Reflections on the decade since the Marikana massacre
Retired Bishop Jo Seoka
Pretoria - “Lest we forget the things that our eyes have seen, and our ears have heard, and lest they depart from our hearts all the days of our life. We must tell truth to power make them known to our children and our children’s children” (my interpretation and emphasis of Deuteronomy 4.7-9).
It cannot be that justice is not served to the families of the massacred husbands and fathers on that fatal day of August 16, 2012, at Ikaneng, Marikana’s Lonmin precinct. Could it be that we are afraid to tell the truth to power? Altogether, 44 lives were wasted by poorly trained police for the benefit of the captains of monopoly capital.
This year marks a decade of untold consequences of police brutality on peaceful, protesting miners below the koppie of Nkaneng-Marikana. If truth be told, it was an unprecedented development ignited by years of indescribable frustration and exploitation resulting from a migratory labour system rooted in apartheid policies.
Their “sinful mistake” was asking for what they believed they deserved for their labour. All that the rock drillers (miners) wanted and appealed for was a living wage. Instead, they got live ammunition, rewarding them with death and graves, not money and/or decent living and working conditions.
The recent developments in our country, ranging from the Zuma-Gupta saga to state-owned building infernos are a reminder to us of what we wish to forget, despite the reality of history repeating itself. A decade to the year when we think of and about the Marikana massacre, we cannot help but wish to bury our heads in the sand.
Ten years on, the miners died for profits in a degrading capitalist system compelling us to ask critical questions about our state of constitutional democracy. It’s presumptuous to think that we have moved out of the exploitative and oppressive totalitarian system to a free, democratic South Africa.
“Things have only changed for the worse,” communities around Marikana told me on my recent visit there.
The hopes of 1994 have been the nightmare of the most vulnerable citizens as the poorest of the poor have since become poorer, and a handful of well-connected individuals have become overnight billionaires. Even President Cyril Ramaphosa, who was a non-executive director of Lonmin at the time of the massacre, is labelled as an agent of white monopoly capital(ist) who governs the country by the dictates of the richest families, who own the very mines and corporations that continue to underpay those who are in their employment, in the county.
Looking at those who were working for Lonmin as executives, one is left wondering what is it that qualified them to live better off than the people digging the platinum group of metals.
For instance, it’s no secret that the same black executives who were captains of Lonmin during the protest and subsequent massacre were rewarded with hefty bonuses and ran all the way to the bank smiling and unperturbed by the state of the 34 miners, 10 widows and their families.
A good example is that of Ben Magara, who was brought in to fix the problem by virtue of having mining experience. But instead, he made the situation worse with a strike which lasted for almost five months. Notwithstanding that, Magara got a handshake of an 11 million bonus in shares, while the company engaged on the rights issue to raise money for sustaining its operations.
Evidently, as we commemorate the decade of the massacre, the miners are still limping to their homes with grief and empty hands. Some of them, as is the case with Mr Mzoxolo Magidiwane, have yet to receive a cent for their arrests and injuries.
To date, the surviving victims, widows and orphans of the Marikana massacre have nothing to show in the way of empathy for human existence.
Even as there is talk of the platinum group of metals price increases, the miners’ wages remain but a dream and a recurring nightmare. Not much is said about their families, except those wives and relatives of the deceased employed at Lonmin Platinum Mine as a gesture of compensation.
Notwithstanding, credit must be given to one young man who graduated with a PhD last year in agriculture. Nonetheless, we must ask: where are the rest of the children?
The culprits (police) who perpetrated the crime that claimed the lives of innocent mine workers are still enjoying the rewards of a “job well done”. And so are the directors, including Ramaphosa, who has yet to publicly atone for the callous sins of omission and commission, and show remorse for the role he played in the slaughter of 34 of 44 innocent miners who were sacrificed for profit at the koppie of Marikana.
Lonmin sold the company to Sibanye-Stillwater which, prior to buying the mine, promised to take responsibility for some consequences of the massacre. Since then, the company has been talking about providing houses for the widows and introducing a community development project in the form of vegetable gardens.
Sibanye-Stillwater has failed the people of Marikana on its promises. People around the area refer to the company as a bad neighbour hiding behind a so-called good neighbour agreement. Communities still don’t have a say on what the company does in their areas, despite their call that nothing must be done without them.
Shamefully, some church leaders have been hypnotised by the shameless charade. Is this what the deceased miners paid for with their lives? Lest we forget, it cannot be that these innocent workers’ lives were sacrificed to add value to the company’s products, while their families were gravely rewarded with poverty.
Even as I write these reflections, one cannot help but think that there are just too many unanswered questions that the country’s democracy has yet to answer.
As in all places with rich natural resources, the Bapo Ba Mogale region and the miner-recruiting areas such as the Eastern Cape, remain impoverished. The mining houses, like Lonmin, have not kept their promises, even when the PGM prices remain steady, without showing losses for the company.
On our recent visit to the Marikana mines we witnessed people living in extreme poverty, and even worse conditions than those we saw in 2012. There is nothing strikingly new that tells the story of the transformed community.
I believe it will be a good gesture for Lonmin to also return the PGMs and gold estimated to be worth R75 billion deposited in the Bank of England, stolen during colonial rule in South Africa. These resources can be used for greater good to benefit the people from whom they were taken.
Because if the Africans were not exploited and oppressed through head tax and the migratory labour system, they would not have left their homelands only to be killed at Lonmin’s mines. There is no doubt in my mind that if these matters are not dealt with, history is likely to repeat itself.
Gaps are too wide in the process of transformation and development in the Marikana area a decade after the callous act that resulted in the unprecedented massacre of innocent, poor miners at Lonmin.
All being said and done, Ramaphosa, who has now been identified by the high court as having a case to answer, must publicly apologise, face prosecution and step aside until the Marikana matter has been finalised.
Pretoria News