When was the marikana strike

Nevertheless, the strikers selected five representatives, and sent them to talk to the negotiator. Mineworker 3 provides a detailed account of proceedings. The representatives claimed that the negotiator and his team refused to leave the Hippo and speak to them on the same level, face to face.

They also refused to provide their names, which was disconcerting to the workers, and at some point, later on, an amadoda tried to take a photograph of the police on a cellphone, but this was stopped. A worker who was part of the delegation claimed that one of the senior police was a white woman and that a company representative was also sitting in the Hippo.

This was denied by the police Mineworker 3. Nevertheless, the five madodas conveyed the view that all they wanted was to talk with their employer. They wanted him to come to the mountain, but, if necessary, they would go to him. The police left the workers, leaving the impression that they would inform the employer of their request.

However, when they returned the next day, Wednesday, 15 August, it was without a representative of the employer. Lonmin was refusing to talk to its striking workers. According to a strike leader, only three of the five madoda would survive the massacre that was imminent Mineworker 3.

Mineworker 1 concurred: « He was not in a right place to talk to us as a leader, as our president, this thing of him talking to us while he is in a Hippo. We wanted him to talk to us straight if he wanted to ». When he did speak, his message was simple, crude even. Apparently the workers repeated their demand that they only wanted their employer to address them, not Zokwana Mineworker 8.

According to Mineworker 6, Mathunjwa said that he was sympathetic to the strikers, but cautioned them that he too had been denied access to the employers.

However, he added that because he had members at Karee he would try again to meet them the following day. The police presence had increased on the Wednesday, and on the Thursday morning, 16 August, more forces arrived. This time the police were accompanied by « soldiers », probably para-military police dressed in similar uniform to the police, and they brought trailers carrying razor wire which the workers mostly refer to as barbed wire Mineworker 8 and 9.

Mineworker 9 says that workers « shouted » for other workers to join them. In the early afternoon on this fateful day, Mathunjwa returned, this time without any escort Mineworker Mineworker 10 added that Mathunjwa told the strikers they should return to work, because if they stayed on the mountain any longer a lot of people might die. There was some scepticism about this advice. According to him: « We said, Comrade, go home. You did your best, but we will not leave here until we get the R12 we are requesting, and if we die fighting, so be it ».

The last phrase resonated with a famous speech by Nelson Mandela, and Mineworker 9 pursued this, albeit with a twist. He said: « We should talk and negotiate through striking, that is how Mandela fought for his country ». Mathunjwa made one last attempt to convince the workers. He went down on his knees and begged them to leave Mineworker 2.

Few accepted his plea. About twenty minutes later, at They are a large crowd, roughly 3 strong, spread between the mountain, the hillock to its north and lower ground between the two […]. They look peaceful, not threatening anyone. Much of this build-up was watched by strikers still sitting on the mountain. The media quickly retreated from just below the mountain to a safer position, from where they would record the opening of the massacre Mineworker 6.

Two « big joined buses from the mine » arrived delivering yet more police to the scene. Also « soldiers » appeared on top of their Hippos these were probably Hippos of the classic kind.

We later learned there were vehicles from each of the neighbouring provinces, but it seems there was even one, perhaps more, from the Eastern Cape. Mineworker 8 says: « What really amazed me was that the truck that carries water and the other one that carries tear gas, they were nowhere near, they were standing right at the back ».

Ominously, mine ambulances were already present when the shooting started Mineworker 8. Mineworkers assembled at Wonderkop Koppie during the strike.

This shows the approximate position of the wire, which was positioned in a line northwards from a pylon close to the electrical power facility and then took a turn to the right in the direction of a small kraal the first of three in that area Their plea that a gap be left open, so that strikers could leave like human beings, fell on deaf ears.

With guns aimed at the workers, it was clear that the police were now ready to shoot. A large number of the strikers rushed north eastwards in the direction of Nkaneng, where many of them lived.

According to members of our Reference Group, this came from the side of the miners who were heading towards Nkaneng […]. Some fleeing strikers, including several leaders, now turned towards the right, hoping to escape through a small gap between the wire and the first kraal. Most continued northwards, so there were no hoards of armed warriors following this leading group, as suggested in some media coverage, though not by TV footage.

One woman, a witness, later made the point that the strikers were running with their weapons down, and so were not a threat, and this can be seen in some photographs It was too late. Mineworker 2 recalled: « People were not killed because they were fighting We were shot while running. The order was given to fire. The command probably came from a white man, who did so, according to Mineworker 6, using the word « Red » There were no warning shots According to Mineworker 2, who was clearly present, « the first person who started to shoot was a soldier in a Hippo, and he never fired a warning shot, he just shot straight at us ».

The charter was meant to specify post-apartheid transformation rules for the industry. I studied these interactions at the national level, especially in the debates surrounding the charter, as well as at the local level in the platinum mining area around Marikana.

I paid particular attention to two key aspects of governance. These were the establishment and enforcement of commonly binding rules, and the provision of public goods and services. Local mining managers were also motivated by the need to maintain a viable operating environment in the context of a failing local state.

The process started with the government committing to negotiate rules with companies. This was premised on assumed shared interests, as well as fears of an investment strike. But the negotiation process resulted in vague and ambiguous rules. Such a vague expectation is difficult to enforce.

The government and the mining companies also emphasised flexibility in the implementation of these ambiguous rules. These outcomes were at least in part due to the lobbying of the mining industry. But the lack of clear and implementable rules was not the only problem. The Mining Charter, as well as a broader international debate about corporate responsibility, expected companies to contribute to public goods and services in areas near their mines.

