Activists take power

THE fourth anniversary of the Marikana massacre passed with a great degree of sadness for the families of the slain mineworkers. Certainly, there is a process of compensation under way, but it is only with the government’s commitment to this.

Lonmin, the British producer of platinum group metals, on whose property the initial unprotected strike took place, is not on the same path, despite many South Africans’ belief that it played a role in creating the conditions that led to the massacre.

Can it be right that Lonmin adopts a different view to the government?

Largely protected in the Farlam Commission report, it needs, at the very least, to take the kind of moral responsibility which Monday’s Amnesty International report into the massacre suggested it had not.

This particularly relates to the appalling housing conditions to which many workers were exposed, with Lonmin’s knowledge.

Its shareholders might, however, be a concern to Lonmin. As some activists have correctly said, those shareholders, particularly Absa and Old Mutual, may have a concern for how their brands may be affected through negative exposure to the South African public, and that may ultimately help drive a different position out of Lonmin.

The families, for whom four years have passed by all too quickly, would indeed be gratified by a further display of support from the company. Certainly, Lonmin is paying for the orphans’ education.

However, many of the widows are still struggling to find employment without a breadwinner in the family, and compensation thus remains essential.

And if Lonmin feels unmoved by the protests of civil society, it might want to consider how amandla. mobi and other activists successfully lobbied e.tv to screen the Emmy Award-winning documentary Miners Shot Down.

That same community of activists also successfully propelled Police Minister Nkosinathi Nhleko to suspend the use of R5 assault rifles for public order policing while a task team explores police demilitarisation.

They have power, and the Marikana community is right behind them.