week, the police had Nyalas stationed in the area and a helicopter overhead. Amplats security vehicles and security guards were also on alert, and a Netcare911 ambulance was on standby.

Workers carried knobkerries, sticks and whips. Some also carried umbrellas.

It appeared that a group of striking workers from Lonmin Platinum did not join them as hoped.

Amplats said it suspended operations on Wednesday out of concern for the safety of its employees, and said there was no strike at the mine.

CEO Chris Griffith said the situation in the Rustenburg area was volatile, and that people who wanted to go to work could not because of threats of violence.

“Anglo American Platinum has decided to suspend its operations in the Rustenburg area with immediate effect,” he said in a statement.

“The suspension will continue until such time as operations can be safely resumed.”

Amplats’ chairwoman Cynthia Carroll said the company was in touch with authorities “at the highest level” to identify ways of working with government and the recognised labour unions to achieve a swift and peaceful resolution.

She said the company’s Rustenburg platinum operations were already under financial pressure, and the suspension of operations on Wednesday risked their long-term viability, the longer the situation lasted.

A strike at Lonmin entered its second month this week. Workers at Gold Fields’ KDC West mine were also on strike on Thursday. – Sapa

ANC tries to reassure ‘panicking’ international community about South Africa

ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe has denied there was wide-spread panic over recent violent protests countrywide.

“I’m not sure what’s the difference between panic and caution. If they take cautionary measures to avoid the damage and deaths of people that have occurred now, I don’t think that can be called panic, it would be called cautionary,” Mantashe told SAfm on Thursday morning.

Asked for reaction to investors and the international community “panicking” about the situation, Mantashe said there were two “distinct problems” that needed to be dealt with.

“When there is lawlessness, the state must be capable to deal with that. When there is agitation and incitement, the state must be able to deal with that,” said Mantashe.

If the state becomes “flat-footed”, “everything can break loose”.

“I think that is where I am more worried than the panic you are talking about.”

He also expressed concern about threats to bring the mining industry to a standstill. Mantashe said it would be regrettable if bargaining councils no longer functioned properly.

A month ago, 34 people were shot dead by police at Lonmin platinum mine in Marikana, Rustenburg in the North West. Protests — apparently sparked by rivalry between two unions — had left 10 people dead the week before the shooting by police.

Another body was found at the mine this week, where talks to deal with a R12,500 monthly salary demand were yet to yield any results.

The mine has not been able operate for weeks, and protests by mineworkers seem to have spilled over to more mines — Anglo American Platinum in Rustenburg, and Goldfields’ KDC West mine in Carletonville.

Expelled African National Congress Youth League leader Julius Malema has addressed striking miners, urging them to go on work stoppages every month until their demands were met.

He also addressed disgruntled soldiers on Wednesday, causing the defence minister to accuse him of being counter-revolutionary and trying to incite members of the SA National Defence Force against the state.

Mantashe said the ANC national executive committee would meet to discuss “all these matters that are in the public domain”.

“It’s not an emergency [meeting], it’s a normal NEC meeting. It’s scheduled,” he said. – Sapa

Did South African police kill at Marikana to help black billionaire Ramaphosa’s finances?

The scene at Marikana, north west of Johannesburg, last week

Over the past few days PRAAG obtained new information about the Marikana massacre that is currently still making frontpage news in South Africa. It appears as if the miners of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) were deliberately murdered by the police as part of a campaign to get rid of the bothersome union.

AMCU was busy replacing the NUM (National Union of Mineworkers) as the majority union at the mine. The NUM is affiliated with COSATU, which is a member of the ANC regime’s so-called “tripartite alliance”. Before the shooting started, police ordered the media to leave the area.

