“We stabbed the man. I also took part in it. I used my panga to strike him,” the witness, identified only as “Mr X”, told the Farlam inquiry into the Marikana deaths. A worker was killed because he went to work during the 2012 platinum miners’ strike the inquiry heard in Pretoria on Tuesday. Mr X may not be identified to protect his identity. Mr X said they asked Julius Langa where he was going and he told them he was going to work. “We asked, ‘how can you go to work when there is a strike?’ and we killed him,” Mr X said. Langa was stabbed 18 times, his post-mortem showed. Before Langa was killed a meeting was held where it was decided people going to work should be killed. The strikers were armed with pangas, firearms, and spears. Police were apparently trying to disarm and disperse them. In the preceding week, 10 people, including two policemen and two security guards, were killed.
Tag: strikers
Strikers attack truck and driver
A truck driver and two other people were in hospital on Thursday after their truck was torched on the N12, Ekurhuleni metro police said.
“The driver and his two co-drivers were seriously injured…. The three were battered by angry mob of striking truck drivers,” said spokesman Superintendent Vusi Mabanga.
The attackers ran away and no arrests were made.
Striking truck drivers have been accused of violence and intimidation since the strike began.
On Wednesday, two trucks were set alight and another was stoned in Cape Town.
Talks to end the strike collapsed on Thursday when unions rejected a third offer.
Drivers wanted a 12 percent salary increase, while employers offered 8.5 percent for next year, and another 0.5 percent the following year. – Sapa
Marikana massacre makes world headlines
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