A Lonmin manager later admitted making the deletions. The strikers were rejecting their own union, the National Union of Mineworkers NUM , accusing it of supporting the bosses. Since the union was not involved, the company could choose not to recognise the strike and not to negotiate. Mokwena urged that instead of talking, the company should sack the strikers and call in the police to deal with them. By Friday night, Mbulelo and Mambush were back from Impala and arguing about their next move.

That night, Mambush called his wife, Veronica, who was living with their two-year-old daughter, Asive, in Carletonville, a gold-mining town 90 miles to the west. This was the town where he had first worked as a miner, in In , he had injured his shoulder in a rock fall and had gone to the medical station where Veronica was an administrative assistant.

They had started a relationship that continued even though Mambush soon moved to Marikana, where the pay was better and the rock was harder and safer to mine than in Carletonville. Veronica had not known Mambush to get involved in a strike before, though she knew that he was angry with the NUM. Sitting on the old plastic chairs under the tree at the back of her house, he had often talked to her and her father, Ephraim, about how the NUM shop stewards were taken out of the mine and given pay rises, cars and mobile phones by the company, and how very soon they stopped speaking up for the people who had elected them.

She also remembered one time when she was visiting him in Marikana, when he disappeared for an hour to register with a new breakaway union — the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union Amcu. He had talked often about the real problem, that he was struggling to get by on 5, rand a month. He was sending most of it back to his family in the Eastern Cape, then paying for rent on his shack and food for himself.

Veronica had told him not to worry about sending money to her and Asive. She had a brick-built house and a college education and was earning enough to get by. On the Friday night, he told her the strikers had to hold out. Not just then. Over the following three days, the strike tumbled into a vortex of violence. Some of the strikers were carrying sticks and chanting aggressively. The Farlam inquiry later heard that an NUM official gathered 30 of his members in their office and gave them long panga blades and at least one gun.

As the strikers approached, they heard gunfire and turned and scattered. NUM men pursued them. Some strikers were beaten and cut. Two fell with bullet wounds and were hospitalised. They survived, although at the time the others understood that they were dead. They collected cash and sent for a local sangoma — a traditional healer — in the hope that he could protect them from violence.

Then others joined the strike — not just the rock-drill operators who had started it, but other Lonmin workers who were furious when they heard that the NUM was colluding with the company and had shot two of their comrades.

One of the new recruits was a friend of Mambush, a short, muscular man named Xolani Nzuza, then 27, who managed a shackland football team in which Mambush played. Xolani had come to Marikana eight years earlier to finish college, aiming to become a social worker, but ran out of money.

In , he turned to the mine for income. He was outraged by what was happening. The violence escalated. The following day, Sunday 12 August, a group of about strikers marched from their new base on the koppie to the Lonmin office. There were scuffles. A striker threw a rock. A security guard fired a shotgun.

The strikers massed forward. Some of the workers were now carrying pangas, and they used them with deadly force, slashing one guard from armpit to hip and hacking two more to death. One of the bodies was burned beyond recognition. Over the following 24 hours, two miners were killed when they tried to go to work in the hours of darkness.

Looking back at these events, the Farlam inquiry uncovered fault on all sides: the opening violence by Lonmin and the NUM; a complete absence of investigation of that violence by the South African police service Saps ; barbaric behaviour by those strikers who had killed people who defied them; and an apparently callous decision by Lonmin.

This is getting too violent. By early the next afternoon, Monday 13 August, he was at the head of some strikers who marched from the koppie to picket one of the mine shafts, where they had heard NUM members were still working.

When Lonmin security barred their way and told them no one was working there, Mambush simply turned the march around and headed back towards the koppie, only to be stopped by the police who insisted that they must give up the sticks and pangas they were carrying.

We are not fighting with anyone. We just want to go to the koppie. The senior policeman on the scene appeared willing to accept this until — as the video shows — he took a phone call. Mbombo had joined the police in and risen fast through the ranks after the end of apartheid. When he came off the phone, the senior officer was no longer willing to compromise. He would count to 10, he said, by which time the strikers must surrender all their sticks and pangas.

Police video shows that all was peaceful for several minutes — until some officers lobbed tear gas and stun grenades at the strikers. Nobody has ever established whether they were ordered to do this. The result was disaster. The miners started to run. Police ran after them. Two officers were surrounded by strikers and cut down and killed. The strike continued despite gaining no support from NUM and receiving no official commitment from Lonmin management to enter into negotiations.

The strike was for a wage increase and to address the poor living and work conditions of miners and their families in Marikana. These issues were not formally addressed by the NUM or by Lonmin during the protest. Many of the strikers instead began losing their jobs and the protesters were met with unrelenting hostility by security, the police, and union personnel and management. Despite having no legal protection or union support, thousands of miners continued to strike in solidarity for their common goal - a better quality life and the dignity it affords.

The families of the striking miners were also in general solidarity with the protest and worked to support the movement, joining in protest action and bringing supplies when necessary. Striking mine workers gather on hill on 16 August , before massacre occurs. The miners set up camp on a hill called Wonderkop near the Lonmin mine.

Police and miners occasionally entered into discussions however the miners remained steadfast in their strike action, and on 16 August a full frontal attack was launched on them.

More than police were deployed, most in camouflage military gear and armed with R5s, a licensed replica of the Israeli Galil SAR, or LM5 assault rifles, designed for infantry and tactical police use. A barb wire fence was set along the outside perimeter to close the miners in, and military police vehicles and helicopters were deployed on the scene.