Many forces involved in killings of workers in Marikana
The remembrance ceremonies of the Marikana massacre are a sad reminder of what happens when the government is abandoning a peoplecentred developmental agenda and chooses to serve the bourgeoisie and white monopoly capital.
The tragedy of Marikana remains a classical example of the immorality of capitalism, its festering greed and government treachery.
But what has been most unfortunate about Marikana has been the political opportunism that followed the deaths of these workers.
In a moment of political desperation, we have seen political parties, activists and political pundits spreading falsehoods and being selective in telling the story of what happened in Marikana.
In doing this, they have divided the workers further and, many of the workers who fearlessly fought for their fair share of profits in 2012, are now unemployed.
This rewriting of history might satisfy some narrow political agendas, but it will not help us to find the solutions to the problems that led to the tragedy.
The reality is that violence in Marikana did not start and end on August 16 2012.
At least 58 people were killed in the course of the Lonmin and Impala disputes of 2012. These include five workers who were killed at Impala Platinum, six workers at Aquarius Platinum and 47 at Lonmin Marikana (10 before August 16, including two police officers whose bodies were mutilated; 34 on August 16; and three after August 16).
The sad reality is the 26 workers who died during the 2012 platinum strikes were killed by other workers under the leadership of trade union warlords.
No one wants to talk about the role of Amcu (Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union) in introducing the culture of violence to the mining sector.
The vigilante tendencies of their leadership are ignored, despite the fact that they recently collapsed a congress of their federation Nactu (National Council of Trade Unions) by assaulting other workers.
This sanitisation of history is not helpful. All these deaths were unnecessary and tragic, but it’s silly to now paint a false picture of irresponsible police who woke up one day and armed themselves to slaughter innocent workers out of the blue.
This, of course, is not to excuse the appalling and shameful way that police handled the situation. In this context, the actions of the police in labour disputes in South Africa, most recently in the #Fees Must Fall protests, reinforces the perception that rather than protecting ordinary people, police are advancing the narrow interests of employers and those in authority.
We are yet to deal with the use of unnecessary force by the police against workers in all labour disputes. Of course, there is another reality of police officers that are unfairly placed in situations which they are untrained and ill-equipped to deal with. The militarisation of the SA Police Service has not helped the situation.
The mine bosses have to acknowledge and confront the fact that they are primarily responsible for fostering discord and violence in many workplaces in the sector. The undeniable fact is that it is their quest for profit that has cost workers their lives and created orphans.
No one wants to talk about the fact that there was a well-calculated campaign to dislodge the National Union of Mineworkers as a leading union in the sector; and the architects of this project were mine owners, who wanted to divide the workers.
The architects of the killings during strikes in platinum mines in 2012 are not being held accountable because political opportunists have resorted to gruesome posturing and are selectively telling the story of what happened.