Nine years on, the curse of Marikana still holds Ramaphosa in its paralysing grip

At the funeral of Winnie Madikizela- Mandela at Orlando stadium, Soweto, three years ago, President Cyril Ramaphosa revealed that at her 80th birthday the antiapartheid stalwart had promised to take him and Julius Malema to Marikana “to heal the wounds” of the widows of the murdered miners. But soon afterwards she fell ill and died.

“You’re gone now,” he said. “I’m left to go alone. But I’ll be guided by your spirit.”

Despite numerous promises, however, he has yet to make that visit. Marikana remains unfinished business for Ramaphosa and hangs like an albatross around his neck.

The Marikana massacre of 2012 has joined other such tragedies as Sharpeville and the Soweto uprising in the annals of police brutality against demonstrators. Such events were effectively used to rally the international community against the National Party government’s apartheid policies.

Marikana was of course different. The massacre was committed by the new democratic government, the very people who not so long ago were railing against apartheid atrocities and making rich political capital out of them. It was, if you like, a black government turning the guns on its own people.

The strange thing about Ramaphosa and Marikana is that he had nothing to do with the killing of the miners. He didn’t fire a shot. Nor did he instruct somebody else to do so. He was not even in the government at the time.

The man who was in charge is now a ward of the state at the Estcourt correctional facility. But nothing sticks to Jacob Zuma unless it’s extraordinarily huge. Even Nathi Mthethwa, police minister at the time of Marikana, has emerged unscathed.

Ramaphosa’s mistake is one of omission. In the days before the massacre he wrote e-mails to Lonmin, of which he was a nonexecutive director, saying “concomitant action” should be taken against striking mineworkers responsible for the death of fellow workers and two police officers. He was doing what any director would be doing: worrying about his investment. He could not have foreseen that a bloodbath would ensue.

But after the 34 miners were killed, he failed to explain his position or action. At the Farlam commission of inquiry into Marikana he seemed reluctant to explain himself to any extent.

In politics, if you don’t define yourself or what you stand for, chances are your enemies will be only too pleased to fill in the gaps. On Marikana, Malema and his EFF did just that. They did such a good job of smearing Ramaphosa with the blood of the miners that one would swear he had been in command of the police on that day. Now Marikana seems his cross to bear.

Ramaphosa has been marked for big things since he took over from Alfred Nzo as secretary-general and led an initially disjointed ANC through the Codesa negotiations. Nelson Mandela earmarked him as his successor, but was overruled by the exiles who preferred Thabo Mbeki. Even as he was making billions in business, Ramaphosa was often mournfully referred to by admirers as the best president that the country was destined never to have.

And even after serving obediently under Zuma as the latter went on a looting spree, his star never dimmed. His apologists said his slavish devotion was part of a long-term strategy, which, after Zuma was summarily ousted from office, seemed to have worked.

But now that he has been in charge for more than three years, and especially in light of the looting of the past few weeks, it has to be asked if those who hankered for his leadership oversold him. Did Marikana turn him into a timid softie? More importantly for the country, has Marikana paralysed him to the extent that he, and by extension his government, are unable to make the right decisions?

It would seem Marikana is casting a chilling penumbra over the government, hobbling the president, politicians and police officers alike. Police minister Bheki Cele said police could not arrest the huge crowd of Zuma supporters who gathered at Nkandla in violation of lockdown rules for fear of creating another Marikana. A week later police watched from the sidelines as an orgy of looting took place.

Again, fear of another massacre was used as defence.

This dereliction of duty demands that Cele’s head should roll. Does the fact that he’s still in his job mean that he was merely following orders? That the instructions may have come from the president himself?

SA’s leaders tend to appoint commissions of inquiry at the drop of a hat. But after this mayhem, the biggest crisis the country has faced in recent memory, nothing. Is Ramaphosa perhaps worried that witnesses at such an inquiry would spill the beans and say instructions to put a leash on the cops came from the top?

We’ve always had poverty, inequality and any number of other maladies. But never have we had a government, of whatever stripe, that sat back and watched the country go up in flames. What happened was nothing but a mammoth and incomprehensible failure of government. Events of the past few weeks have made people realise, to their utter horror, that what they thought was a government is in fact nothing but an illusion, a figment, a paper tiger, whose only memorable achievement so far has been to loot the state and impoverish its people. The people then thought that maybe they, too, should do a bit of looting. The government obliged by averting its gaze.

Maybe Ramaphosa should pluck up the courage to visit Marikana — to finally lay the ghosts to rest.