Marikana is located in the Bushveld Complex, which is home to about 95 per cent of the world’s known PGM deposits.2 In 2012, Lonmin, the world’s third-largest platinum company, had an average daily turnover of 5 million euro.3 In contrast, Lonmin’s mineworkers received an average of 400 euro per month. This put them close to the poverty line.4 However, on average, their wages also had to help provide for an additional eight people.5
On 10 August 2012, around 3,000 rock drill operators (RDOs) – workers who use hydraulic drills to hammer rock out of the ground – put down their tools in protest against the low pay and poor living conditions that they were facing. Moreover, they knew that RDOs in other platinum mines were paid better. At the same time, the RDOs in Marikana also withdrew their confidence from the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), arguing that the union had been co-opted by the company a number of years previously, and that it represented the interests of the company more strongly than the interests and needs of the labour force. As a result, the workers began organising outside the union within independent worker committees.6 Their goal was simple: to speak with Lonmin’s management directly about salary increases. Six days later, 34 workers were shot dead by the police and more than 70 were injured, some of them seriously. How could this happen, and who bears the blame?
It should not be necessary to go into the details of what happened in Marikana here, as it has been covered several times elsewhere.7 Instead, in this context, it is far more important to focus on the status quo in terms of understanding the massacre and, thus, the factors that led to it, who should be held accountable and to what extent. The causes of the massacre and the distribution of responsibility are contentious issues and have been ever since the massacre occurred. However, despite their complexity, it is possible both to name individual culprits and to point to the chain of events and the historical structures that contributed to the massacre.
Immediately after the massacre, the police, the government and the management of the mine set the tone of the debate. They unanimously claimed that the police had acted out of self-defence and had done nothing wrong; after all, police officers had been attacked by violent workers. The workers’ opinions went unheard during this debate. Moreover, the media particularly ignored the workers’ voices during the first few weeks, and it was during this time that the workers’ actions were criminalised.8 The claim that the police had acted in self-defence was still put forward during the commission of inquiry established by President Zuma shortly after the massacre. The commission was provided with a mandate to investigate the events that occurred between 10 and 16 August 2012, which resulted in the deaths of 44 people.
The first serious cracks in the argument of self-defence began to appear with the publication of research undertaken by committed journalists,9 activists, researchers10 and filmmakers,11 who provided the strikers with a voice when reconstructing the events. The Farlam Commission, named after its chair, a retired judge, spent more than two and a half years investigating what happened at the mine. It was not until June 2015 that the commission finally published its results. Although the police had done everything they could to prop up their argument of self-defence, it fell apart during the course of the inquiry. At the very latest, their claims had been completely discredited by the time the report was published by the chair of the inquiry in October 2014.12 The Farlam Commission concluded that the police had misappropriated evidence, falsified documents, colluded to produce false statements, refused to make statements, were guilty of perjury and had pressured and even tortured potentially incriminating witnesses.
The politicised and highly militarised actions of the police during the seven days beginning with the start of the strike until the massacre on 16 August 2012 bear all the hallmarks of a police state. Lonmin’s approach certainly reflected the interests of industry and government, but it was the company that provided the police with direction, with the police executing the plan.
Various conflicts of interest also contributed to the massacre. On the one hand, instead of entering into talks with the workers’ organisations, Lonmin was prepared to use almost any means to keep open the existing channels for wage negotiations with the miners’ union. However, as mentioned above, the NUM had already been coopted by the company. Furthermore, the NUM was concerned that a competitor – the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) – might benefit from the situation and widen its membership base. Even the ruling party – the African National Congress (ANC) – wanted to prevent the NUM from losing ground, as the union played an important role in COSATU, the trade union federation, which, together with the ANC and the South African Communist Party, has formed the governing alliance since 1994. Ultimately, the ANC also feared that a rebel former party member, Julius Malema, might exploit the mood and found a rival political party.
