Inner circle dug in, shut Cyril out
E-mail trail ahead of Marikana reveals disquieting Lonmin line
IF black economic empowerment is, in some instances, merely corporate blackface, the e-mail correspondence among Lonmin executives in the days leading up to the Marikana massacre in 2012 could be a draft script for the industry’s own version of The Birth of a Nation.
DW Griffith’s 1915 film, which cast face-painted white actors in (stereotyped) black roles, was severely criticised for its overt racism and glorification of the Ku Klux Klan.
The Lonmin e-mails are revealing for the cynicism that appeared to infect the company’s approach to internal transformation, the distribution of responsibilities among black management and the question of who was kept in or out of the various internal information loops about the wild-cat rock-drill operators’ strike in 2012.
From August 10 to 12, as the temperature at Marikana escalated with the deaths of miners and security guards, briefing e-mails were sent by Frank Russo-Bello, Lonmin’s vicepresident for mining at the time, to the company’s then chief executive officer, Ian Farmer.
Included in the correspondence were Lonmin executive vice-president Mark Munroe and executive personal assistant Maureen Janse van Rensburg.
Conspicuous by his absence from the list was Lonmin director and ANC deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa. In 2010, Ramaphosa’s Shanduka Group had acquired a majority share in Lonmin’s BEE partner, Incwala Resources, giving it an 18% equity share of two of Lonmin’s principal subsidiaries in South Africa.
Certain themes that emerge from the exchanges appear to bolster arguments made at the Farlam commission of inquiry by lawyers representing the families of dead miners and those arrested, including that Lonmin was hostile towards the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) because of fears that it would destabilise its cosy relationship with the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). Also apparent was that Lonmin was intransigent in its refusal to negotiate with miners — a stance it maintained, despite overtures by striking miners at the koppies on August 16, until the bloodbath that afternoon.
In one e-mail to Farmer, RussoBello indicates that despite Amcu having “denied any knowledge or involvement” in the strike, he was convinced “that this whole thing reeks of Amcu involvement and orchestration”. Russo-Bello also indicates that Barnard Mokwena, Lonmin’s executive vice-president of human capital and external affairs, was preparing both an ultimatum to be issued to miners and a “re-recruitment strategy” following a proposed dismissal of striking workers.
According to e-mails, these were some of the issues to be discussed at Lonmin’s executive committee meeting scheduled for August 13. Lawyers acting for the families of miners killed at Marikana say attempts to obtain minutes of that meeting have been rebuffed by Lonmin.
Of the e-mail correspondence Lonmin has provided to the Farlam commission, Ramaphosa is included only in the chain dealing mainly with managing public perceptions of the strike, attempts to spin unfolding events, and strategies on political intervention that would maximise a resolution in favour of the multinational.
Writing to Lonmin’s chief commercial officer, Albert Jamieson, at around midday on the eve of the massacre, Ramaphosa, who was in Cape Town at the time, agrees with an earlier e-mail from Jamieson that he was “absolutely correct in insisting” that Mining Minister Susan Shabangu “and indeed all government officials” understand that events at Marikana were “essentially ... a criminal act”. Ramaphosa indicates that he has already indicated this to Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa.
This was after an apparently irate Jamieson had written to Ramaphosa
Ramaphosa is included only in the chain dealing mainly with public perceptions
asking why Shabangu had earlier that morning described the strike on radio as a wage dispute.
Also included in this correspondence are Mokwena, business transformation manager Thandeka Ncube, director Mahomed Seedat and board chairman Roger Phillimore. It is unclear who was to brief Farmer, Munroe and the rest of what appears to be the Lonmin inner circle, but in an earlier weekend e-mail Russo-Bello had indicated that Mokwena had been tasked with keeping Farmer in the loop about events on the ground.
The series of e-mails on August 15 include Ramaphosa’s much publicised call for “concomitant action” to be taken against the striking miners. An hour after his initial e-mail to Jamieson, Ramaphosa reports to the chief commercial officer that he has been in telephone contact with Shabangu, who has agreed to issue a statement in line with Lonmin’s “characterisation” of the strike after he had told her “that her silence and inaction . . . was bad for her and the government”.
According to Ramaphosa, Shabangu was to brief President Jacob Zuma and the rest of the cabinet on August 15 and “get the Minister of Police Nathi Mthethwa to act in a more pointed way”.
Lawyers at the Farlam commission who are acting for the arrested miners and the families of those killed have, in the past months, been constructing the argument that Lonmin had no intention of negotiating with the rock-drill operators and that, while being involved in what miners’ lawyer Dali Mpofu described as “toxic collusion” with police and government officials, may have participated in misinformation when briefing the police about the strike.
Police commanders such as MajorGeneral William Mpembe and Brigadier Adriaan Calitz both indicated to the commission that Lonmin officials described the striking miners as “faceless” individuals whose identity the company was uncertain of.
Yet Lonmin security reports from a month earlier had already noted that rock-drill operators were meeting to discuss a possible pay-related strike. E-mails on August 10 from local NUM branch secretary Duluvuyo Bongo to his superiors, including general secretary Frans Baleni, also note that attempts to dissuade miners from downing tools on August 10 had actually led to their members crossing over to join the picket.
Mpembe testified that if the police had been able to establish miners’ identities, it may have been expedient to embark on a house-to-house sweep of the informal settlements surrounding Lonmin’s platinum mines to disarm and arrest them, rather than having to confront them on the koppie.
This, Mpembe suggested, might have saved the lives of the “faceless” ones on August 16.
Tolsi is deputy legal editor for the Times Media Group