The massacre of 34, and almost certainly more, striking mineworkers
at Marikana (together with more than 80 injured) on August 16 has sent waves of
shock and anger across South Africa, rippling around the world. It could prove
a decisive turning point in our country’s post-apartheid history.
Marikana is a town situated in barren veld, dry brown grass
in the winter, with occasional rocky outcrops (kopjes, hillocks). The
Lonmin-owned mines – there are three, Karee, West and East Platinum – are
situated on the outskirts of the town. Alongside two of them is a settlement of
zinc-walled shacks festooned with lines of washing called Enkanini, where most
of the mineworkers live.
Towering over the shack settlement are the surface buildings
of the mine, together with a huge electricity substation, with giant power
pylons marching across the veld. This is the mineral-energy complex that has
dominated the South African economy since the 1890s, basing itself on the
exploitation of cheap black migrant labour. But now platinum has replaced gold
as the core of it.
South Africa produces three-quarters of the world’s platinum
(used for catalytic converters in cars and for jewellery) and has dropped from
first to fifth in production of gold. The underground workers at Marikana are
still predominantly from the Eastern Cape, the area most ravaged by the
apartheid migrant labour system. One third are contract workers, employed by
labour brokers for the mines, with lower wages and no medical, pensions or
benefits.
Platinum rock drillers work underground in temperatures of
40-45 degrees Celsius, in cramped, damp, poorly ventilated areas where rocks
fall daily. They risk death every time they go down the shafts. At Marikana,
3000 mineworkers were and are striking for a wage increase from R4000 to
R12,500 a month.
The juxtaposition of the mineral-energy complex with
Enkanini, where outside toilets are shared among 50 people, where there are a
few taps that will only trickle water, where raw sewage spreading disease leaks
from burst pipes, and children scavenge on rubbish dumps, is symptomatic of the
huge inequalities in South African society today. (More details on living
conditions can be found in “Communities in the Platinum Minefields: Policy Gap
6” at http://www.bench-mark.org.za).
Inequality has increased since 1994 under the post-apartheid
African National Congress (ANC) government. CEOs earn millions of rands in
salaries and bonuses while nearly one-third of our people live on R432 rand a
month or less. The top three managers at Lonmin earned R44.6 million in 2011
(Sunday Independent, August 26, 2012). Since 1994 some black people have been
brought on board by white capital in a deal with the government – and they
engage in conspicuous consumption.
Cyril Ramaphosa, former general secretary of the National
Union of Mineworkers (NUM), who is now a director of Lonmin, recently bought a
rare buffalo for R18 million, a fact contemptuously highlighted by Marikana
workers when he donated R2 million for their funeral expenses. Unemployment in
South Africa, realistically, is 35-40% and higher among women and youth; the
highest in the world.
Shot while trying to escape
The media have highlighted police shooting automatic weapons
at striking mineworkers running towards them from the rocky kopje where they
were camped, and bodies falling to the ground dead. The police had erected a
line of razor wire, with a five-metre gap in it, through which some mineworkers
were attempting to return to Enkanini to escape tear gas and water cannon
directed at them from behind.
Researchers from the University of Johannesburg (not
journalists, to their shame) have revealed that the most killing did not take
place there. Most strikers had dispersed in the opposite direction from
Enkanini, trying to escape the police. At a kopje situated behind the hill camp
there are remnants of pools of blood. Police markers in yellow paint on this
“killing kopje” show where corpses were removed: there are labels with letters
at least up to “J”. Shots were fired from helicopters to kill other escaping
workers, and some strikers, mineworkers report, were crushed by police Nyalas
(armoured vehicles). Within days police swept the whole area clean of rubber
bullets, bullet casings and tear-gas canisters. Only patches of burned grass
are visible, the remains of police fires used to obscure evidence of deaths.
There are still workers missing, unaccounted for in official
body counts. The death toll is almost certainly higher than 34.
The cumulative evidence is that this was not panicky police
firing at workers they believed were about to attack them with machetes and
sticks. Why otherwise leave a narrow gap in the razor wire? Why kill workers
running away from the police lines? It was premeditated murder by a militarised
police force to crush the strike, which must have been ordered from higher up
the chain of command. It has recently been reported that autopsies reveal that
most of the workers were shot in the back, confirmation that they were mowed
down by the police while escaping.
Because of the global capitalist crisis, with a slump in
demand for new cars, the price of platinum has been falling, squeezing Lonmin’s
high profits. Lonmin refused to negotiate with the striking mineworkers, and
instead threatened mass dismissals, a favourite weapon of mining bosses. They
were losing 2500 ounces of platinum output a day, amounting to more than $3.5
million. It was in Lonmin’s interest to smash the strike. A platinum CEO is
quoted as saying that if the R12,500 demand was won, “the entire platinum
mining sector will be forced to shut down” (New Age, August 20, 2012).
