Marikana: bold recommendations embedded in timidity

Abstract

INTERNATIONAL union rights Page 6 Volume 22 Issue 3 2015 The Inquiry demonstrated repeated police mendacity: evidence was withheld, doctored and planted and senior police lied in the witness box AMCU’s poaching of NUM members was found to be inaccurate. The Inquiry discredited police witness Mr X, a striker claiming to be part of the strike committee, who accused AMCU president Joseph Mthunjwa of planning violence against NUM members. In fact Mthunjwa was cited in the report as the one person, who if people had listened to his advice, could have prevented the Marikana massacre. The Commission also revealed how police leadership manufactured a narrative before the Inquiry to which all police witnesses adhered even if it meant committing perjury. The narrative was that muti (drug) crazed mineworkers attacked the police who had no option but to shoot. The Commission showed this narrative to be false. The inquiry was also able to garner substantial information on what happened at Scene 2. In essence several police tactical units pursued the workers and in a chaotic operation, believing workers were armed, began shooting at each other whilst workers were caught in the cross fire. It also exposed that some workers were assassinated at point blank range whilst attempting to surrender. Further, the Inquiry uncovered wider truths which a court case would not have revealed. It importantly exposed a chain of command from top politicians to senior police leadership down to armed tactical response teams in a plan to disperse and disarm strikers even if this meant bloodshed. However although this was uncovered the inquiry was not able to prove that direct orders were given by police minister Nathi Mthethwa so the report is ambivalent on his role. The Inquiry was also able to prove repeated police mendacity. It exposed that evidence was withheld, doctored and planted and that senior police lied in the witness box. So, for example, a year into the Commission, under cross examination, a senior policeman revealed that a hard drive submitted to the Inquiry had been doctored. The original contained a conversation between the provincial police commissioner and a Lonmin executive on how the strike must be immediately ended on Ramaphosa’s instructions. The reason being that a rival political party, the Economic Freedom Fighters, was gaining workers’ support which would impact on the ANC’s 2014 election results. Thus a hastily assembled police plan resulted in 34 deaths. The Inquiry also exposed the existence of a police National Management Forum meeting the night before the massacre where the decision to end the strike the next day was taken. Minutes of this meeting however mysteriously disappeared. The Report includes detailed recommendations on the reform of public policing. These include that the national and provincial police commisT he South African President recently released the Marikana Commission of Inquiry findings . These relate to events between 9 - 16 August 2012 when 34 striking mine workers were gunned down by police and a further 78 seriously injured at Lonmin Plc’s Marikana mine in the North West province. At Scene 1 where 17 people died the events were broadcast globally. Twenty minutes later, hidden from the media, a further 17 workers were killed as they attempted to hide, flee or surrender at Scene 2. In mop up operations over 200 workers were arrested and bizarrely charged with killing their co-workers. In the eight days prior to the massacre, a strike led by rock drill operators had resulted in the killings of ten others: two SAPS (South African Police Service) members, two Lonmin security guards, a Lonmin supervisor and five mineworkers. These were also investigated by the Commission. The brutality of the events shocked postapartheid South Africa and assumed a political face as the ANC government distanced itself from the events, including ANC national executive (now South Africa’s vice-president) and Lonmin board member, Cyril Ramaphosa. The events were further complicated by strikers shifting their allegiance before, during and after the strike from the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in alliance with the ANC to the non-aligned AMCU (Association of Mineworkers & Construction Union) claiming the NUM was a sweetheart union. A judicial inquiry in South Africa is appointed by...