Lauren Clifford-Holmes, the multimedia editor for the Johannesburg Mail & Guardian, was prevented last Thursday night from speaking to injured mineworkers. However, she stumbled upon two workers at Lonmin who confirmed that strife between the two trade unions was responsible for the problems, as NUM representatives were not re-elected by dissatisfied miners.
Cyril Ramaphosa

Black businessman and high-ranking ANC politician, Cyril Ramaphosa, apparently owns a contract to supply labour to the Lonmin mine at Marikana via his company Shanduka. “Ramaphosa and the NUM is practising a form of slave labour at the mine,” a source said at Marikana. “He is supplying labour at about R12 000 ($1500) per worker per month, but only pay his workers R4000 ($500) per month, thereby pocketing the difference. As a former NUM chief, he is able to control the union leaders and sees to it that he maintains this grotesque form of exploitation.”

However, NUM’s rival, AMCU, demands that the R12 000 received by Shanduka as labour broker in terms of the contract, should be paid directly to workers. Particularly the rock drillers, who perform the most difficult and dangerous work, felt that they were entitled to this wage, given that this was the tariff already received by Cyril Ramaphosa’s company for work at the mine.

An ex-policeman that PRAAG spoke to, but who prefers to remain anonymous, said that judging from the photographs he had seen, the workers were not attacking the police, but were fleeing from an area where a second police contingent was throwing tear gas at them. “One could see how some of them were trying to protect their eyes and faces. They thought they were fleeing to a safe place, where the heavily armed policemen mowed them down with automatic weapons, however,” said the ex-policeman.

The motive for the mass murder at the Lonmin mine at Marikana was apparently the protection of Shanduka’s lucrative service contract for supplying labour to the mine. Shanduka has already annouced that it will donate R2 million for the funeral of the 34 workers.

The workers are mostly from Lesotho, an independent country, and areas in the Eastern Cape. It would therefore be difficult for them to defend their rights and lives against the ANC-controlled state, cooperating closely with the British-controlled mining company. Until now, the only questions abut the massacre have come from black politicians and activists from outside governing ANC circles.

A group known as the September National Imbizi did a local investitagion and talked to an eyewitness alleging that the mineworkers were “drawn into an ambush” and that they were first bombarded with a “blue substance”, after which they were shot dead during the confusion. Many were executed while trying to hide among rocks and under bushes. On the websit of September National Imbizo, the eyewitness is referred to as “our friend”:

“…our friend shows us how several people were shot while they were hiding between the rocks and under bushes. We see for ourselves splatters of blood that indicate the determination to dig workers out of their hiding holes and shoot them dead. All sorts of items of clothing and shoes, soiled with blood lie all around the scene.”

The website also claims:

“What is clear from what we are told is that this was an ambush. The video material in mainstream media showing workers charging at the police was in fact workers running away from bullets being hurled from behind. Why would workers, armed with knobkierries [African-style clubs – ed.] charge at armed police? The workers were completely surrounded and what we’ve been seeing in the media is only half the story. There was clearly a mission: shoot to kill, thus the deployment of the army.”

Other strange incidents took place.

The media were kept away from the scene for hours so that it would be difficult to reconstruct the exact events. A contact of The Star newspaper was shot dead during the massacre. The police also forced a photographer from the Johannesburg Mail & Guardian to delete his photographs. Why were the police so scared that particular evidence regarding the shooting would leak out?

A video shown in the Netherlands, contained a Vodafone ambulance on the scene. The same vido was later shown in South Africa on News24.com, but without the ambulance, indicating that the video must have been edited.
Beforehand SAPA reported the following statement by the leader of the AMCU:
“We are not safe. Our phones have been tapped,” the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union president Joseph Mathenjwa told a crowd in the Wonderkop informal settlement at Lonmin.
“We have been democratically colonised – workers work under very harsh conditions.”
After the massacre Mathenjwa demanded a really independent investigation, but the ANC simply appointed one of its own ministers, Collins Chabane, to lead the commission of enquiry. Under the previous, so-called “apartheid government” judges were always appointed to commissions of enquiry.
What Mathenjwa is probably referring to when he talks of “democratic colonisation”, is that workers are paid R4000 per month while Cyril Ramphosa is receiving three times as much per worker.

A Johannesburg businessman PRAAG spoke to and who is also in the services sector, confirmed that the ANC’s cadres have virtually instituted a system of “slave labour” in the country. The former officers of their militia, Umkhonto we Sizwe, is currently providing labour to the mines by recruting foreigners. Few, if any, mines still employ workers directly.

