T.O. Molefe, City Press
After the guns fell
silent that afternoon in Marikana two years ago, the incomprehensible happened.
The National Prosecuting
Authority (NPA) used the doctrine of common purpose to charge the 270 surviving
miners in police custody with the murders of their 34 dead colleagues.
The common purpose
doctrine holds all parties involved in a crime responsible for its
consequences.
It was most infamously
used by the apartheid government to charge Solomon Mahlangu (21) with the
murders of two civilians even though he did not fire any gunshots nor brandish
a firearm.
He was part of an
Umkhonto weSizwe trio that had sneaked into the country to smuggle pamphlets
and weapons before the first June 16 anniversary.
Prosecutors said he had
acted in common purpose to commit murder with Johannes Motloung, one of the
trio who had fired the fatal shots in a gun battle with police as the three
tried to evade capture.
Mahlangu was found guilty
and hanged shortly before he turned 23.
In the case of the
Marikana miners, the NPA dropped the charges after a public outcry. But their
thinking in bringing the charges illustrates the extreme prejudice with which
the striking miners were regarded from the beginning, as testimony at the
Marikana Commission of Inquiry again highlighted this week.
The testimony focused on
why Lonmin management refused to speak to the strikers despite repeated pleas
from police and the miners.
The answer is found in a
series of conversations between Lonmin management, its then nonexecutive
director and shareholder Cyril Ramaphosa, leaders of the National Union of
Mineworkers (NUM) and Cabinet members.
At the time, Ramaphosa
was widely believed to be the next ANC deputy president, giving his opinion
enormous weight among Cabinet members who would soon be reporting to him.
From August 10, two days
before the murders of two security guards, Lonmin management had made up its
mind. It characterised the unprotected strike as illegal and refused to meet
the miners.
Lonmin’s refusal to meet
some of its most hard-working employees – rock drill operators who toil for
hours in wet, dangerous and cramped caverns underground – allowed tensions to
escalate.
When the guards were
killed, Lonmin dug in its heels. It used the reasoning of common purpose to
impute responsibility for the murders to all the strikers. It convinced
Ramaphosa and the NUM, which also refused to meet the miners, that the wildcat
strike was a criminal act.
Ramaphosa, likely acting
with conflicted interests, carried this prejudicial view into his conversations
with Cabinet members.
He sent an email 24 hours
before the massacre boasting to Lonmin management he had convinced then mining
minister Susan Shabangu to change her characterisation of the strike from a
labour dispute to a criminal act.
He said she would
convince President Jacob Zuma and then police minister Nathi Mthethwa “to act
in a more pointed way”.
Shabangu, a former deputy
police minister, had once told top cops to ignore regulations and kill
criminals with a single shot. And that’s what they did on August 16, convinced
by Lonmin, Ramaphosa, Cabinet ministers and SAPS management that the miners
were criminals.
In a heart-rending scene
in the Marikana documentary, Miners Shot Down, a group of miners are pleading
with police to be allowed to keep the sticks and spears which they said they
needed for protection.
They are humble and
respectful. For a moment, they almost win over William Mpembe, the North West
deputy police commissioner.
In that moment, he sees
through the unfair characterisation and regards the miners as human beings.
Just then, his phone
rings. A command from the other end hardens his attitude. As the miners try to
leave peacefully, police open fire, causing the chaos that led to three miners
and two officers dying.
The scene is a reminder
that the prejudicial way the miners were characterised forced them into
situations where they first had to negotiate for their humanity to be
recognised before anybody would listen to their grievances.
