Johannesburg - The former general secretary (GS) of the National Union of Mine Workers (NUM) Frans Baleni said he refuses to be drawn into the controversy around President Cyril Ramaphosa’s failure to apologize to the windows of the dead Marikana miners.
Baleni, who was a leader of the NUM at the time of the police massacre that left around 34 miners dead, told a local news channel that he refused to be drawn into the morality of Ramaphosa’s failure to honour a commitment he made at the funeral of struggle icon Winnie Madikizela-Mandela to go to the North West to offer an apology to survivors and widows of the massacre.
Baleni said there were other people that were killed besides those who were mine workers. He said the deaths of the Marikana miners should not be politicized and that all those who died were equally important.
At the time of the massacre, Ramaphosa was a non-executive director of Sibanye Stillwater, then known as Lonmin. He has been blamed for his role in the massacre because of an inflammatory email he had sent to police management commanding that concomitant action should be taken to gain control of the wild cat strike that had gone out of hand.
“The days before the 16 of August at the time a number of union members were displaced and some were killed, who is going to apologize on behalf of those people who were brutally murdered,” Beleni said.
“I cannot speak on behalf of the president of the republic but I can recall Struggle icon Memphite Ramphele has also appealed to Ramaphosa to honour his commitment and apologize to the Marikana survivors.
“He does carry some responsibility when your are a leader forget about the fact that he was on the board of Lonmin just as a leader and the president of this country he has the responsibility to lead by example by standing up and acknowledging his role,” Ramphele said.
Meanwhile, Baleni said he was confident that unions in the gold and platinum sector had learnt from the massacre and have shown signs of working together in wage negotiations.
The Star