‘Those ministers are criminals’
Minerworkers want justice for massacre
OVER 250 Lonmin mineworkers injured and arrested during and after the Marikana massacre are gunning for Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and two cabinet ministers.
The workers want Ramaphosa, former police minister Nathi Mthethwa, and former mineral resources minister Susan Shabangu to be held responsible for their arrests and injuries, said their lawyer Andries Nkome.
“We consulted the past Sunday and clients once more reiterated their instructions to the effect that we should review the Farlam Commission’s findings,” Nkome explained yesterday.
Retired Judge Ian Farlam’s commission of inquiry into the massacre found that Ramaphosa’s conduct “in endeavouring to get the police to do their job to stabilise the situation and arrest those strikers who had committed serious offences was not improper”.
The day before the massacre, in which 34 striking workers from the Lonmin mine died, Ramaphosa sent an e-mail to Shabangu, who promised to brief Mthethwa “to act in a more pointed way”.
In the e-mail, Ramaphosa described the wildcat strike as “plainly, dastardly criminal” and that “concomitant action” was required “to address this situation”.
At the time, Ramaphosa’s Shanduka Group owned an effective 9% of Lonmin’s South African operations.
The Farlam inquiry also cleared Mthethwa and Shabangu.
But Nkome said his clients feel the three are not fit to hold public office.
“They should be criminally charged with murder and conspiracy to commit murder,” he said.
In December, the government announced it was ready to pay the Marikana victims.
Police instructed their lawyers to make offers of payments in full settlement of claims where quantification was complete and they were not under criminal investigation. Those quantified, complete and ready for settlement included 275 unlawful arrests and detention claims.
Ramaphosa’s office declined to comment yesterday.
Lisa Combrinck and Madichaba Milosevic, Mthethwa and Shabangu’s spokeswomen respectively, did not respond to requests for comment.
Constitutional law expert Prof Shadrack Gutto said yesterday the Marikana massacre had not been dealt with properly and that mineworkers and families of the dead need to get justice.
Gutto said he agreed with the mineworkers’ lawyers looming court review and that they must pursue the matter vigorously and seriously.
“We need to find out how the decisions that led to people being killed were taken,” he said.
Nkome’s clients are not the only challengers of Farlam’s findings.
Last month, suspended national police boss Riah Phiyega who was implicated in the report filed her North Gauteng High Court application to have the findings set aside.