Tag: mining

Bobby Godsell says Marikana violence ‘outrageous’

Bobby Godsell, former CEO of Anglogold Ashanti and chairman of Business Unity

The violence at Marikana was “outrageous” and the killers needed to be held accountable, Business Unity SA chairman Bobby Godsell said on Monday.

“In an apartheid South Africa with no (democratic) constitution you can say that violence was regrettable and understandable,” he said during a discussion at the Gordon Institute of Business Science in Johannesburg.

“In a constitutional democracy, (violence) is not understandable. It is completely outrageous.

“People must be held accountable for those murders.”

For South Africa to fix what happened at the Lonmin platinum mine in Marikana, North West, wage negotiation processes had to change.

“We have to make wage negotiation work. It has to be inclusive. We have to include people in the negotiation process.

“It has to deliver outcomes that people find broadly acceptable.”

A panel consisting of business leaders, economists and political commentators discussed what led to the deaths of 44 people, most of them striking Lonmin employees, in August.

Executive head of joint venture operations at Anglo American Platinum, Vishnu Pillay, said South Africa needed successful communities to prevent the Marikana tragedy.

Pillay said it was clear there was a link between the social problems faced by Lonmin workers and what the workers wanted from management.

The tragedy, he added, taught the mining community that it needed to conduct its business differently.

Pillay said both the mining company and unions had “in some way” failed the mineworkers in Marikana.

On August 16, police fired on a group of protesters near Lonmin’s Marikana mine, killing 34 and wounding 78. Another 10 people were killed in the preceding week, including policemen and two security guards.

SA Chamber of Mines CEO Bheki Sibiya echoed some of Pillay’s views.

“Mining is a microcosm of what happens in South Africa. Because it is a microcosm we find that a lot of problems which are happening around [the country] are happening in the mining industry as well.”

The fact that most of the 260 people who were arrested on August 16 did not work at Lonmin showed the Marikana tragedy was underpinned by social issues.

Sibiya urged all parties involved in Marikana to stop blaming one another.

“Let’s hang our heads in shame and fix the problem.”

Most of the panellists also criticised he inefficiency of the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac), a forum where government, labour, business, and community organisations negotiate.

“I don’t go to Nedlac because it’s a waste of time. I don’t go there because the government officials who were supposed to be making it successful decided not to attend,” Sibiya said.

Chief executive of Pan-African Capital Holdings, Iraj Abedian, pinned the blame on the nation’s failure to practice what it preached.

Abedian said everyone knew the mining sector had not complied with its social responsibility targets, and nothing had been done about it.

The government and society had done little about structural risks in the mining sector.

“In economics if you do not manage the structural risk and you hope that it will go away… it bounces back,” he said. – Sapa

Malema arrives at Aurora mine

Ululation, whistles and jubilation greeted expelled ANCYL leader Julius Malema’s arrival at the Aurora mine in Grootvlei, Springs, on Thursday.

Workers sang “Ngisebenzela izingane zami emgodini” (I’m working for my children in the mine).

Malema arrived in a Mercedes-Benz Viano minibus dressed in a white shirt, black pants and his trademark beret.

Workers at the mine told Malema how President Jacob Zuma promised to help them, but never honoured his words.

“Zuma was here… took payslips and promised to attend to our problems. He then disappeared and then brought his kids to run the mine,” said one of the workers.

Aurora’s directors include Zuma’s nephew Khulubuse Zuma and former president Nelson Mandela’s grandson, Zondwa Mandela.

Workers told Malema how the liquidators of Aurora Empowerment Systems demolished their hostel, leaving them on the street.

“We were paid R500 and told that was 40 percent of our provident fund,” one of the workers claimed. – Sapa

Malema was expected to address the workers, left without wages for months after Aurora took over the liquidated Pamodzi Gold mines. Aurora’s directors have been accused of stripping the mine’s assets and not paying workers their salaries. An inquiry into the matter is underway.

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

‘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