Digging deep for the truth about Marikana

Report claims SAPS reacted to ‘friendly fire’ from other teams

IT TOOK nine months of sifting through documents, analysing forensic evidence and photographs before David Bruce could put together his new report on the Marikana massacre.

Working on a low budget and with limited resources, Bruce put all his attention and focus on the now infamous “Scene 2” of the Marikana Massacre – the second location where 17 of the 34 striking mineworkers were killed on August 16 2012.

“The overall period was about nine months, starting at the end of 2015.

“However, I’ve spent a good part of the last six years analysing issues to do with Marikana,” he told the Saturday Star.

Bruce, an independent researcher and an expert on the Marikana massacre and on policing in South Africa, was finally able to release his comprehensive report – “The Sound of Gunfire: The Police Shootings at Marikana Scene 2” – at the Institute for Security Studies headquarters in Pretoria on Wednesday.

The report’s release coincided with the sixth anniversary of the massacre, where the mineworkers were gunned down by police after several days of wage disputes at Lonmin Mine in Rustenburg, North West.

In his report, it emerged that striking mineworkers did not attack police at the small koppie, despite police testimony of protesters having shot at police.

The shootings at the Lonmin Marikana mine took place at two distinct locations, roughly 500m apart, with 15 minutes passing between the first shooting and the beginning of the second series of shootings.

Bruce said the focus of his report was to provide an account of the events at Scene 2 that was compatible with available evidence, and to provide an explanation for what happened there.

“My work involved analysing documents that were available to the (Farlam) commission (of inquiry), including statements from strikers who survived the shootings at Marikana Scene 2, as well as the statements of police officers.

“Often police officers submitted a number of different statements that were not consistent, so it also involved comparing these statements.

“I also had to analyse the various submissions that were made to the commission about what had taken place there, including particularly the submissions of the SAPS, and the report of the forensic and ballistic experts.

“I also looked at some of the post-mortem reports.”

Bruce studied hundreds of documents and photographs.

“There are not a great number of photographs taken while the events were in progress, but there are some that are pertinent.

“In terms of forensic evidence, I relied on reports of the independent forensic and ballistic experts and the heads of argument of the families. These provide summaries of forensic evidence regarding wounds sustained by the victims.”

Based on Bruce’s analysis, his report concludes that it is unlikely that there were any attacks by the strikers on the police at the second scene.

At the presentation of the report, Bruce emphasised that the events of August 13, during which two police officers were killed by strikers, likely “coloured the attitudes” of the SAPS towards the miners in the coming days.

“One of the major complexities of the work was in assessing the plausibility and likely reliability of statements, including both the statements of strikers and SAPS members.

“I was not able to take it for granted that statements submitted by either strikers or police could be assumed to be reliable.”

While Bruce would have liked to have conducted interviews, he was constrained by budget restrictions.

“The work was very extensive and undertaken on a very small budget, and the time and resources that I had available did not enable me to do interviews.”

His findings contradict police statements presented to the Independent Police Investigative Directorate a day after the massacre.

His report surmises that the gunshots police believed, or said they believed, were coming from striking workers were likely “friendly fire” coming from other police teams approaching at different sides of the koppie.

Asked if he thought there would be any greater accountability by police leadership following the report’s release, Bruce offered: “It’s difficult for me to say, but I think that the release of the report reinforced the point that we can’t just forget about Marikana and that the full story has not been told as yet.”

Meanwhile, the police would not comment on his findings yet.

“We are still studying the report and therefore we are unable to comment at this stage,” said Brigadier Vishnu Naidoo, national SAPS spokesperson.

“Given that there is a pending criminal investigation into this matter is another reason why we are unable to comment,” he said.