Fifth murder of Amcu official in less than three months
THE ASSOCIATION of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) said on Saturday that another member of its leadership had been shot dead, execution-style, this time at a Lonmin owned-mine on the platinum belt in North West.
A senior official of the union was shot and killed outside an Impala Platinum (Implats) mine two weeks ago, and the union said five of its members had been killed since July.
Amcu president Joseph Mathunjwa said Mvelesi Biyela, a health and safety officer at Lonmin’s Wonderkop mine near Marikana in Rustenburg, was shot on Friday evening in front of his wife and six-year-old daughter while they were on their way home.
“This is the fifth killing of one of our members since about the end of July,” Mathunjwa said.
“We will not fight back with bullets, guns and anonymous hit men but with mass action,” Amcu said. Lonmin confirmed that Biyela was employed at its Rowland Shaft, and that it was informed by police late on Friday that unknown assailants had shot and killed him.
“We have no idea at all what is behind these killings, but it is very concerning, especially when it happens in such a brutal manner. For now, we are leaving it to the police to find out the causes,” said Lonmin spokesperson Wendy Tlou.
Mathunjwa said on Thursday that the South African Police Service had not shown zeal in investigating the continuous targeting and killing of leaders of Amcu, particularly in Rustenburg.
“There is a concerted attack on Amcu, targeting its leadership, particularly in Rustenburg. These killings seem to be a carefully planned, well-funded hit programme on Amcu members by trained, armed and well-resourced hit men who have murdered, injured and attacked people,” Mathunjwa said.
A resurgence of violence in the area that saw 34 Amcu members gunned down by police has unnerved investors.
“This looks very much like the third force violence the apartheid state unleashed on the democratic and workers movement during the negotiations for a political settlement. The current killing will be difficult for Amcu to divorce it from the 2014 Amcu living wage strike whereby the state used expelled Amcu members to form a rival union to destabilise and to break the strike.”
Addressing a wide-ranging press briefing at the National Press Club in Pretoria, Mathunjwa said the killing of Amcu officials within the mining sector was well known to the police, but there were no arrests.
He said the union condemned the killings and decried the “weariness shown by the police” to resolve these issues.
“In 2014, we submitted an S77 (section 77 of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act) application based on violence in the mining sector and were denied the right to protest and raise awareness on these killings. In the same year, we made representations before the parliamentary portfolio committee related to killings in the mines. However, to date there has been no concerted efforts from powers that be to nip this in the bud,” said Mathunjwa.
“The recent killings in the Rustenburg area are worrying and seek to destabilise Amcu as a union. These cases have been escalated to the National Prosecuting Authority. We encourage the (Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation known as the) Hawks and related institutions to prioritise these killings in the same vein as the political killings in KwaZulu-Natal. We will do everything in our power to ensure that all those responsible are brought to book.”
Mathunjwa said the union was channelling considerable resources towards private investigations.
A resurgence of violence in the same area that saw South Africa’s longest strike in 2012 and 34 Amcu members gunned down by police has unnerved investors in the ailing sector.
Labour and social strife in South Africa’s platinum belt, the source of more than 70 percent of known reserves of the precious metal, has piled pressure on to an industry already hit by depressed prices.