Tankiso Makhetha
PRETORIA: Suspended national police commissioner General Riah Phiyega doctored statements to keep the media and public in the dark about the true nature of events during the Marikana massacre, the Claassen Board of Inquiry heard yesterday.
Former brigadier and police media relations officer Lindela Mashigo made this allegation while giving his testimony.
He told the inquiry of alterations to a media statement of August 17, 2012.
The board is investigating Phiyega’s fitness to hold office, as recommended by the Farlam Commission of Inquiry into the tragedy.
The inquiry’s terms of reference include investigating whether Phiyega, along with others in the police leadership, misled the commission by hiding the fact they had authorised the “tactical option” during a management meeting on the day before the killings.
The inquiry is also probing whether Phiyega, while taking the decision to go the tactical route, could have foreseen the catastrophic consequences.
During a cross-examination by evidence leader, Advocate Ismail Jamie, SC, Mashigo was asked to describe the changes dictated to him by Phiyega pertaining to the media statement.
Mashigo, now a City of Tshwane media relations director, said he arrived at Marikana and was tasked with altering an internal briefing document which was later submitted as exhibit FFF4 during the Farlam commission.
The statement distributed to the media was submitted as FFF5.
“The changes came about when we were putting together a statement and they were dictated to me by the national commissioner,” Mashigo said.
“I copied the document titled FFF4 and pasted it on the page that contained the police logo because it was going to be a statement. The first change that was dictated was not to differentiate between Scene 1 and Scene 2.”
He was referring to the two scenes where 34 miners were gunned down by police.
The changes about the two scenes were to be used during the briefing and served to keep the media in the dark about the true nature of events and present it as a single incident in which the miners were killed.
Mashigo said Phiyega dictated these changes during a briefing at a Lonmin Mine building.
“As you will see in the media statement, there was no Scene 1 and Scene 2.
“The second change that I had to effect was the ‘systematical withdrawal of the police’.
“That too was dictated to me by the national commissioner,” said Mashigo.
Jamie read an extract from the final police statement which specified that police retreated systematically and were forced to utilise maximum force to defend themselves.
Furthermore, Mashigo confirmed that another line that was suggested to him by the suspended commissioner entailed the advancing of a “militant group” that was approaching the police.
The inquiry was adjourned after Phiyega’s representative, Advocate William Mokhari, SC, requested to cross-examine Mashigo today.