“Everything which the ANC described as apartheid, including the system of migrant labour, now applies, except in a far worse degree,” said the businessman. “The ANC’s cadres control everything. They have dug themselves into all sectors of the economy. They do not rule, they are in business. The state is for them just another business, with resources that they may use to enrich themselves. That is what BEE stands for, Black Elite Enrichment.”

Among those state resources controlled by the ANC, is the police force. Was it used to punish the AMCU and “make an example” of the rival union? In the run-up to the 1994 elections the ANC committed necklace murders against so-called “sell-outs”. Where tens of millions of rand are at issue in the provision of labour to a mine, one may therefore expect that an organisation as ruthless as the ANC will use all means at its disposal to eliminate a rival.

During the shooting a journalist from The Star, Poloko Tau, tweeted from the scene:  “Auto guns creacking [sic] and cocked like 100 at a time, scary … warzone down here, 1st shot fired … journalist running, diving and hiding amid shots, water canon spewing water at the strikers … my contact has just been shot dead …”

After the Marikana massacre, some people simply “disappeared”. SAPA reported the following:

“Around 100 women arrived at the Ga-Rankuwa Magistrate’s Court outside Pretoria today where more than 250 protesters were expected to appear for public violence.

One woman, Nombulelo Jali, 37, wept hysterically. She said police did not know what happened to her husband Themba Khalo Jali, 40, who she says was arrested on Thursday.

‘I have come all the way from Harding in KwaZulu-Natal but we can’t find him. We have frantically searched everywhere and we can’t locate him. Police took him,’ said Jali.”

Julius Malema alleges that many of the striking workers are currently detained “irregularly in a private prison”. His friend and ex-colleague from the ANC Youth League, Floyd Shivambu, also said that many of the workers were shot in the back, which would indicate that they were running away from the police when they were shot.

This could not be verified, as a security blanket has been pulled over the area and journalists are not allowed at the mine hospital.

The narrow links between the British-controlled mining houses and the ANC may be traced back many decades. The first contact between the Afrikaner establishment and the exiled ANC was arranged by the mining company Consolidated Goldfields in England during the eighties. On that occasion Thabo Mbeki and Willie Esterhuyse met each other. Their relationship later played a crucial role in the capitulation of the Afrikaner government as Esterhuyse had persuaded several cabinet ministers that the ANC could be “trusted”.

The mining houses also played a leading role in portraying the ANC as the new government for South Africa and probably entered into private agreements with the so-called “liberation movement”.

Yesterday the chairman of Lonmin, Roger Phillimore, blamed “apartheid” for the poor conditions in which his mineworkers have to live, knowing that Shanduka and Lonmin are pocketing the greater share of the mine’s income for themselves.

Riah Phiyega

Julius Malema held Jacob Zuma and Cyril Ramaphosa responsible for the mass murder: “They presided over the massacre of our people… Not even the apartheid government killed as many.”

It is unclear whether the police’s actions will be investigated internally, as the executive director of South Africa’s Independent Police Investigative Directorate, Mr. Francois Beukman, has recently resigned “to pursue other interests”. He is leaving the service at the end of the month. His contract would only have expired in August 2014. At any rate, the new national police commissioner, Riah Phiyega, does not consider the shooting of 34 people “to be a massacre”.

Return to work, or be fired! Lonmin tells striking mineworkers

Miners must return to work Monday or face being fired from the platinum mine where rivalry between unions exploded into violence that led to the deaths of 44 people in a week, Lonmin PLC said Sunday. Thirty-four were gunned down by police in one of the worst displays of state violence since apartheid ended in 1994.

One of the leading figures in South Africa’s ruling ANC, former union boss Cyril Ramaphosa, is a non-executive director in the company and also owns a stake in it.

President Jacob Zuma declared a week of national mourning starting Monday to commemorate the lives of all South Africans who have died violently, especially the 44 at Marikana mine.

“The nation is in shock and pain,” Zuma said in a statement. “We must this week reflect on the sanctity of human life … We must avoid finger-pointing and recrimination. We must unite against violence from whatever quarter.”

