Massacre reveals true face of South Africa after apartheid

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On Aug. 16, South African police opened fire with live ammunition on 3000 striking workers at the Lonmin corporation’s platinum mine at Marikana in the coun­ try’s Northwest Province. This brutal incident of state repression, reminiscent of the apartheid era, left at least 34 workers dead, nearly 80 wounded, and many more missing.

The victims have been on strike for higher wages and a decent standard of living; most of them reportedly earn about $500 a month. Working conditions on the job are horrendous, requiring the miners to stand in swirling dust for hours on end while drilling the rock. After work, they and their families are confined to a squalid settlement of one-room shacks, without fresh drinking water and with 50 people often sharing a latrine. Leaking sewage from the platinum mine has polluted the surrounding farmland and groundwater.

On Aug. 24, a report surfaced of police assaults and torture of some of the 270 miners who were held in jail after the massacre. The National Prosecuting Author­ ity, employing the apartheid-era doctrine of “common purpose,” charged the prisoners with responsibility for the deaths of their own comrades—an indictment that has now been “temporarily” suspended.

In the meantime, government officials, though crying crocodile tears for the slain workers and their grieving families, have defended the actions of the police and are pressing the people to remain patient while the state conducts an investigation.

Similarly, the pro-government trade-union leader­ ship embodied in the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) put out a statement echoing the sentiments of the government and the police: “Now is not the time to go into this detailed assessment, nor to play the blame game. We must await the findings of the [government-appointed] Commission of Enquiry, which we hope will establish exactly what happened on that tragic day.”

The striking Marikana workers are represented by the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU), affiliated with the National Council of South African Trade Unions (NACTU). The union was initiated in 1998 after its current president, Joseph Mathunjwa, had been expelled from the COSATU-af­ filiated National Union of Mineworkers for leading a militant worker protest.

COSATU issued a report several days after the Mari­ kana massacre that contained obvious accusations against AMCU. The statement denounced “what we have identified as a coordinated political strategy to use intimidation and violence, manipulated by former union leaders … to create breakaway unions and di­ vide and weaken the trade-union movement.”

The international media was quick to blame the striking workers for the violence, alleging that they were brandishing weapons, that they were on strike “illegally,” and that the workers charged the police line, prompting them to open fire. For instance, The New York Times wrote on Aug. 16: “For the past three days, workers with machetes, sticks and wooden cud­ gels occupied an outcropping of rock near the mine, chanting and dancing, pledging their readiness to die if their demands were not met.”

The article continued: “Just before 4 p.m. on Thurs­ day, after repeated warnings to the crowd of about (Above) Mineworkers hold Aug. 27 mass meeting outside the platinum mine at Marikana.

(Left) Funeral for some of the workers killed by South African police at Marikana on Aug. 16.

ation and paving the way for a “peaceful transition” that would give Blacks the right to vote but protect the economic dominance and minority rights for the ruling whites. Through these concessions, the legal ban on the ANC was lifted, Nelson Mandela was freed from prison, aspects of apartheid legislation were re­ pealed, and negotiations began for a transition gov­ ernment. This led to the elections of 1994, in which the entire South African population was allowed to vote for the first time.

The ANC ran in the elections on a platform of land redistribution (87% of the population, specifically Black people, only owned 13% of land while whites controlled the rest), modest nationalizations, and socio-economic justice. Nelson Mandela was elected president by a landslide, and the ANC scored 252 seats in the National Assembly.

However, upon coming to power, the ANC disavowed its supporters and instead backed the interests of in­ ternational and local capitalists, as well as partnering with the imperialist powers. Major planks of the ANC program, such as redistribution of the land, were dis­ carded as South Africa’s new rulers assured business elites that their property and profit margins were safe.

For nearly two decades, the ANC has been in bed with the employer class and imperialism. A narrow crust of Black political leaders has been elevated to the boards of major white-dominated corporations. The new millionaire stratum includes Cyril Ramapho­ sa, ANC leader and former head of the National Union of Mineworkers, who now sits on the board of Lohmin PLC—the British-based conglomerate that owns the Marikana platinum mine The ANC government has bent over backwards to satisfy its imperialist overlords, while its neoliberal policies have increasingly marginalized the poor and discontented that the ANC supposedly represents. The official unemployment rate borders on 25 percent; the mining industry has lost 131,000 jobs in recent years.

Those who dare to speak out for a better South Africa have often faced police violence and even massacres. Last year, police murdered Andries Tatane, a young worker, during a service delivery protest. Other trade unionists and strikers have also been killed by the government since 1994. In this sense, the Marikana massacre is not an aberration but the logical result of a government that supports the interests of the one percent against those of the 99 percent.

The workers of South Africa need to break with the ANC and the movement mis-leaders who support it (such as the COSATU trade-union bureaucracy), and build their own independent party to lead the strug­ gle of the workers and rural peoples. Only when the South African people, led by the majority Black work­ ing class, seize control of the economy and administer it collectively and democratically in the interests of meeting human needs instead of the profits of the rich will there truly be justice in South Africa. n