Johannesburg - “Long live the spirit of the Marikana miners! Down with capitalism and BEE!”
These were the words chanted at a gathering late on Wednesday to call for an independent inquiry into the Marikana massacre.
“The government is killing the citizens of our country,” said Lonmin worker Mzwanele Madiba.
The various structures that gathered on Wednesday at a public meeting at the University of Johannesburg’s Bunting Road Campus for the launch included members of the public, several organisations including the Democratic Left Front, Right2Know, Amnesty International and Section 27.
Mineworkers came all the way from North West to share their experience of last Thursday’s massacre.
Manelo Rorwana said he had been working at the K3 mine in Lonmin for 11 years and had not earned more than R4 000. “I’m here to tell you why we chose to stay on the mountain. It is the issue of the R4 000,” he said.
Rorwana said the miners had marched peacefully to their employer.
He said they were shot at and killed while they were marching to their union, the National Union of Mineworkers.
“The NUM is governed by the government. They have forgotten the workers,” he said.
Madiba said it was those people they trusted who kept lying to them. “We did not expect the bullets.”
Wonderkop resident Primrose Sonti said she had never before seen anything like the massacre.
“Why did they not just fire them? There are many more people we didn’t find,” she said.
Sonti said more than 34 people had died, but the government was hiding this fact.
Another worker, Chris Molebatsi, said: “The working conditions are unhealthy - no sanitation, no clean water and no proper roads.”
Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) general secretary Jeff Mphahlele said the trouble began four weeks ago.
“Lonmin invited Amcu to a meeting, requesting assistance with the miners who had presented a memorandum to them,” he said.
Mphahlele said Amcu had told the mining management to find a solution to the problem, but they did not.
At the public meeting on Wednesday, a NUM official tried to speak to the people, but the crowd sang him out of the room.
The Star