Hundreds of rock-drill operators have been leading an illegal strike among the mine’s 28,000-strong labor force. Threats of violence kept many more away.

Lonmin had initially ordered miners to return to work by Friday, then, after the shootings, changed the deadline to Monday, spokeswoman Sue Vey explained.

Strikers said they were not sure what to do about the ultimatum. The company has not responded to their demands for the minimum wage to be increased from R5,500 ($688) to R12,500 ($1,560).

Last year after a similar dispute over labor representation stopped work at its nearby Karee mine, Lonmin fired all 9,000 workers. Then it asked them to reapply for their jobs and most were rehired.

“Because we work as a majority, if the majority goes back to work tomorrow I’m going too,” said miner Vuyisile Mchiza.

But “If the majority is not going back to work tomorrow, I’m not going either because I won’t be able to go to work while others are sitting grieving.”

Jeff Mathunjwa, head of the union to which the strikers belong, said he was not talking to journalists until Tuesday, when asked how he was advising his members.

More than 100 people, miners, their families and local community members, processed past the mine Sunday singing hymns as they made their way to the dusty veld where police officers fired a barrage of shots from automatic rifles and pistols at a group of charging miners on Thursday.

A moving memorial was led by Pastor Sakhumzi Qiqimana of Marikana New Creation Ministry who told those gathered: “Now we have no power to come in the middle of the negotiations of the company and the workers, but we are here now to pray and say ‘God forgive us,’ and now we are here to say ‘This (killing) must stop.'”

Police say one of the charging miners shot at them first with a pistol and that they acted in self-defense. Earlier in the week, the strikers had butchered two captured police officers with machetes.

Lonmin said Saturday that it will pay for the educations of all children of mine employees killed in the unrest, up to university level.

A presidential statement Sunday said Zuma would announce the composition of a judicial commission of inquiry into the killings and its terms of reference within a few days. It said he had appointed 10 Cabinet ministers and a provincial premier to visit Marikana on Monday to lead support for bereaved families including the identification of bodies, burials and counseling.

Many people have said they do not know whether missing husbands and sons are among the dead, among 78 wounded, or among more than 250 arrested on charges ranging from public violence to murder.

Zuma urged South Africans to “reaffirm our belief in peace, stability and order and in building a caring society free of crime and violence.”

The shootings have South Africans debating their country’s magnified levels of violence, and the frequency with which they resort to violence to resolve disputes. South Africa has one of the highest murder and rape rates in the world. – AP

Malema asks police to retreat from crowds at Marikana

Former ANC Youth League president Julius Malema asked police on Saturday to distance themselves from the crowds at the Wonderkop village near Rustenburg.

The negotiations between Malema and the police came after complaints from Lonmin workers and residents that they felt uncomfortable engaging with Malema with the police there.

Around three police nyalas were parked in the area.

Police heeded Malema’s call and moved their vehicles about a kilometre away from the gathering.
Malema arrived in Wonderkop a short while ago.

He was given a warm welcome by the residents and mineworkers when he arrived.

‘Malema, stand up’

Women ululated while men who had been seated stood up and clapped their hands.

Some of the women were waving placards reading: “Julius Malema, Boeremag, please stand up.”

The woman holding up that placard explained that she meant to send a message to Malema that the boer (white men) have killed their husbands.

She said they wanted Malema to help them.

Another woman carried a placard reading “R500 reward for killing police, Musina to Cape Town do your best.”

She explained that her placard meant that anyone who could kill police officers from the Limpopo end of the country to the tip of it in the Western Cape would receive a R500 reward.

For the first time, women and men were seated in one gathering since the start of the unrest.
The women were still however, separated from the men by a fence.

Former ANC Youth League spokesperson, Floyd Shivambu, and suspended league secretary, Sindiso Magaqa were also present.

‘Most people shot in the back’

Earlier, Shivambu said he understood the pleas of the miners and said the police were wrong to utilise maximum force to disperse them.

“Most of the people were shot at the back, indicating that they were running away so police actions were not justified,” he said.

