Marikana tragedy site inspection

RUSTENBERG: A judicial inquiry into the shooting of striking Lonmin platinum workers at Marikana has concluded an inspection of the outcrops where the workers were killed.

Two North West crime scene experts led retired Supreme Court of Appeal Judge Ian Farlam and his team around the area where 34 miners died when police opened fire in August.

Warrant Officer Patrick Thamae pointed out where bodies were found near the main outcrop, where the mineworkers assembled in the days leading up to the shooting on August 16.

A large crowd of observers and advocates representing the different parties followed the judge and the experts as they made their way around the scene.

Thamae pointed out the place where seven bodies were found.

Another five were found next to a kraal, he told the judge.

Judge Farlam asked him to show the commission where barbed wire had been rolled out by police on the day of the shooting.

The commission was then taken a few hundred metres further on, to where a single body had been found “in the road”.

Cartridges had been found near the body, Thamae said.

He told the commission a number of R5 rifle and pistol cartridges had been found in areas around the outcrop where police were believed to have been standing at the time of the shooting.

In another area, pistol cartridges and rubber bullets were found.

The other crime scene expert, Captain Apollo Mohlaki, led the commission in inspecting a small outcrop.

He pointed out where bodies had been found.

He also showed the judge the place where traditional weapons recovered from the protesters had been heaped.

Large boulders on the hill were chipped by bullets.

The procession inspected other areas where other bodies and bullet cartridges had been found.

The locations had been marked with yellow paint. Mohlaki pointed out bullet markings and drops of blood on some of the boulders around the small outcrop.

A group of miners, arrested after the shooting and since released on bail, stood watching on the sidelines of the commission’s inspection.

They would not talk to the media.

The workers are

repre- sented Mpofu.

During the inspection, Mpofu stopped to speak to them. He told Judge Farlam they wanted to point out that

by

advocate

Dali three or four helicopters had hovered over the scene on the day of the shooting.

Earlier, the mineworkers undertook an inspection of the scene, independently of the judicial commission of inquiry.

A miner showed Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) leader Joseph Mathunjwa areas where striking mineworkers were shot by the police.

He pointed to an area surrounded by rocks where a body was found, and indicated that the miner had been shot from a helicopter.

Mathunjwa, wearing a white Amcu T-shirt, took photographs and asked questions.

Before the formal inspection started, residents from the nearby informal settlement approached the scene, singing Struggle songs and carrying placards reading “Don’t let the police get away with murder”.

A group of policemen stood watching.

Thirty-four miners died and 78 were wounded when police opened fire in trying to disperse a large group of wildcat strikers who had gathered near Lonmin’s platinum mine at Marikana.

The commission’s inspection in loco continues today, with Judge Farlam scheduled to visit the mine hostels and informal settlements near the mine.

The commission is also to inspect shafts and any other areas deemed important to the inquiry.