http://www.iol.co.za/business/business-news/malema-threatens-revolution-at-mines-1.1372990
Malema threatens revolution at mines
INLSA
Expelled ANCYL President Julius Malema.
Ga-Rankuwa, North West - Expelled ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema on Thursday promised to lead a revolution which he said would make all mines in the country ungovernable.
“We are going to lead a mining revolution in this country... We will run these mines ungovernable until the boers come to the table,” he told workers at the Aurora mine in Grootvlei, Springs.
“We want them to give you a minimum wage of R12,500. These people can afford R12 500. Mining in South Africa amounts to trillions of rands.”
Malema said the fact the Aurora crisis had lasted four years showed there was no leadership in the country.
“Four years shows that there is not leadership. When they (politicians) arrive to represent you, they give them money and they forget you.”
Aurora Empowerment Systems bought the mines, one in Springs, the other in Orkney, North West, when the previous owner, Pamodzi Gold, went into liquidation in 2009.
Since then, workers had not been paid and the mines have been stripped of assets. About 5000 people had been left jobless.
Workers told Malema how their hostel was demolished.
Aurora is owned by President Jacob Zuma's nephew Khulubuse and former President Nelson Mandela's grandson Zondwa.
Malema said: “Every mine has a politician inside. They give them money every month, they call it shares. But it is (a) protection fee, to protect whites against the workers.”
Blacks were worse off than during the apartheid years, he said.
“We are being killed by our own people. We are being oppressed by our own government.”
Malema told the workers they should form a committee to speak to the lawyers and present their complaints to Aurora's liquidators.
Among those who attended Malema's meeting were workers fired from the nearby Gold One International, the prospective buyer of Aurora's mines. Gold One International confirmed it had fired 1044 workers for embarking on an illegal strike.
“The workers were in an illegal strike and we asked them to come back and they refused... so we dismissed 1044 workers,” spokesman Grant Stuart said.
The workers wanted a minimum wage of R6500.
Stuart said the company won an urgent court interdict which declared the strike illegal. Workers were fired and when the matter was appealed, the court upheld the previous decision, Stuart said.
In April, Gold One and Goliath Gold put up a R70 million bid to buy Aurora's assets, with a view to build at least four new mines in the area. - Sapa
http://www.silverdoctors.com/12000-gold-field-workers-go-on-a-wildcat-strike/#more-12862
12,000 SOUTH AFRICAN GOLD FIELD WORKERS GO ON A WILDCAT STRIKE
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-19424484
30 August 2012 Last updated at 12:59 ET
South African Marikana miners charged with murder
Six of the 270 arrested miners remain in hospital
Workers arrested at South Africa's Marikana mine have been charged in court with the murder of 34 of their colleagues shot by police.
The 270 workers would be tried under the "common purpose" doctrine because they were in the crowd which confronted police on 16 August, an official said.
Police opened fire, killing 34 miners and sparking a national outcry.
The decision to charge the workers was "madness", said former ruling ANC party youth leader Julius Malema.
"The policemen who killed those people are not in custody, not even one of them. This is madness," said Mr Malema, who was expelled from the ANC (African National Congress) earlier this year following a series of disagreements with President Jacob Zuma.
"The whole world saw the policemen kill those people," Mr Malema said, adding that he would ask defence lawyers to make an urgent application at the high court.
The killing of the 34 was the most deadly police action since South Africa became a democracy in 1994.
Six of the 270 workers remain in hospital, after being wounded in the shooting at the mine owned by Lonmin, the world's third biggest platinum producer, in South Africa's North West province.
The other 264 workers appeared in the Ga Rankuwa magistrates court near the capital, Pretoria.
Their application for bail was rejected and the hearing was adjourned for seven days.
About 100 people protested outside the court, demanding the immediate release of the men.
'Flagrant abuse'
National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) spokesman Frank Lesenyego told the BBC the 270 workers would all face murder charges - including those who were unarmed or were at the back of the crowd.
"This is under common law, where people are charged with common purpose in a situation where there are suspects with guns or any weapons and they confront or attack the police and a shooting takes place and there are fatalities," he said.
South African lawyer Jay Surju told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme that the "common purpose" doctrine was used by the former white minority regime against activists fighting for racial equality in South Africa.
"This is a very outdated and infamous doctrine," he said.
"It was discredited during the time of apartheid."
The decision has also been condemned as "a flagrant abuse of of the criminal justice system" by constitutional lawyer Pierre de Vos.
The best known case was that of the "Upington 14", who were sentenced to death in 1989 for the murder of a policeman in 1985.
The trial judge convicted the 14 activists, even though he acknowledged that they did not carry out the killing.
Anti-apartheid activists around the world protested against the ruling, which was overturned on appeal.
During a visit to the mine after the Marikana killings, President Zuma told workers he "felt their pain" and promised that a commission of inquiry would investigate the killings.
Mr Lesenyego said the commission would rule on the conduct of the police.
"It's a separate case," he said.
The commission and an internal police review are expected to take several months to complete.
Police said they started shooting after being threatened by large groups of miners armed with machetes.
Ten people, including two police officers and two security guards, were killed during the protests before the police shooting.