A total of 34 people were killed in a shootout that erupted near the mine on Thursday when police tried to disperse striking miners.

More than 78 people were injured. Another 10 people had by then been killed in the violent protests at the mine over the past week.

President Jacob Zuma visited Lonmin on Friday where he condemned the violence. He called for an inquiry into the incident. – SAPA

Dan Roodt: Britain’s hatred of Afrikaners

Following on the Marikana massacre where 36 black miners were killed yesterday, shot by the ANC’s police service, the usual nauseating comments about apartheid and Afrikaner racism are being made by the BBC and other British media. As if we have any control over the behaviour of mine workers at, in this instance, a British-owned corporation Lonmin. Not to mention the ANC regime’s corrupt and often incompetent police force.

A few years ago, the BBC broke into a hysterical fit when an Afrikaner rugby player, Geo Cronjé, moved to share a hotel room with a friend rather than with another player who happened to be “of colour”. The bearded Cronjé was immediately accused of being an odious “racist”. That prompted me to tweet today: “Wonder whether British Lonmin management will share a hotel room with a black miner? BBC please investigate.”

However, on Facebook I was immediately accused of  “dividing South African whites”. I do believe that South Africa’s increasingly oppressed and marginalised white population, who even get blamed when the mostly black police fire upon some very violent and aggressive miners, should find some common ground. But not at the expense of the truth that Britain has always posed a real threat to us. Once again her media are exploiting a tragic incident to cast us in a bad light.

Historically, all the poison against South Africa and Afrikaners was spread by the BBC, The Observer, The Guardian, as well as of course the local English newspapers who, according to Communst Party leader Bram Fischer, “were doing a splendid job”. The caricature of us as khaki-clad Nazis who were barely literate was broadcast all over the world.

Then the English are always going on about anti-Semitism and Nazi propaganda, but their propaganda has actually played a big role in reducing us to a threatened minority in our own country. If blacks today feel justified in torturing and killing us, it is due to the venom and hate pouring out of London, as well as the pens and minds of London’s local sycophants. No wonder Napoleon spoke of “perfidious Albion”.

The problem is, our people have been so damaged by anglicisation that they see the world through Anglo-Saxon eyes and prefer emigraton to other Commonwealth countries where they try to asimilate, ashamed of themselves, hiding from John Bull’s hate. Many Afrikaners disdain the French, the Germans, the Russians, the “dumb Dutch” (Holland actually has the highest average IQ of any white country) and even the Americans as if they were part of the infernal Empire themselves.

In Afrikaans literature, especially in the Cape, there is a nauseating obession with British literature, as if no books had ever been written in other great European languages. There are some exceptions, such as Jan Rabie who married a Scotswoman in Paris, but refused to speak English to her. To her death she spoke Afrikaans with a kind of Scottish drawl.

The blacks around us are Englishmen gone wrong. Only an Englishman can be so megalomaniac as to think he could completely anglicise an African and make him into something which he is not. The English churces in South Africa, especially the Anglican Church, have been in the forefront of inciting South African blacks against the indigenous whites, bearing a large share of the responsibility for the black-on-white  atrocities currently taking place in South Africa.

Our only hope is that Germany might colonise the European Union to such an extent that Britain becomes finally marginalised. There is a rumour that the US wants to “move the City” to New York and so take away 25% of British GDP. We can only hope.

In a recent edition of Die Afrikaner newspaper there was an article on how the infiltrated SA Foreign Ministry prevented immigrants from the Netherlands from coming to SA in the 1960’s but threw open our doors to Britons, fleeing Harold Wilson’s socialist Britain. The author argues that those British immigrants, many of whom still have dual passports, tilted South African politics in favour of the British view of capitulation to the ANC. Although conservative, their children were often radicalised by the local English universities with their neo-Marxist leanings and so became converts to South Africa’s left-wing, anti-Western revolution.

They also voted overwhelmingly “yes” for black rule in the fateful 1992 referendum.

