After Marikana: Black life is still worth nothing in South Africa

Ben Fogel considers the context and repercussions of the Marikana massacre, in the wake of the extraordinary decision this week by the South African authorities to charge surviving miners for the murder of their colleagues by police. CeasefireMagazine

Two weeks after the Marikana massacre, the state/capital/police’s narrative of the events that led up to the slaughter of 34 miners on the 16th of August has collapsed. Autopsy reports have confirmed the majority of those killed on that fateful day were shot in the back, contradicting the official narrative largely endorsed by an unquestioning fourth estate – that the police shot the miners in self-defense.

Media underplaying police, state brutality

by Jane Duncan, Sunday Independent

South Africans are still reeling from shock after a clash between the police and striking mineworkers that left dozens of workers dead. The dominant narrative up to this point, supported by camera footage and other media accounts, has been that armed workers attacked the police, who retaliated in self-defence after at least one miner shot at them.

However, in the past week, an alternative narrative has emerged that suggests that, rather than being motivated purely by self-defence, the police killings of miners was more premeditated than initially thought.