South African police shoot dead striking miners

[Magda Hassan]

Minister Demands Explanation Of Murder Charges, Marikana Mine Massacre Grows More Sinister: What Must Be Done?

September 1st, 2012 - by: Danny

Dissecting From South Africa:BBC: SA rethinking mine murder chargesSouth Africa's justice minister demands an explanation after state prosecutors charge 270 miners with murdering colleagues who were shot by police.Ronnie Kasrils, Amandla Journal, The Slayings Grow More SinisterOur initial horror and outrage does not subside but deepens. Credible monitors, independent researchers and investigative journalists engaged in crime-scene investigation, research and interviews are uncovering a web of vengeance and extra-judicial executions. These point to a scenario as sinister and chilling as anything from our horrific colonial-apartheid history.Our gut reaction as we recoiled from the police shootings partially captured on TV cameras, that this was not some Rorke's Drift style defensive action by police, but part of a deliberate punitive deployment, is being compounded almost on a daily basis. I refer to such documentation as the Benchmark NGO monitoring; "The Daily Maverick" account of "The Slaying Fields" (30th Aug); "The Star" (27th Aug) leaks of autopsy results; bizarre murder charges brought against the170 detained striking miners for the deaths of their comrades on the Marikana Hill called Wonderkop. Methinks something in the state of our country is extremely fishy and reprehensible, which must be exposed and cannot be tolerated.I will return to these sinister developments later. First I want to go back to that fateful day on 16th August looking at events as they unfolded and questions I initially raised in a "Sunday Times" article (26th Aug).An order was given to deploy almost 500 police armed with automatic weapons, reinforced by armoured vehicles, horsemen and helicopters; they advanced on a desolate hill where 3000 striking miners were encamped. That denoted an order from on high with a determination to carry out a dangerous and dubious operation to clear an isolated, stony outcrop of desperate strikers armed with the sticks and spears often referred to as "cultural" weapons in our country. Yes pangas (machettes) were sharpened and extremely menacing in confrontation. But the vast majority of strikers carried sticks and I used the term "cultural weapons" so that we be reminded how often crowds of our people traditionally act in circumstances where they wish to show defiance or act in solidarity invariably with no loss of life.These strikers were hardly occupying some strategic point, some vital highway, a key city square. They were not holding hostages. They were not even occupying mining property.Why risk such a manoeuvre other than to drive the strikers back to work at all costs on behalf of the bosses who were anxious to resume profit-making operations?If by occupying that hill the strikers constituted a threat to other workers, officials or rival unionists, then a feasible solution could only be through reasonable, patient negotiations and remedies, no matter the timeline not a deployment of state force that could only end in the dreadful manner witnessed: 34 strikers dead, 76 wounded, their families devastated.In my reaction to the TV news report that fateful 16th of August was that it may well have been instinctive fear that caused the police to open fire as a group of miners apparently desperately charged them, or even possibly tried to get out of the encampment. My question then as now: why put the law enforcers there in the first place?The police manoeuvre was akin to poking a hornets nest with a stick. What mind-set was behind the police intention?Who set the agenda? What was the governments hand in this? This cannot be kept secret, or can it?
First it was our new national police commissioner who told the nation: "This is not the time to point fingers."
Our President reiterated the call, word for word, soon thereafter. He naturally announced that an independent judicial inquiry would be appointed. The usual recourse of government's the world over: shelve the pressing need to take immediate action such as apologising and ensuring that those in charge resign with immediate effect. Above all avoid explanation and hold one's tongue rather than give leadership. And of course judicial inquiries look at legalities and so often when the report is finally delivered are biased in favour of established order.Minister Collins Chabane, presiding over an inter-ministerial committee sent to attend to burials and commiserate with the survivors and families, repeated the refrain "we must not point fingers". It seems the national police commissioner had set the politician's agenda. We dare ask: is this not a recipe for avoiding accountability and just plain stalling until the hue and cry dies down?We have heard much about the illegality of the strike and the panga-wielding strikers who, it is alleged, used muti (medicine to make one invincible) and brought the disaster on themselves, a clear-cut case of blaming the victims, victims who are among the most exploited of our workforce and who labour under the most dangerous and dreadful conditions truly the wretched of the earth. By the way the muti reference in a society where traditional belief systems and superstitions has been allowed to freely gain ground in current South Africa is particularly disingenuous.The President, who believes that a shower post an unprotected sexual encounter can protect one from HIV AIDS, hints that there is much that lies behind this incident. Who knows what is implied? Sounds like the stuff of plots and conspiracy. Watch this space and do not be surprised by more obfuscation.Of course, much lies behind the catastrophe: chiefly the exploitative mine owners and the horrendous conditions under which our country allows mineworkers to toil and their communities to fester. Add to the mix trade-union rivalry, demagoguery and intimidation, and previous killings. Yes ten died the week before the 16th August massacre: six miners, two security guards and two policemen. The reference to the latter is how gruesomely they were hacked to death. Was this the reason why the police sought vengeance? I have heard fellow comrades and former colleagues, including trade unionists, blaming the strikers. My knowledge of trade union struggles and worker strikes the world over from America to Europe and beyond is of the killing of scabs and agents out of desperate struggles to survive. Not pretty but let us not be hypocritical in this case. It is from "The Daily Maverick" (Aug 30th) that we learn of the circumstances in which a group of miners fought their way out of a police ambush on August 13th in which the two policemen died as well as two miners. An event the report links to the police intention to punish the strikers.Then there is as ever the blatant, arrogant, mean, insatiable greed of mine owners and management to blame and confront; disputes about pay and conditions; victimisation and dismissals. Their cynical role must be exposed but whatever manner of cause and effect may be discerned, there is no escaping where the finger needs to point in the here and now.And that is right at the trigger fingers responsible for mowing people down as at a duck shoot. For if we do not point at those who pulled the triggers and who issued the