EMMY award-winning filmmaker Rehad Desai plans to unveil a sculpture in honour of slain mineworkers on the Marikana koppies where they were killed.
Desai was in Cape Town this weekend to celebrate his Emmy win alongside the birthday of his sister Zivia Desai Keiper, who also worked on his multiple award-winning documentary Miners Shot Down.
The film tells the story of the police’s killing of mineworkers who were on a wage strike at Lonmin in late 2012.
Desai said he planned a number of projects as part of the film’s accompanying campaign to improve the lives of poorly paid mineworkers.
“We will get a monument on the (Marikana) koppie this year. We will see the beginning of civil claims and trials that will go on for years,” he said.
Court action is planned on behalf of the families of slain mineworkers, said Desai, following this year’s conclusion of a government-launched commission, which did not result in any arrests, which Desai’s campaign is seeking.
“Films are important. We need to bear witness. But we need to do more,” said Desai of his campaign.
“Justice for the slain mineworkers is prosecution of those responsible for this and the people who pulled the trigger. The film shows that we have an idea of who is responsible.”
Desai said the Miners Shot Down campaign would also launch a civil society enquiry into the 2012 killings. This would “look at all the evidence that came before the Marikana enquiry,” he said. Desai said it was also “ironic” that the ANC posted a congratulatory message on his website after news broke that the film had won an Emmy.
“It’s very ironic because the film implicates them. It’s a very public accusation,” he said.
Among top ANC leaders the film points an accusatory finger at is Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa.
“I did see him at the (Marikana) commission and it was the most difficult thing. I couldn’t look him in the eye. It’s like if your wife had done something atrocious. How do you look at her?” asked Desai.
“That’s my family. At the moment the whole trade union movement is getting behind him (Ramaphosa) despite this (Marikana).”
Desai’s referral to “family” means the ANC, a political party that his family had been involved with after his anti-apartheid activist father Barney Desai left for exile to London. His father was also a lawyer and died in 1997.
Desai said he thought a lot about his father after picking up the award in New York.
Cape Argus