Government officials and Lonmin’s management were clearly more concerned about protecting capital than the interests of the labour force. The convergence of interests between Lonmin and the ruling party, which has been described as ‘toxic collusion between state and capital’,13 had a strong impact on the actions of the police. Cyril Ramaphosa14 is exemplary of this situation. In 2012, Ramaphosa held 9.1 per cent of Lonmin’s shares via Shanduka, an investment company that he founded – he was also a member of the company’s board. Using his influence within the ANC, Ramaphosa put pressure on the police and the Department of Mineral Resources to end the strike as quickly as possible and to do so by intensifying the deployment of the police – instead of negotiating with the strikers. Moreover, Ramaphosa criminalised the strike and called for resolute action to be taken against the workers.15
There is much to suggest that the police, who were armed with sharp ammunition, did not even act out of self-defence at the first ‘scene’ of the massacre – a large boulder that served as the worker’s meeting place. The 328 bullets that 45 police officers fired in 11 seconds at the workers, which resulted in the murder of 17 workers, some seriously injured, were not fired at people who were attacking, but fleeing. The police killed a further 17 people at ‘Scene 2’, about 200 metres away. Today, no one denies that murders were committed in Marikana. Moreover, we now know that the police did not act in self-defence; they undertook an execution.16 The police shot dead people at close range who had raised their hands and surrendered; they shot others from behind as they tried to flee.
Alongside the police, the officers on the scene and government officials, Lonmin is certainly the next main culprit. In fact, the company is responsible for the murder of the workers on a number of levels.
Lonmin’s responsibility begins with a simple but profound fact: although the Social and Labour Plan legally obliged it to do so, Lonmin made no attempt to improve the living conditions of its workers or their community. Instead, false promises reigned for more than a decade: in 2006, Lonmin promised to build 5,500 new homes by 2011. However, no more than three houses were ever built because the company claimed that it could not afford to continue with the project. However, during this time the management paid out US$607 million in dividends, and a further US$160 million to a subsidiary based in Bermuda.17 As Greg Marinovich emphasises, at a time when the platinum industry was booming, the company abandoned its workforce in Marikana:
Just 20 per cent of the dividends paid out to Lonmin shareholders during the boom years of 2007 and 2008 would have paid for the entire cost of the 5,500 houses they had committed to build. It was during those good years that a soaring platinum price should have funded all of Lonmin’s social responsibilities – workers’ housing, water, contributing to local schools, infrastructure, etc. The company failed to meet these contractual commitments and the Department of Mineral Resources failed to force them to do so [...].18
Second, a further serious debt weighs on Lonmin’s shoulders because the management refused to comply with one of the workers’ central demands: to speak with them. Moreover, the company refused to do so despite the fact that it knew that it was paying its workers less than those of other platinum mining companies.19 Although Lonmin initially sent out other signals and provided the workers with good reason to hope that they would indeed be invited to talks, ultimately the management refused to meet the workers. Moreover, it continued to do so even when the respected Bishop Jo Seoka, who also offered to mediate on the day of the massacre, pleaded with them to do so. Instead, the company urged the deployment of the country’s highly militarised police force, and this significantly contributed to the bloodshed. Industry must have placed immense pressure on Lonmin. This pressure is clear from a report by the German Mineral Resources Agency (DERA), an information and consultancy platform for the extractive industry. A key study by DERA on South Africa briefly outlines the position and the interests of the extractive industry with regard to Marikana: non-tariff wage increases were viewed as constituting ‘a serious precedent’ and were to be avoided at all costs.20 Lonmin’s stubborn refusal to negotiate with the strikers can only be explained by the pressure placed on it by its business partners in terms of cost and the warnings it received from industry.
Third, Lonmin escalated the situation by forcing its workers to break their strike; it did so by threatening them with dismissal, even though the company knew that this could lead to clashes between the workers. In fact, the company’s actions resulted in deadly clashes that cost four workers their lives even before the massacre in Marikana had taken place.
Fourth, Lonmin’s security officers started the violence. On 10 August, the first day of the strike, Lonmin’s private security shot at the unarmed workers in an attempt to break up a workers’ meeting. The evidence leaders later unequivocally rejected Lonmin’s excuses and stated for the record that the actions of the security officers were unjustifiable. In addition, two workers were injured the next day when the (still unarmed) strikers marched to the NUM’s office. It was only after these two incidents, and as a reaction to the attacks and the threats they had faced, that some of the workers armed themselves with sticks and spears. During a confrontation with the police, three workers were killed (by the police) and two police officers were killed (by the strikers).
