‘Guards broke my spinal cord’

ONE OF the workers who was on strike at Kumba’s Sishen Mine in Kathu has been left with a broken spinal cord and a broken leg after he and his colleagues were forcibly removed from the mine’s property by the police and the security personnel hired by the mine on Tuesday morning.

Speaking exclusively to the DFA from the Kimberley MediClinic, the bedridden Moses Gabocwe said that he was urinating in catheter and he could not get out of his bed because he was left paralysed after an attack by the security guards.

“I don’t know if I will ever walk again because of the extent of my injuries,” Gabocwe said.

He accused the security guards for assaulting them while removing them from the mine.

“All of us (the striking workers) where sleeping inside various mining machines and all of a sudden I was woken up by bright lights! They just flooded the whole mining area and were kicking and beating the workers with sticks.

“They were carrying live ammunition while others were even shooting workers with rubber bullets at a close range,” he stated.

Gabocwe said that at the time all this was happening he and two of his colleagues were sitting in one of the big mine trucks. “We were looking at the atrocities committed by the security guards and all of a sudden another mine truck smashed into us from the side removing the front part of the vehicle we were in. I fell from the truck and landed on the ground right next to some of the security guards. They started kicking me while they were shouting that I should move,” he said.

Gabocwe said that at was at that time that he realised that he could not move because his whole body was sore.

“They then fastened my hands with cable rope and dragged me on the rocks to a police truck.”

Gabocwe said that he then complained to his colleagues who were in the truck and to the police officers that he could not move.

“The police assisted me out of the truck and got me an ambulance and got me to the hospital. It is because of the police that I was rushed to this hospital. In fact the police tried to stop those savages (security guards) from further assaulting us,” Gabocwe explained.

He blamed Kumba for the strike at the mine saying that the refusal by the company’s manager, Andrew Loots, to meet with them was what prompted them to go on strike.

“If Loots came to us and explained things we would not have gone this route,” Gabocwe added.

However, Kumba’s spokesman, Gert Schoeman, rejected Gabocwe’s statement saying that Loots could not have gone to address miners who were on an illegal strike.

Northern Cape police spokesman, Colonel Hendrik Swart, said that the situation in the area was calm yesterday.

“The case against the 48 miners who appeared in court yesterday was postponed to October 26. They are remanded in custody.”