Johannesburg - The victims of the 2012 Marikana tragedy which saw 34 miners gunned down by the police have slammed the government for ignoring calls for compensation, eight years after the event took place.
In the most lethal use of force by the police in democratic SA, many more miners were left injured as they fought for R12 500 living wage and other improvements to their working conditions on August 16.
On Sunday, the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) held the 8th commemoration for the massacre in Midrand, Johannesburg, and their legal representatives announced their plans to drag President Cyril Ramaphosa to court if he does not apologise for his role and concede to their compensation demands by the end of August.
The aggrieved miners have assembled their team of prominent lawyers including advocate Dali Mpofu, advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi and advocate Dumisa Ntsebeza to take on Ramaphosa.
Mpofu stressed that “after the first of September they are going to meet us in court” if Ramaphosa fails to concede to the demands of the victims whom he said had been “walking with bullets in their bodies for eight years”.
“We will be reporting to the nation the disgrace that these people have not been compensated after eight years,” Mpofu said.
Ramaphosa, who was a director of the Lonmin Mine during the tragedy, came under scrutiny for calling for “concomitant” action against the miners during their violent strike which resulted in ten deaths in the days before the fateful day resulting in him being urged to acknowledge his role and apologise.
While the Farlam commission into the massacre cleared Ramaphosa , Mpofu accused him of using legal technical points to evade apologising to the victims.
Mpofu said Ramaphosa and his administration had until the end of August to compensate the miners or face court action.
“We are also giving him personally until the end of August to ensure that he engages with our attorneys to ensure that he stops taking these technical points and engages with us. If they fail to do that we have a team that has been assembled. We are going to take this matter up both against him personally and against his government,” Mpofu said.
One of the victims who survived the massacre, Mzoxolo Magidiwana, indicated that courts were the only route through which the miners would fight for their compensation and accountability over the tragedy.
“They must also get the pain that we received. I am saying that Ramaphosa is a billionaire, but he must also go and stand in the dock like me,” he said.
One of the widows of the 34 striking mine workers who were gunned down, Nonkululeko Ngxande who stayed with her husband at the Nkaneng informal settlement where the majority of miners lived, said she was in the area when the police used their assault rifles on miners
“When I heard the sound, it was like hail coming. I felt that something wrong was happening. And it did happen. It is still very painful, and we have not made peace over it,” Ngxande said.
“Apology is the most important thing and we are still waiting that one day, God will use the hearts of those in power to come and apologise to us. We will forgive them,” Ngxande said.
Amcu president Joseph Mathunjwa said the union would continue its campaign for comprehensive restitution for the victims.
Political Bureau