Fifth, Lonmin’s management collaborated with the police to ensure that the strike was ended as soon as possible. The company even participated logistically and provided its infrastructure to the highly militarised police operation. Lonmin helped the police identify the leaders of the strike (the majority of whom were later killed or at least severely injured), and permitted the police to use its estate and safari grounds. Moreover, it orchestrated the pressure that was exerted by the politicians and the government ministries to criminalise the strike. This places Lonmin at the centre of the ‘toxic collusion’ between corporate and public interests which led to the massacre.
Despite pressing evidence that proves beyond all doubt that the police and Lonmin were responsible for the massacre, the Farlam Commission’s report remains cautious and inconclusive: instead of clearly appointing blame and demanding real consequences, it simply recommends ‘further investigation’.
The commission dragged on for two and a half years; unsurprisingly, its conclusions fell short of many people’s expectations.21 The list of its failures, omissions, gaps, errors, faults and mishaps is long.22 Not a single member of the police was found guilty of murder, and none of the police officers who were shown on television opening fire on the strikers were even summoned as witnesses to testify before the commission. Finally, the commission’s scope was limited by the government, and this made it impossible to carefully examine the responsibility of the state. Only two senior police commissioners were ever suspended from duty – on full pay.
The Farlam Commission’s ‘unfinished business’ weighs heavy – particularly on the people who were affected by the massacre.23 The voices of these people – the workers and their communities – were broadly lacking during the commission’s hearings, and many of the demands made by the relatives of the victims were disregarded and have yet to be fulfilled. Neither the government nor Lonmin has ever paid reparations.24 Lonmin merely promised the widows of murdered mineworkers that the company would cover the costs of the education of some of the children. In addition, the widows were also offered the possibility of replacing their dead husbands in the company. Due to a lack of other sources of income, they had to accept jobs that now separate them from their children and families. Many of the widows work in the mines – under the same terms and conditions as their husbands did before they were killed for going on strike against them. Ntombizolile Mosebetsane, whose husband was killed in the massacre, works as a cleaner in Lonmin’s headquarters. She cleans the offices of the management who are co-responsible for the death of her husband.
The course taken by the commission and its findings make it quite clear that a single report with such a limited legal range could not adequately account for or address all of the specific causes, let alone the transnational connections and historical structures that led to the massacre. The reasons behind the massacre can be found on many levels. The commission also largely ignored the underlying socio-economic factors that hark back to colonial times and apartheid. However, these are all the more important when it comes to not only naming individual culprits, but helping to prevent similar events in the future. After all, the role and responsibility of Lonmin’s customers – transnational corporations such as BASF – remained hidden.
The publication of the Farlam Report has done nothing to strengthen the work of groups that have been developing a more differentiated reappraisal of Marikana and struggling for justice ever since the massacre occurred; rather, the report marks the beginning of a new phase for these groups. This book should be understood as contributing towards this new phase of reappraisal.25
1 This makes Marikana the second-biggest platinum mine in the world. See, Lonmin plc, Interim Report 2017 (Operating statistics), available online. In 2012, the year of the massacre, Lonmin had around 28,000 employees and 10,000 contract and temporary workers.
2 A Citigroup study conducted in April 2010 designated South Africa as the resource-richest country in the world and estimated the value of these resources at 2,500 billion euro. PGMs accounted for the lion’s share of this value at around 2,300 billion euro, alongside gold, diamonds, titanium, coal, etc. For details, see Samantha Ashman, ‘The South African economy: The mineral-energy-finance complex redubbed?’, in Gilbert Khadiagala, Prishani Naidoo, Devan Pillay and Roger Southall, New South African Review 5:Beyond Marikana (Johannesburg, 2015), pp. 67–84; here p. 68. Data on the extent of the platinum deposits vary; the German Mineral Resources Agency quotes it as 95 per cent. See Deutsche Industrie- und Handelskammer, BGR, Deutsche Rohstoffagentur and Germany Trade & Invest (eds.), South Africa: Möglichkeiten deutscher Unternehmen für ein Engagement im südafrikanischen Rohstoffsektor. Rohstoffvorkommen – Projekte – Investitionsbedingungen (Bonn, 2013), p. 14. According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), 133 tonnes of platinum were mined in South Africa in 2012; Russia, as the second-largest producer, exported 24.6 tonnes. USGS data and tools, www.usgs.gov/products/data-and-tools/overview.