But the tide is turning against the island of hate, in France, in Germany, Russia, South America and even parts of the USA. Once our story gets out into the world, we will again enjoy the sympathy of the whole world, with people volunteering to come and join us in our struggle for liberation here.

While I was indulging in these thoughts of casting off the British yoke – the ANC is largely a creation of the British Left and the Anglican Church – my wife reminded me of how the English had messed up our indigenous Cape Dutch archicture when they first started buying up such properties in the nineteenth century.

The English have always been ranting against us for having owned slaves during the early Cape period. Of course, they forget that Britain was heavily involved in the transatlantic slave trade. A recent book by Marthinus van Bart shows that they even traded slaves in Cape Town.

Not all Afrikaners at the Cape owned slaves in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, however. But the Dutch East India Company’s representatives in the Cape normally did.

My wife comes from a family that owned one of the magnificent Cape Dutch houses, Rhone, which is today a tourist attraction. It had no slave bell, indicating that there were probably no slaves.

However, the English were keen to pass themselves off as “landed gentry” and therefore preferred the official residences of former Company officials, having slave bells, such as Vergelegen.

Lacking our sober, Germanic taste, they erected horrible kitsch copies of Cape Dutch houses such as Groote Schuur or destroyed the original architecture as at Lanzerac to add servants quarters. Otherwise, they removed those stately gables.

Today the ANC regime is continuing the proud tradition of name changes, first brought by the British. They invented “classy” French-sounding names like Lanzerac, replacing the poetic Schoongezicht, meaning “fair countenance”.

The Arts and Crafts movement in Britain further added to the aesthetic degeneration of the Cape in the nineteenth century. Since the ANC came to power and with Afrikaner influence on the wane, we have had a similar explosion of ugly, Tuscan-style buildings on the Transvaal Highveld as another British fashion got imported to South Africa.

A black man in an ugly, quasi-Italian house, speaking English and watching soccer on TV; that is about the contempory definition of British civilisation, as can be seen in South Africa.

‘Warning signs of a failing state’ at Marikana – Law society of South Africa

The legal fraternity has blamed a breakdown in conflict resolution in the mining industry for Thursday’s shooting near Lonmin’s Marikana mine, in North West.

“These workers have been the victims of an escalating breakdown in conflict resolution, particularly in the mining industry,” the Law Society of SA (LSSA) said on Friday.

It said in a statement this had been brought about by those who put vested interests before the lives of workers

“This breakdown is symptomatic of our society and body politic in South Africa.”

A total of 34 people were killed and 78 were injured when police tried to disperse striking workers who had encamped at the Wonderkop hilltop, near the mine, in Rustenburg.

Another 10 people had already been killed in violent protests at the mine in the past week.

The LSSA said there had been a failure to rely on the rule of law to resolve conflicts.

“Violence, vigilantism, corruption, xenophobia, disrespect for the law and law enforcement agencies, as well as greed for power, influence and wealth are all collectively destroying the values of nation building, patriotism and respect for law and order. These are the warning signs of a failing state.”

A fresh approach was needed by political parties, workers’ unions, NGOs, religious bodies, gender lobby groups, youth groups, community-based organisations, professional and business organisations.

Leaders in these fields and academics with socio-political and economic skills should to get together “to find common ground in order to reverse the growing damage to our society and country that we see around us”, the LSSA said. – Sapa

‘I understand miners’ frustration’ – farmer near Marikana

Families and friends continued to arrive at Lonmin’s Marikana mine on Friday in the hope of tracking down people who went missing, after 34 people were killed in a clash with police.

“I have been trying to call my brother since yesterday and his phone is off,” said Vuyani Feni outside the Andrew Saffy Memorial Hospital, on the grounds of the platinum mine.

“I don’t know whether he is alive or dead, or if he is in prison,” said Feni.

Thirty four people were killed, 78 injured, and 259 arrested after police fired on a group of protesters near the mine on Thursday afternoon, National Police Commissioner Riah Phiyega said at a media briefing at the mine.

Jacobeth Rapoo said she was at the hospital looking for her partner, who she has a child with.

She left the hospital disappointed because she hadn’t heard any news about him.

