Cop in murder trial is security boss
‘We know if we march to Tharisa we will die’, say fearful people in Marikana community
When he is not on trial for murder relating to the bloody events at Marikana in August 2012, former North West deputy police commissioner William Mpembe heads a top chrome producer’s security company.
The former cop is also a registered director of Tharisa Minerals mine’s security company, Ubhova.
Mpembe has retained a senior position in the security environment on the platinum belt, only this time for the private sector.
Activists in Marikana have kept tabs on Mpembe since he led the police’s flawed operation during the notorious platinum strike.
“We first saw he was working for G4S security, then he moved to Tharisa to run that security team,” one mine worker said outside a tavern near Marikana, in Mmadithlokwa.
Mpembe resigned from the police in 2016, a year after the release of the damning Farlam commission findings in 2015.
Judge Ian Farlam found that under Mpembe’s command, stun grenades and teargas were used “unreasonably and unjustifiably” on mine workers who had committed to walking to the koppie where they would disarm.
The skirmish resulted in the deaths of five people and is the subject of the ongoing murder trial against Mpembe and his co-accused.
One of the men living near the Tharisa mine said he was scared to speak to the Mail & Guardian about the former major general.
“Those people [the community] are not happy at all, we were supposed to march to Tharisa but because of Mpembe, we know Mpembe is going to kill us,” he said.
He said that it was impossible to get permission to demonstrate in Marikana: “If you remember very well, Mpembe was heading the [police] that time [2012]. What surprises me is that after he did these horrible things … [in Marikana in 2012] ... in South Africa if there is a criminal case you must clear your name before you are hired, but that doesn’t happen to Mpembe because Mpembe is above the law [sic].”
The man was among the survivors of the violent events that rocked Lonmin Platinum mine in August 2012 and recalls running for his life after watching mineworkers brutally shot and killed.
Mpembe is accused one in a trial against six police officers and has been charged with four counts of murder related to the deaths of Semi Jokanisi, Tembelakhe Mati, Hendrick Monene and Sello Lepaku on 13 August 2012.
The indictment includes five counts of attempted murder. He faces additional charges relating to lying under oath at the Farlam commission and defeating the ends of justice.
Mmadithlokwa is a township a stone’s throw away from Tharisa mine’s chrome operations and situated 10km away from the koppie where mine workers were gunned down by police in August 2012.
A botched relocation process involving people and their ancestral graves has attracted increased civil society activity in the area.
People told the M&G that there were a number of unresolved complaints about the mine’s neglected social development.
Tharisa’s investor relations officer Ilja Graulich said 400 graves were relocated and all payments were completed. “We appointed a professional archaeologist who attended to every single grave that was relocated. We were not informed of a grave that was older than 100 years.”
Cecilia Manyane, a resident in the area that lies at the foot of the chrome mining operation, said that living in Mmadithlokwa felt like jail.
She and two other women sat outside a house near Tharisa’s chrome blasting zone.
Manyane and another resident, Aubrey Thobejane, said the community tried to hold outdoor meetings over Covid-19, but that the meetings were monitored by drones they believed belonged to Tharisa mine security.
“People are scared to speak at community meetings because they fear losing their jobs at Tharisa,” she said.
Several people pointed out that it was common knowledge that informants among the community were feeding information to the mine and its security company.
In an earlier visit in May, the M&G spoke to people in Marikana during a community meeting over jobs.
“What are you saying to the people of Marikana when you have a man on trial for murder leading your security team,” asked civil society co-ordinator Raserola Mashamaite.
He and three other activists accused police and Tharisa mine security of using brutal force in April 2020 during a civil society march to the mine over issues including the company’s social and labour plan.
Graulich said as part of Tharisa’s social, labour, environmental and corporate governance obligations, the company undertakes initiatives for the benefit of the community.
Scores of people marched to deliver a memorandum of demands that included the removal of Mpembe as head of security. It refers to his “poor human and workers rights record” and accuses him of sabotaging community interests.
“Under current Covid-19 government regulations, all marches are illegal. Two illegal marches took place in April (5/16) with some persons, calling themselves community members, calling for Tharisa to employ 200 people, less than 20 people took part in the illegal marches. Some of the community members are known to us,” Graulich said.
Three of the people who spoke to the M&G said they no longer stayed in Marikana out of fear of Mpembe. The mine and police’s security response to April 2020’s unprotected demonstration was characterised as violent and brutal according to the community members.
North West provincial police spokesperson Brigadier Sabata Mokgwabone said that two suspects were arrested for malicious damage to property while two cases of intimidation and one of violation of a court order and assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm were still under investigation.
“Of these cases, one was opened against officials at Tharisa mine while three were opened by the mine against protestors. All the cases were opened between February and March 2021,” Mokgwabone said.
The case involving a violation of a court order was opened in 2018 against Mashamaite, who believes the interdicts brought against civil society group members were an abuse of the justice system.
In August 2018 a notice to the mine was submitted informing it of a planned gathering outside its premises to commemorate the anniversary of the Marikana massacre.
“If we want to submit a memorandum we are met with heavily armed security, and they normally use tear gas,” he said.
In a response to the organisers of the planned march, Tharisa Minerals, in a letter from Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr attorneys, said: “We wish to record that the Farlam commission exonerated Mpembe and no blameworthiness was attributed to him whatsoever.”
Free speech and access to information organisation the Right to Know Campaign (R2K) helped Mashamaite and others to overturn Tharisa mine’s interim protection order in April 2020.
The court order prohibited community activists from engaging in or attempting to engage in harassment or intimidating Mpembe; making scandalous allegations against him on social media, and preventing him from entering or leaving his place of employment at Tharisa mine.
Then again in September 2020 Tharisa approached the Rustenburg magistrate’s court for a protection order against mining activists in favour of Mpembe.
R2K’S Busi Mtabane said that the application was withdrawn but that there was a growing trend in which companies used lawfare and abused court processes to stifle and restrict speech, and to intimidate those critical of the companies’ conduct.
Tharisa did not respond to questions relating to Mpembe’s employment.
Graulich said that the suggestion made by Mashamaite that their communications were intercepted by security was “unfounded and without merit”.
“The questions and nature of your inquiry is insulting to the Company in the least and if any of the allegations are published the Company will undertake all legal action necessary, both corporate and individually, given the unsubstantiated nature of the statements made by yourselves, as always all our rights are reserved”, Graulich added.
Mpembe did not respond to questions from the by the time of publication.