3 See Greg Marinovich, Murder at Small Koppie: The Real Story of the Marikana Massacre (Johannesburg, 2016), p. 52.
4 See Zwelinzima Vavi, ‘Minimum wage: Poverty report strengthens Cosatu’s case’, Daily Maverick, 18 February 2015, www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2015-02-18-minimum-wage-poverty-report-strengthens-cosatus-case/#.WvinB_5PqPY.
5 For information on this, see Plough Back the Fruits: Voices from the Platinum Supply Chain. Available at: basflonmin.com/home/de/movies.
6 See also the description of the massacre based on interviews with the workers in Peter Alexander, Thapelo Lekgowa, Botsang Mmope and Luke Sinwell, Das Massaker von Marikana. Widerstand und Unterdrückung von ArbeiterInnen in Südafrika (Vienna, 2013); Luke Sinwell and Siphiwe Mbatha, The Spirit of Marikana: The Rise of Insurgent Trade Unionism in South Africa (London, 2016).
7 See an earlier report: Alexander, Lekgowa, Mmope, and Sinwell, Marikana. This also provided the basis for the documentary by Rehad Desai (Miners Shot Down, RSA, 2014, 91 mins). More detailed reports were published later: Marinovich, Murder; Peter Alexander, ‘Marikana Commission of Inquiry: From narratives towards history’, Journal of Southern African Studies 42 (2016), pp. 815–839. The following text is also highly recommended: Heads of the Argument of Evidence Leader (the final report by the Heads of Evidence of the Marikana Commission of Inquiry), 27 October 2014, www.sahrc.org.za/home/21/files/marikana-report-1.pdf.
8 See Jane Duncan, ‘South African journalism and the Marikana massacre: A case study of an editorial failure’, Political Economy of Communication 1–2 (2013). A day after the biggest massacre of South African citizens since Sharpeville in 1960, the police minister, Nathi Mthethwa, stated in an address to the police officers who were in Marikana: ‘I can assure you, as your Minister and on behalf of the government, the entire executive and the President and this country’s top military personnel: We are all behind you. From my heart, as your Minister and on behalf of the government, I want to thank you.’ Mthwethwa, who is now Minister of Culture, set out the approach of the government’s ministries. The police were backed by the government and Lonmin, and the striking workers were kept at a distance; Final Report of the Heads of Evidence, p. 547.
9 See Greg Marinovich, ‘The murder fields of Marikana: The cold murder fields of Marikana’, Daily Maverick, 8 September 2012.
10 The first counter-narrative was the September National Imbizo, Bloody Marikana: What the media didn’t tell you! (19 August 2012). The first detailed account was published by Peter Alexander, Theapelo Lekgowa, Bongani Mmope and Luke Sinwell, Marikana: A View from the Mountain and a Case to Answer (Johannesburg, 2012). See also Crispen Chinguno, ‘Marikana and the post-apartheid workplace order’, SWOP Working Paper, Johannesburg, 2013.
11 See Rehad Desai, Miners Shot Down, RSA, 2014, 91 mins.
12 See Final Report of the Heads of Evidence, p. 547.
13 Final Report of the Heads of Evidence, pp. 505ff. The quote is from Dali Mpofu, one of the solicitors who represented the miners who were killed or injured.
14 Cyril Ramaphosa, born in 1952, a lawyer who was arrested several times as an anti-apartheid activist, co-founded the NUM in 1982. Returning from exile in the UK and Sweden, Ramaphosa quickly rose up the ranks within the ANC and became its chief negotiator in the transitional talks with the National Party in the early 1990s. From 1996 onwards, Ramaphosa retired from politics and made a career as a private entrepreneur, manager and supervisory board member. He is considered to be one of the richest people in South Africa. From 2010, until his election as ANC vice president in December 2012, he owned shares in Lonmin. After Zuma’s resignation, Ramaphosa, who had been elected chair of the ANC in December 2017, was elected president of South Africa on 15 February 2018.
15 For more details, see Peter Alexander, ‘Cyril Ramaphosa’s Marikana massacre “apology” is disingenuous and dishonest’, The Conversation, 11 May 2017, www.theconversation.com/cyril-ramaphosas-marikana-massacre-apology-is-disingenuous-and-dishonest-77485.
