Marikana still ‘an open grave’
‘IN A LOT OF PAIN’: NO CLOSURE FOR SISTER OF ‘MAN WITH THE GREEN BLANKET’ ‘The government doesn’t care about us, our lives have become worse.’
I couldn’t see him because he was too badly hurt.
Nolufefe Noki Mgcineni Noki’s sister
Adecade after her 30-year-old brother was killed when South African police opened fire on miners striking for better wages, Nolufefe Noki is still no closer to obtaining justice.
Mgcineni “Mambush” Noki became the face of the 2012 protests at the Marikana platinum mine, northwest of Johannesburg – known as “the man with the green blanket”.
Leading from the front, he addressed thousands of fellow mineworkers with a commanding raised fist and a green blanket wrapped around his shoulders – until the day he was struck dead.
The shootings on 16 August, 2012, which killed 34 people and wounded 78 more, were the bloodiest police crackdown since the end of apartheid in 1994.
But Noki’s sister says she is still waiting for answers as to what exactly occurred that day.
“We don’t know what happened,” the 42 year old said, speaking inside the family home in Mqanduli, a village in the Eastern Cape.
All she knows is that the police arrived to break up the wildcat protest on a hill and then “many people were killed”.
Television footage of police opening fire on protesters, raising a crest of dust at the foot of the hill, shocked SA and the world.
‘Still under investigation’
The violence evoked memories of apartheid-era police killings.
An official inquiry blamed the deaths and injuries on police “tactics”, recommending those responsible be investigated and prosecuted.
A decade on, police watchdog, the Independent Police Investigative Directorate, said the case was “still under investigation”.
The country’s solicitor-general, Fhedzisani Pandelani, said only about half of all claims made for compensation had been paid.
“It’s regrettable that we sit here and discuss things that happened 10 years ago,” he said.
For survivors and the families of victims, the memories are still agonisingly fresh.
When Noki’s remains were returned home, 1 000 kilometres away in the south of the country, his sister says she was unable to properly say goodbye.
“I was told I couldn’t see him, because he was too badly hurt,” she said in Mqanduli, where green hills stretch as far as the eye can see. “I still have a lot of pain.”
Many of the workers in SA’s platinum mines come from remote parts of the country, only returning home for Christmas.
Noki was buried on a nearby hill, where his grave is now overgrown with grass. But his family is still too traumatised to pay their respects at the burial site.
Fellow striker Mzoxolo Magidi wana, 34, was shot nine times, but survived.
He secured a pay increase and today lives in a single room provided by his employer in a township near the hill where the miners were shot.
“The government doesn’t care about us,” he said. “It’s 10 years now, our lives would have long changed for the better. Instead, our lives have become worse.”
‘Where is accountability?’
Tensions had been brewing for days before the shootings at the Marikana mine.
Strikers were unhappy with their representation, as two separate unions vied to take centre stage and workers who didn’t join the strike had been harassed.
Ten people had already died since the start of the protest.
Aisha Fundi says striking workers killed her husband Hassan, a mine security guard.
As part of reparations, the 49-year-old mother of two boys was offered a job at the mine, but she says that isn’t enough.
“Me and my kids want to see justice,” she said.
She still does not know who killed her husband and fears they could be working alongside her.
She is also yet to receive any compensation.
President Cyril Ramaphosa, a nonexecutive director of the mine at the time, was exonerated of any wrongdoing in the killings, after he called for the crackdown.
Miners, activists and opposition groups want him to apologise.
On May Day this year, he was forced to abandon a rally speech and bundled into an armoured police vehicle, after miners shouted him down in Rustenburg, near Marikana.
Onkgopotse JJ Tabane, a political commentator, at a memorial speech this week said the Marikana incident remained “an open grave”.
“Where is the accountability?” he asked. –