The protests were triggered by demands for a huge pay rise and recognition of a new union.
and.......
'Murder on a massive scale' at Marikana
2012-08-30 14:10
File (AP)
Video
Too early to assess Lonmin's impact on investment
2012-08-30 09:10
Parliament has questioned investor confidence following the Lonmin mine saga and the wave of unrest in the mining sector that saw 44 people killed. Watch.WATCH
READ MORE STORIES ABOUT
Lonmin unrest
- Legal precedent for murder charges - NPA - 30 Aug
- Detained miners all charged with murder - 30 Aug
- Credit rating fears over Marikana ‘premature’ -30 Aug
- Magistrate postpones Marikana case - 30 Aug
- Absenteeism up as Lonmin talks continue - 30 Aug
- 'Murder on a massive scale' at Marikana - 30 Aug
- Protesters demand miners' release - 30 Aug
- Lonmin workers wait for report - 30 Aug
- Mine unrest to hit investment - 30 Aug
on Marikana
@titoolivo RT @teleSURtv: Tribunal sudafricano inculpa de asesinato a mineros arrestados en Marikanahttp://t.co/GReMdzMD
@disgustedTWells What the hell is happening in South Africa. Police shoot 35 miners now Marikana miners charged with murder! BBC News htt
@_schmecks_ interessanter Radiobeitrag: "was ist los in Südafrika?"http://t.co/H5Tyjko3 # Marikana #anc
@shadowsteph How is this right? -> BBC News - South African Marikana miners charged with murder http://t.co/O13po7dz
Johannesburg - Police shot dead strikers at Lonmin's Marikana mine "in cold blood", a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer alleged on Thursday, after he spent 15 days probing the violence that killed 44.
"Heavily armed police hunted down and killed the miners in cold blood," photographer Greg Marinovich wrote on the Daily Maverick news website.
Marinovich spent more than two weeks at the Lonmin platinum mine in Marikana, interviewing witnesses and taking photos after police opened fire on striking workers on August 16.
Officers shot dead 34 and injured 78 after a stand-off between rival unions had already killed 10, including two police officers.
Out of sight
Television cameras screened the shooting live, which police afterwards justified as self-defence.
However, at least 20 were killed out of sight of the cameras, surviving strikers and researchers told Marinovich."A minority were killed in the filmed event where police claim they acted in self-defence. The rest was murder on a massive scale."
"Heavily armed police hunted down and killed the miners in cold blood," photographer Greg Marinovich wrote on the Daily Maverick news website.
Marinovich spent more than two weeks at the Lonmin platinum mine in Marikana, interviewing witnesses and taking photos after police opened fire on striking workers on August 16.
Officers shot dead 34 and injured 78 after a stand-off between rival unions had already killed 10, including two police officers.
Out of sight
Television cameras screened the shooting live, which police afterwards justified as self-defence.
However, at least 20 were killed out of sight of the cameras, surviving strikers and researchers told Marinovich."A minority were killed in the filmed event where police claim they acted in self-defence. The rest was murder on a massive scale."
Photographs with the article showed the letter "N" painted by police forensic experts on a rock crevice 300 metres behind the hill where the shooting was filmed.
The letter indicates corpse number 14 in forensic investigation.
"Approaching N from all possible angles, observing the local geography, it is clear that to shoot N, the shooter would have to be close," said Marinovich.
Close range
"After having spent days here at the bloody massacre site, it does not take too much imagination for me to believe that N might have begged for his life on that winter afternoon.
"It is hard to imagine that N would have resisted being taken into custody when thus cornered. There is no chance of escape out of a ring of police.""J and H died alongside each other. They, too, had no route of escape and had to have been shot at close range," he added.
Marinovich also described a bloody handprint stain on a rock, while other rocks were splattered with blood.
An eyewitness told the photographer armoured police trucks had driven over some strikers.
The witness also said he believed people were hiding in the koppie and police went in and killed them. Most people were shot in the back or run over by Nyalas, and many were unrecognisable, he claimed.
No police comment
President Jacob Zuma last week appointed a judicial commission of inquiry into the events on the day, while police are also conducting an independent investigation.
Police watchdog spokesperson Moses Dlamini declined to comment on the Daily Maverick report.
"I can't comment until I've read the article and spoken to investigators," he told AFP.
The Star newspaper on Monday reported most of the dead were shot in the back while fleeing.
Marinovich won the Pulitzer Prize in 1991 for his coverage of township violence at the end of apartheid. His story as part of the Bang Bang Club, four photographers who covered the conflicts, was told in a book and Hollywood film.
and further articles.....
Absenteeism up as Lonmin talks continue
2012-08-30 14:40
Work attendance at Lonmin's platinum mine has tumbled to a 6.6% average at all shafts as employees await the outcome of the peace accord meeting.
- Defiant strikers regroup at Lonmin
- Ramaphosa: We are all responsible
- Vavi: No finger-pointing over Marikana
Protesters demand miners' release
2012-08-30 12:49
More than a hundred protesters have gathered outside the Ga-Rankuwa Magistrate's Court demanding the release of about 270 men who were arrested after violence at Lonmin’s Marikana mine.
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