16 Further evidence can be found in Vicky Abraham, ‘Marikana massacre: Scene 2 officers speak out’, Mail&Guardian, 11 February 2018, www.mg.co.za/article/2018-02-11-marikana-massacre-witnesses-to-slaughter-at-scene-2/.
17 See Final Report of the Heads of Evidence, p. 30; Dick Forslund, ‘The Bermuda connection: Profit shifting, inequality and unaffordability at Lonmin 1999–2012’, Johannesburg, 2015, www.aidc.org.za/download/Illicit-capital-flows/BermudaLonmin04low.pdf.
18 Marinovich, Murder, pp. 50f.
19 See Andrew Bowman and Gilad Isaacs, ‘Demanding the impossible? Platinum mining profits and wage demands in context’, Johannesburg, 2014, www.wits.ac.za/media/news-migration/files/Platinum%20Report%20.pdf.
20 Deutsche Industrie- und Handelskammer et al., Südafrika, pp. 47f.
21 See Jakob Krameritsch, ‘The massacre underlines the wrongness of the situation’, Sequences of interviews by Jakob Krameritsch with Primrose Sonti and Trevor Ngwane (about their work) in the wake of the Marikana massacre, in Suzana Milevska (ed.), On Productive Shame, Reconciliation and Agency (Berlin, 2014); see also Dumisa Ntsebeza, ‘The Marikana Commission: Sacrifice of the great unwashed’, Speech given on 20 August 2015 at the University of Cape Town. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gg1nfwOO3yM.
22 See Kally Forrest, ‘Marikana Commission: Unearthing the truth, or burying it?’, SWOP Working Paper 5, 2015, www.raith.org.za/docs/KallyForrest_SWOP-Forrest-Report-FINAL.pdf.
23 This is also stated in the UN Human Rights Commission’s report on South Africa, which demands a swift and specific review of the events. See the overview at: www.humanrights.ch/de/service/laenderinfos/suedafrika/.
24 The government has repeatedly announced that compensation is to be paid, but has yet to act on its promises. See for example, Govan Whittles, ‘Cyril’s atonement for Marikana: Compensation is nearly ready’, Mail&Guardian, 20 February 2018. After fatal accidents, the immediate family has the right to receive a payment. The amount depends on the length of time their relative was employed by a corporation. Lonmin has largely met its obligations to pay these mostly quite low levels of payment to workers killed in the massacre.
25 Many groups are involved in this process, most notably those directly injured by the massacre. This includes the relatives of the people killed in August 2012, those who were injured by the police during the massacre and more than 270 workers who were wrongfully arrested or detained, some of whom were tortured. There are also local organisations such as the women’s organisation Sikhala Sonke, the Wonderkop Land Claim Committee, independent workers’ committees and not least the AMCU union. In their various struggles for justice in the aftermath of the massacre, they are supported by individual progressive South African lawyers’ associations such as the Legal Resources Centre (LRC) and the Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS) as well as civil society organisations such as the Marikana Support Group or the Khulumani Support Group, as well as NGOs in South Africa and Europe such as the Bench Marks Foundation, AIDC (Alternative Information & Development Centre), KASA (Church Workplace Southern Africa), the Confederation of Critical Shareholders, Bread for the World, the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung, KEESA (a debt relief and compensation campaign in southern Africa) and SOLIFONDS. The last-mentioned NGOs are Plough Back the Fruits’ project partners.
Re-enactment of the Marikana massacre in a play of the women’s organisation Sikhala Sonke, performed near the original location. One of the actresses, Ntombi Mthethwa (in the foreground), was seriously injured in a police raid one month after the massacre and has had to wear a support belt ever since.
BASF CEO, Kurt Bock, at a press confer-ence in February 2016, referring to the report of the state commission of inquiry and using the sentence shown to trivialise the responsibility of his platinum supplier, Lonmin, for the massacre in Marikana. Part of the ARD Panorama report ‘Exploitation in Africa. What is BASF’s responsibility?‘ aired on 28 April 2016. Translation: The report says, Lonmin could have acted differently.
Marikana, 16 August 2016: Three pictures from the commemoration of the fourth anniversary of the massacre
AMCU union chairman, Joseph Mathunjwa, and Lonmin’s CEO, Ben Magara, embrace each other on stage.
Thousands of Lonmin’s workers gather in front of the stage and on the hill that was the starting point of the massacre.
