18 Jul Marikana Massacre: ‘Ramaphosa liable and complicit’

WONDERKOP at Marikana, near Rustenburg where a cleansing ceremony was held in 2013 after miners were slain by the police in the 2012 massacre. Bongiwe Mchunu African News Agency (ANA) File

Published Aug 16, 2022

Johannesburg – It was a day that marks one of the darkest tragedies of post apartheid South Africa.

On the afternoon of August 16, 2012, 34 miners on strike for better wages were gunned down by police at Lonmin mine’s “the koppie” mountain following an instructive email from President Cyril Ramaphosa to then police minister Nathi Mthethwa calling for “concomitant” action against the miners.

Ramaphosa was a shareholder of the mine.

Ten years later, the lawyer for the miners and families of the 34 miners who perished, said that a high court ruling supported his client’s view that Ramaphosa caused the massacre.

Marikana massacre: Some still waiting for compensation after 10 years

Last month the South Gauteng High Court found Ramaphosa liable for the killing and injuring of striking miners who were demanding a better wage.

Judge Frits van Oosten found that Ramaphosa and Sibanye-Stillwater (formerly Lonmin) were complicit in the events leading up to the killing of the miners.

Oosten upheld four of Ramaphosa’s exceptions, rejecting one, in which he found that Ramaphosa had taken part in, planned and endorsed the co-operation between the mine and the South African Police Service. This is the first time a court has linked Ramaphosa to being the mastermind behind the massacre.

Reacting to the court ruling, the attorney for the miners, Andries Nkome, said that his clients felt vindicated that after “the costly, arduous and protracted litigation the courts shared their view that politicians, particularly Cyril Ramaphosa, caused the massacre”.

“If police attended to a labour unrest, they would have brought rubber bullets and water canons. Now he (Ramaphosa) managed to sway the operation to a dastardly criminal act, and as such the army was called in and mortuary vans were mobilised instead of ambulances … clearly the result was foreseen,” said Nkome.

Full article on iol.co.za