But the massacre has rebounded in their face. It has
reinforced the anger and determination of the Marikana mineworkers to continue
striking. “We will die rather than give up our demand”, said one at a protest
meeting in Johannesburg on August 22. Moreover, since the massacre, workers at
Royal BaFokeng Platinum and Anglo American Platinum have joined the strike. A
general strike in the platinum industry is not ruled out.
The police chief, Riah Phiyega, visited police in Marikana
in the days before the massacre. On the day of the massacre a police
spokesperson declared, “Today is unfortunately D-day” (Business Report, August
17, 2012). After the killings Phiyega said, “It was the right thing to do” (The
Star, August 20, 2012). The ANC government is implicated in these murders – in
defence of white mining capital.
ANC-police orchestrated violence
The massacre is part of a pattern of ANC-police orchestrated
violence against social protest, for example against Abahlali baseMjondolo in
Kennedy Road in Durban in 2008-9 and in Umlazi recently, and which has resulted
in the killing of Tebego Mkhoza in Harrismith, of Monica Ngcobo in Umlazi, of
Andries Tatane in Ficksburg and South African Municipal Workers Union (SAMWU)
leader Petros Msiza last year, to name but a few.
Certainly the Marikana massacre has severely damaged the
moral authority that the ANC inherited from the liberation struggle. Since
August 16, South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma has gone out of his way to
distance himself from the killings. He has deplored the tragedy, visited the
site six days later – to a cool reception from the mineworkers – declared a
week of mourning and established a commission of enquiry.
He is hoping to restore the image of the ANC and of himself
before he has to face re-election at an ANC conference in Mangaung in December.
The commission has five months to report – which he hopes will cover up
discussion of the events until after Mangaung. “Wait for the report before
making a judgement” will be the watchword of the ANC and its allies in the next
months.
Suspicious of the official commission, the mineworkers have
called for an independent commission of enquiry, and the dropping of charges
against 259 workers who have been arrested. “The same person who gave the order
to shoot is the one who appointed the commission”, said a worker (Business Day,
August 23, 2012).
Expelled former ANC Youth League president, the populist
Julius Malema, has taken advantage of the massacre to visit Marikana, denounce
Zuma and give assistance to the dead mineworkers’ families. Also all leaders of
the parliamentary opposition went as a delegation to a meeting in Marikana on
August 20 to offer condolences – like flies hovering around a dead body. At the
same meeting a procession of 20 or more priests each sought to claim the loud
hailer.
Union rivalry?
The mass media have claimed that the violence was
precipitated by rivalry between the NUM and the Association of Mineworkers and
Construction Union (AMCU). This is nonsense. When the Marikana rock drillers
went on strike they wanted to negotiate directly with management, not to have
any union represent them. This was made absolutely clear at post-massacre
meetings in Marikana, and at the protest meeting on August 22.
The strike was violent. In the week before the massacre 10
people died, six mineworkers, two mine security guards and two policemen.
Historically, the National Union of Mineworkers, born in the
struggle against apartheid, has represented mineworkers. It has a proud history
of struggle, including the 1987 mineworkers’ strike, led by Cyril Ramaphosa.
But since 1994 it has increasingly colluded with the bosses. At Lonmin it had a
two-year wage agreement for 8-10% annual increases.
When the rock drillers struck for more than doubled wages,
NUM tried to prevent them. The strikers assert that the NUM was responsible for
the death of two of mineworkers early in the strike. Two days before the
massacre NUM general secretary Frans Baleni stated of the strikers, “This is a
criminal element” (Business Report, August 15, 2012). Since the massacre Baleni
has claimed it was “regrettable” but he has not condemned the police, only
“dark forces misleading the workers” (see the video on the NUM website). Baleni
earns R77,000 a month, more than 10 times what the rock drillers earn. NUM
members in Marikana have torn up and thrown away their union T-shirts. At the
Johannesburg protest meeting on August 22 an NUM speaker was shouted down by
Marikana mineworkers.
The beneficiary is the AMCU, which before the strike had
only 7000 members at Karee, a part of the Marikana mine where workers did not
strike. (Its membership there was drawn in by a disaffected NUM branch leader
after a strike last year.) Now workers from West and East Platinum are joining
the AMCU.
The AMCU was formed after 1999 when its present president,
Joseph Mathunjwa, was dismissed by a coal mine in Mpumalanga and reinstated
because of workers’ protest, but then faced a disciplinary hearing from NUM for
‘bringing the union into disrepute”. He was expelled by the NUM (whose general
secretary, ironically, was then Gwede Mantashe, now general secretary of the
ANC) and formed the AMCU.
