Cape Town - The Marikana massacre came back to haunt Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa in Parliament on Wednesday, where he was accused of killing 34 miners by the EFF’s Julius Malema and Floyd Shivambu.
Malema and Shivambu were asked to leave the chamber after refusing to withdraw their statements. On their way out of the chamber a member of the ANC objected that Shivambu pulled a “middle finger” sign directed at Ramaphosa.
Speaker Baleka Mbete said she would make a ruling later.
Ramaphosa was fielding a question for the first time in the National Assembly in his capacity as leader of government business; following a similar session he had in the National Council of Provinces last month where he faced questions on Marikana from the EFF’s Leigh-Anne Mathys.
Malema initially asked Ramaphosa how he “reconciles” his testimony before the Farlam Commission of Inquiry into the Marikana massacre “with any of the government’s interventions up to now to alleviate the suffering of the victims”.
“Honourable Malema, there is no correlation between my testimony before the Farlam Commission of Inquiry and government’s interventions following the Marikana tragedy.
“The interventions of government sought to assist the families of all 44 people who died, to establish the facts about what happened at Marikana, to address the social and economic conditions in mining communities, and to address challenges in the mining sector more broadly,” said Ramaphosa.
Asking a follow-up question, Malema said the internal question paper did not capture the “spirit” of his original question correctly and he had used the word “tragedy” instead of “massacre”. “I never wrote ‘tragedy’ I wrote ‘massacre’ and therefore these people who are changing our questions there they must be very careful,” said Malema, referring to Parliament officials.
Malema asked why Ramaphosa was not accepting that he was responsible for the deaths of 34 mine workers on the day of the shooting.
“You killed them because you were driven by profit and the interest to defend your shares as an economic security guard in the economy of South Africa. And stop this thing that we must all take responsibility.
“You are the one who wrote e-mails and instigated the killing of 34 people. You are responsible… your hands have got blood of innocent people who died. The deputy president’s hands have blood, a lot of blood of mineworkers,” said Malema.
Mbete asked Malema to withdraw the remark that Ramaphosa’s hands are “full of blood”.
“I’m not going to do that. The deputy president killed the people in Marikana,” said Malema before walking out.
Shivambu asked which rule prevented members from saying “Cyril is a murderer”.
“He’s a murderer of workers of Marikana, it’s a fact,” said Shivambu.
DA parliamentary leader Mmusi Maimane also joined the debate, referring to the e-mails Ramaphosa sent to Lonmin executives before the massacre.
“Would the deputy president concede today that this e-mail confirms that he personally inflamed the situation and that if the Farlam commission finds any wrongdoing and any contributory role that was played by you at Marikana, will you resign as deputy president?” asked Maimane.
Ramaphosa said it would be incorrect to address “substantive issues being dealt with by the commission”.
He said he had volunteered to go to the inquiry and was not “subpoenaed”.
He said Marikana was a “tragedy South Africans will never want to see again”.
“The first thing obviously we have to do is to heal the wounds that were caused by the tragedy of Marikana and to move on in a practical way and heal those wounds and look after those who are victims in a number of ways, and the government has already started doing that,” said Ramaphosa.
He said that in the Bojanala Platinum Complex for example, the North West provincial government had set aside R462 million for housing projects in the mining area of Marikana.
Political Bureau