Cape Town - National police commissioner General Riah Phiyega faces a clamour for her to resign immediately or be fired after the release of the report of the Marikana Commission of Inquiry – and the evidence against her is damning.
With Phiyega’s apparent knowledge and consent, senior police management tried to hide from the inquiry that a decision to disperse and disarm striking workers on the Marikana koppie – if they refused to put down their weapons – was taken the night before the massacre, and not in response to an escalation of tensions on the day.
“That decision,” the report states, “was the decisive cause of the 34 deaths on 16 August.”
This is because it forced operational commanders to come up with a plan to implement it at short notice – in the few hours between the realisation on the morning of August 16 that the strikers would not disperse voluntarily, and the afternoon, when it had to be executed while there was still light.
The plan they came up with was woefully inadequate, didn’t reflect the live situation, was never properly assessed to test worst-case scenarios, did not include input from experienced public order policing officers, was poorly communicated to commanders of the units involved, and began to unravel almost as soon as it was put into motion.
Two crucial oversights contributed directly to the deaths.
First, the plan called for barbed-wire barricades to be rolled out simultaneously by police Nyalas to prevent strikers from approaching the police “safe area”, but this was impossible in practice and a public order officer would have known this.
The result was that strikers trying to leave the koppie were funnelled towards the police line, making the police think they were about to be attacked.
Second, there were no “less than lethal” measures between the first line of public order police and a backup line of tactical response members “armed with R5 weapons and effectively operating as a firing squad”.
When the public order police took cover in the face of the advancing strikers, who were encouraged by the firing of teargas canisters into their ranks to run towards the police, the tactical response unit had little option than to open fire, with predictably deadly consequences.
Phiyega and then-North West provincial commissioner Zukiswa Mbombo also took “irrelevant” political considerations into account in their decisionmaking, the report said.
They discussed, for example the possibility of Julius Malema, at the time recently expelled from the ANC, with Lonmin non-executive director Cyril Ramaphosa chairing the hearing, intervening successfully to resolve the strike and getting credit for it.
Mbombo had not wanted Lonmin, whose workers were on strike, to negotiate with the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union, thereby undermining the National Union of Mineworkers, an ally of the governing ANC.
She was under the impression Ramaphosa, a powerful politician, wanted the situation resolved.
To cover up that August 16 had been declared “D-Day” in advance, the extraordinary meeting of the national management forum was not mentioned in the SAPS initial submission to the inquiry.
Details of the meeting emerged months after Phiyega testified, and she had to be called back for further questioning when her testimony was “singularly unhelpful”.
“She claimed to be unable to remember most of what was discussed,” the report said.
When asked whether the meeting had discussed the need to keep bloodshed to a minimum, she said there must have been such a discussion but she could not recall “those pedantic details”.
A memory stick containing a recording of the meeting vanished under mysterious circumstances.
Evidence leaders called the SAPS response to questions about the critical meeting a “disgrace”, leaving them with “a feeling of absolute despair”.
The report said neither Mbombo nor Phiyega should have been taking decisions on operational matters because they had limited operational policing experience.
Mbombo had one year of experience in crime prevention, after which she rose through the ranks in administrative and financial positions.
Yet she took two “critical decisions” – to implement the “tactical option” on August 16 and, on the day, that it was time to do so.
Both were described as “reckless” in the report. Mbombo retired last month.
Phiyega, the report said, was, “if anything, in an even worse position”, having never served in the police before. Possibly the most damaging evidence against Phiyega are her words at a police parade the day after the tragedy. “Whatever happened represents the best of responsible policing,” she said.
Phiyega is to face an inquiry into her fitness to hold office, and President Jacob Zuma said he had written to her to inform her of this.
But political parties and policing experts are baying for her head.
Gareth Newham, head of governance, crime and justice at the Institute for Security Studies, said she should be held to account “as a matter of urgency”.
DA leader Mmusi Maimane said former police minister Nathi Mthethwa, now minister of arts and culture, and Phiyega should be “summarily dismissed”.
ACDP leader Kenneth Meshoe said Phiyega should be suspended immediately, pending the outcome of the inquiry into her fitness.
IFP MP Albert Mncwango also called for Phiyega’s suspension.
Weekend Argus