Johannesburg - Anglo American Platinum management was deceiving itself to think workers would abandon their basic salary demands and return to work. So said the workers who refused to heed the ultimatum to return to work on Tuesday or face dismissal.
“Tell them [management] we are waiting for them to fire us. Tell those people they are the ones who’ll leave this place. They can fire us but then we’ll close the mine down… No one will come work here [in our place],” said Tsietsi Mofokeng on Tuesday outside the Thembelani mine.
Mofokeng is one of the mineworkers demanding a R15 070 basic salary from the platinum mine’s management.
While mine management maintained it would not bow to workers’ demands, employees who did not down tools continued to be victimised on Tuesday.
“Early this morning, we bliksemed those who were going to work. It was between 4am and 6am and we stripped them and bliksemed them,” Mofokeng said.
“We burnt their clothes. Five of them. You [journalists] should also not bother coming here at night or before 6am, otherwise you’ll leave naked,” he said.
A few metres away, a Chinese national sat counting his losses after a mob of angry workers torched his warehouse on Monday night. “The alarm went off at around 10pm and I drove here from Rustenburg. I saw too much fire,” said Lin Xiong as his wife cried hysterically. Part of his warehouse was damaged, causing stock losses worth R200 000.
A few kilometres away, the remains of a red BMW, a Toyota bakkie, a Toyota Hilux bakkie and another indistinguishable vehicle were strewn along a road passing through the Mfidikwe Village near the Khomanani mineshaft.
The chaos started when miners barricaded roads around 8pm on Monday.
Among the first people to fall victim to the angry mob was Mabel Mathoto.
The 24-year-old woman is a trainee at a supermarket in Rustenburg. She is renting a room in the village while she undergoes training before returning to her hometown of Brits toiwork.
“The taxi driver refused to take us to our stops... They saw us getting out of the taxi at 9pm,” she said.
What followed was a marathon through shacks as a mob armed with stones bayed for their blood.
“You see how fat I am? I ran so fast I couldn’t even believe it myself,” Mathoto said.
Jeremiah Samo, a winch operator on the mines, lost his bakkie to fire after his colleagues turned on him.
He had saved up for four years to buy the vehicle, which he used to supplement his salary by transporting household goods when people moved house, or transporting stuff for fellow countrymen who wanted him to deliver parcels for relatives in Mozambique.
“The extra money helped me support my wife, our three children and my late brother’s three children,” he said
. Samo, 33, is not on strike but has not been going to work for fear of victimisation after National Union of Mineworkers chairman Lungisile Thani was burnt and badly injured in his house on Friday.
Last night, a neighbour asked Samo to ferry him and a sister-in-law to the mine’s other operation a few kilometres away. The neighbour’s brother, a taxi driver, had been badly injured in an accident.
“We saw people with stones emerging from nowhere, and the road ahead was barricaded. I quickly made a U-turn, but the car landed on the side of the road and stopped…
“The neighbour who had been sitting at the back jumped out, leaving me with his sister-in-law. I tried pulling her out but the group was fast approaching. I ran for my life,” Samo said.
Thirty-six-year-old Thembi Maphanga remained inside, crippled by fear.
“
I remember a stone landing on my head. The next thing, I woke up in hospital,” she said.
North West police spokesman Brigadier Thulani Ngubani confirmed the incidents.
Spokeswoman Mpumi Sithole said the company advised its non-striking workers not to report to work on Tuesday following Monday’s violent attacks.
“The security situation in the Rustenburg area worsened during yesterday evening... It is intended to resume operation on the day shift tomorrow [Wednesday].
She would not indicate if any of the striking workers summoned to appear before a disciplinary hearing had showed up on Tuesday.
“Disciplinary action is continuing against employees who have been on strike, in accordance with Anglo American Platinum’s previous announcements,” she said.
Sithole said mine management had also obtained an interdict against employees at its mine in Limpopo after they refused to work on Tuesday.
The Star