Feni said they were disappointed with the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) for not securing higher wages for workers, and in the mine for always “preaching” safety but not protecting them.

He was also disappointed with the police, saying the Lonmin workers felt they were protected when they saw police were present.

Gcobani Tiya, also trying to find a relative since he had arrived at the Rustenburg mine from Bethal after not being able to make contact by phone, complained that he was being sent from pillar to post.

He had been sent to a police station where he saw a large group of people in a truck who had been arrested. Not seeing his relative there, he left as they were led into the police station.

“I wish they would release a statement or a list that has all the deceased’s names, or tell us which hospitals our relatives are in, because we are going from pillar to post,” said Tiya.

He complained that the mine and police appeared to be giving information to the media, but not to families.

A hospital official said some of the people who were wounded in the shooting on Thursday had been sent to hospitals in Johannesburg, central Rustenburg, and Pretoria.

She said she was not allowed to speak to the media and asked not to be named by journalists who had heard her speaking to the people gathered.

Meanwhile, Marthinus Barnard, who farms in the area, said land owners were “fed up” with the mine.

“People can’t approach the mine. The mine shuts them out. And they cannot approach government. Government has been called, [but] they never come,” he said.

“All I can say is that the miners have it hard. I understand their frustration.”

The people who died were among a group of protesters who went on strike last Friday.

Another 10 people, including police officers and security guards, have died in separate incidents since the unrest began.

Marikana massacre makes world headlines

The scene at Marikana, near Rustenburg, yesterday

The bloodbath that claimed the lives of over 30 people in Marikana in the North West has made international headlines.

The Guardian, New York Times, Sky News, Denver Post, BBC, Washington Post, CNN, and several other media reported on the massacre.

Wikipedia, an online encyclopaedia, put up a detailed one-page entry on it with references to local newspapers and reporters.

On Thursday, police opened fire with live ammunition on armed, striking workers who had gathered on a hill in the area.

Ten people, among them police and security guards, had already died since the start of their protest a week ago.

The protests were believed to be linked to rivalry between the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union over recognition agreements at the mine.

Workers also wanted higher wages. They claimed to be earning R4000 a month, while those living outside the hostel were earning an extra R1000. Reported demands included pay of R12,500 a month.

On Friday, the NUM said the death toll in the shooting had risen to 36.

People around the world were using the social networking sites Facebook and Twitter to share their views on who they believed were to blame for the bloodbath.

Some believed the police were accountable and asked why live ammunition had been used. Others shifted blame to the company for not giving in to the demands of poorly-paid workers.

The Guardian reported that the shooting had led to a drop in the company’s share price.

It said Lonmin’s shares dropped almost five percent in London and four percent in Johannesburg.

Lonmin executives said all its shafts across the South African platinum belt, which account for 12 percent of global supply, were closed to all but essential services, such as ventilation.

Although the price of platinum had fallen steeply in the past six months, the spot price rose two percent on Tuesday in the wake of the violence, it said.

Lonmin executive vice-president Barnard Mokwena was quoted as saying: “Until the place is safe we don’t want to talk about production.”

South Africa accounts for about three-quarters of the world’s platinum, which is used to make catalytic converters in cars.

London-based Lonmin told the Guardian that 96 percent of its production comes from Marikana. – Sapa

18 dead in Lonmin shootout

An attempt by the police on Thursday to disperse striking workers at Marikana’s troubled Lonmin mine ended in a shootout between the two groups.

A Sapa reporter at the scene said he counted 18 bodies lying next to the nearby Wonderkop squatter camp. The shooting lasted about three minutes.

Police had tried to intercept a section of the strikers gathered on top of a hill.

The strikers were wielding pangas and chanting war songs. Police fired teargas and then used a water cannon to disperse the strikers, who retaliated by firing live ammunition at the police.

The area around the hill, which the strikers had turned into their base for the past few days, was cordoned off with barbed wire.

The strikers scattered towards the squatter camp and the nearby veld.

Police spokesman Captain Dennis Adriao told journalists at the scene police had been “tactical” in their approach and that the situation was tense. – Sapa