orders, and behind them whoever quite possibly gave the nod of approval, then we allow the whole bloody event to be diverted and bogged down by the bigger, overwhelming picture. Yes, we can and must deal with this total picture because ultimate responsibility lies with our whole exploitative system, but there is time and scope for that. I say let us get to the immediate truth which is not as complicated as the police, mining houses, government, sections of the media and some analysts would have us believe? We dare not allow the reality of the ghastly killings to be disguised and demobilise a gathering energy of the outraged.Let us not do what the forces of apartheid automatically did in the past and hide the truth about state violence. Let us not create a fog of war around this massacre and declare that fingers must not be pointed, because in effect what that implies is that we shall not point to where responsibility lies.We shall not point to those who fired the weapons; to those who gave the orders; to those who have encouraged the police to maintain a bellicose culture of "shoot to kill"; to those who failed to train them in acceptable methods of crowd control; to those who decided that the time for reckoning with striking mineworkers had arrived. To adopt such a course will mean that leadership will be exonerated and accountability will become yet another victim.If we do not point fingers at the right targets, the politicians who bear executive authority for those who may have given some kind of green light, or by dereliction of responsibility left the police to their own devices will go unscathed.We are asked to put our faith in a judicial commission and let the dust settle. Nice, sober talk. But in a democracy that has sworn to make such massacres a thing of the past we need to cry out in the name of humanity and justice and demand full transparency and accountability.Indisputably the mine owners and managers are guilty for their greed and arrogance. But then we are all guilty for allowing this extreme exploitation of our working people to persist into the 19th year of freedom.
If by default we fail to hold our police system and government accountable for the systemic brutality actually what is beginning to look like a cold-blooded premeditated execution we run massive risks, detrimental to our very security and democratic freedoms.A national crisis like this requires frank talk by all concerned South Africans. We need to mobilise and demonstrate solidarity with the victims. Our history reverberates with the words: Do not blame the victims!
For we have seen it all before, from Sharpeville to Bisho and last years vicious police killing of the activist Andries Tatane during a protest demonstration. If we fail to point to the cause of the gunfire, the fingers will be pointed at the victims as they lie dead in the fields or the streets. And the shootings will continue.
I asked those questions in the immediate aftermath of the shootings. The developments I referred to at the beginning of this article make things look far, far worse.Let us briefly refer to some of the very latest information now pointing to an extremely ominous and sinister chain of events on that fateful August 16th day, indicating a deliberate intention to execute strikers on the spot beyond the range of the media (as reported elsewhere in this issue).The very reliable and meticulous Benchmark NGO that has been studying and reporting on the situation in the platinum mines for months, has reported that the police rolled out their razor-wire fencing to herd the strikers in particular directions, and enclose them into separate sections, so as to deal with them and leave no avenues of escape.Was it no wonder then that with tear-gas being dropped from helicopters there was pandemonium on the hill and the strikers were desperate to flee. Quite possibly those dozen men we saw mown-down on TV were not as supposed charging the police but were desperately seeking to escape the ring….Desperate to escape like the other luckless dead investigated by "The Daily Maverick" (30 Aug),whose Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, Greg Marinovich, has revealed the extent of what appears to have been merciless slaughter of some twenty miners at a spot behind the hill and out of sight of the media, where they were trapped with no avenue of escape, tried to hide in crevices and despatched at point-blank range. Those findings make the most chilling reading…It the light of this the leaked autopsy reports referred to by "The Star" indicating that many dead were shot in the back and crushed by police vehicles is believable. We await the outcome.Marikana is undoubtedly a turning point in our history. If we fail to act decisively, we do so at our peril and we leave the space to the demagogues. If, as a young democracy we are to emerge stronger and better we need the truth and we need to spare nobodys position or reputation. Above all we need a new deal for our mineworkers and we need a system based on economic justice for the poor of our land. We need a political leadership not distracted by holding on to their positions at all costs, but one focused night and day on urgently solving our peoples problems and serving their needs. We can achieve that but only by concerted efforts and mass pressure on the powers that be.There needs to be an inquiry by a commission set up by workers and trade unionists and that needs to probe in the first instance the shootings and where full responsibility lies. I stress again the need to focus on the shootings. This will not let all the other role players off the hook. The mine bosses, union rivalry, the wider economic issues, all need to be examined but we must in the immediate period focus on the shootings themselves. Some are making the search for the truth sound like a mammoth exercise. This runs the risk of sidelining police and government responsibility. Already the police have stated that the weakness of public order policing goes back to 1994. They are shifting their culpability to democratic change. They will be assisted by serving politicians eager to allocate blame to the pre-Polokwane Mandela-Mbeki administrations. Yes, there surely is a case for the 1994 compromises on the economy coming back to bite us and that must also be examined. But the statement is a cynical ploy to exonerate the police. Is the truth really as complicated and diverse as some would have us believe disguising the reality of the very massacre? What has happened stems from deliberate police planning, decisions and orders.We need to demonstrate in solidarity with the victims, their families, those on trial.We should collect funds on a vast scale to assist the victims, their families, their children.We need to demand compensation for those killed and injured. All strikers must be given their jobs back.
We expect the working class of our country to unite behind the victims, the dead, injured, striking workers and their families and we expect this from all our citizens who believe in truth and justice.We must not leave an inquiry to the judicial commission alone but encourage investigative journalism and monitoring groups to help get to the bottom of the crime and expose all that is sinister and still at work.Ronnie Kasrils is an author, activist and former ANC government minister
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