Today the AMCU claims a membership of some 30,000. It
represents workers at coal, chrome and platinum mines in Mpumalanga, and coal
mines in KwaZulu-Natal. It has members at chrome and platinum mines in Limpopo,
and is recruiting at the iron ore and manganese mines around Kathu and Hotazel
in the Northern Cape. It has focused on vulnerable contract workers. In
February-March this year it gained membership in a six-week strike of 4300
workers (in which four people died) at the huge Impala Platinum in Rustenburg,
a 14-shaft mining complex with 30,000 workers. At this stage it is unclear
whether it can build a solid organisation for platinum workers, or merely
indulge in populist rhetoric.
The AMCU is affiliated to the National Council of Trade
Unions (NACTU), rival union federation to the Congress of South African Trade
Unions (COSATU), both also born in the struggle against apartheid. COSATU,
however, is allied with the ANC and is partly compromised by its relationship
to government.
COSATU divisions
The platinum strikes and the Marikana massacre take place on
the eve of COSATU’s 11th congress, to be held on September 17-19. COSATU has
long differed with the ANC on economic policy, and in the recent period has
been racked by internal differences over this and over whether or not Zuma
should have a second term as ANC president and hence, after the 2014 election,
remain president of the country. COSATU’s president Sdumo Dlamini, supported by
the NUM and the National Health and Allied Workers’ Union (NEHAWU), supports
Zuma. COSATU general-secretary Zwelinzima Vavi, together with the National
Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) and the South African Municipal
Workers Union (SAMWU), is less keen on Zuma’s re-election. Other unions are
divided.
Vavi’s political report to the congress writes of “total
state dysfunction” (concerning the failure of the ANC government to provide
textbooks to Limpopo schools) and states there is “growing social distance
between the leadership and the rank and file” of the ANC (Mail and Guardian,
August 10-16, 2012).
At its June congress NUMSA passed resolutions on
nationalisation of industry and declared “that nationalisation of the Reserve
Bank, mines, land, strategic and monopoly industries without compensation must
take place with speed, if we are to avoid sliding into anarchy and violence as
a result of the cruel impact of ... poverty, unemployment and extreme
inequalities in South Africa today”. Under workers’ control and management,
this policy could rapidly end inequality and poverty in South Africa. (Julius
Malema and the ANCYL also favour nationalisation of the mines, but this is
interpreted as a desire to enrich predatory black businesspeople who could sell
their assets to the state.)
The National Union of Mineworkers is less keen on
nationalisation. “We are for nationalisation, but not a nationalisation that
creates chaos”, said an NUM spokesperson recently. In a June document NUM
criticised “populist demagoguery … calling for nationalisation as the solution
to … challenges” such as socioeconomic conditions and failures by the mining
industry to adhere to transformation or mining charter requirements (miningmx,
August 19, 2012).
Vavi in his political report also drew attention to “a
growing distance between leaders and members” within COSATU unions (Mail and
Guardian, August 10-16, 2012) – which also applies to the NUM. Recently, the
NUM general secretary in a private meeting with Vavi warned him to cease his
“one-man crusade” or face being unseated at the COSATU congress.
Now the shock waves of the massacre will reverberate through
the congress. The differences could be magnified, and some observers even
predict that COSATU could split, either at or after the congress. Both factions
of the COSATU leadership, however, are threatened by the erosion of the NUM and
the growth of the AMCU and other unions attracting disgruntled COSATU members.
A COSATU statement (August 23, 2012) speaks of “a
co-ordinated political strategy to use intimidation and violence, manipulated
by disgruntled former union leaders, in a drive to create breakaway ‘unions’
and divide and weaken the trade union movement”. It says the COSATU congress
will “have to discuss how we can defeat this attempt to divide and weaken the workers,
how we can … cut the ground from under the feet of these bogus breakaway
‘unions’ and their political and financial backers”. The threat to workers’
unity is a powerful stick with which to temporarily re-unite the factions in
COSATU. This strategy will be backed by the South African Communist Party
(SACP), which is influential within COSATU. In reality, of course, it is the
NUM leadership that is dividing the working class, through its failure to
represent workers adequately, causing them to leave the union.
Were COSATU to split, were the AMCU and other dissident
unions to link up with this split, favourable conditions would be created for
the launching of a mass workers’ party on a left-wing program that could
challenge the ANC for power. It would represent a combination of splits in
traditional workers’ organisations and the emergence of new organisations. But
this is not the most likely immediate scenario.
The consequences for Zuma at Mangaung are as yet
unpredictable. They depend on how reaction to the massacre unfolds in the next
months. Already it is reported that members of the ANC national executive are
incensed at Zuma (Sunday Times, August 26, 2012). Unless the ANC can manage the
situation successfully, the waves of shock and anger could catalyse the
beginning of the end of ANC rule. Certainly, nothing will ever be the same
again.
