Conflict of Interest, Inc: Mining unions' leaders were representing their members while in corporations' pay

A Daily Maverick investigation has revealed a furtive conflict of interest, with mining houses footing the bill for top National Union of Mineworkers office bearers’ salaries. The hard-to-believe arrangement started in the late eighties as the means of protecting union leaders from the corporations, but it was retained over the years, creating a severe of conflict of interest. Unionists are being paid high salaries by the very people from whom they are supposed to protect their members. The 'arrangement' is just about to end, in spite of union leaders' unhappiness and an unpredictable labour and political backlash. By GREG MARINOVICH. The Daily Maverick

Marikana massacre: police shooting video footage

“Bhele” Tholakele Dlunga & Greg Marinovich on the Marikana Massacre

Sebokeng: The lessons of 1984

Veteran activists gathered in the Vaal triangle this November to celebrate the role of a priest in the struggle and to chart a way forward in the country that appears to be completing a full circle since the days of Apartheid, hunger and blood. 

By GREG MARINOVICH, The Daily Maverick

On a rainy and windswept November Saturday in the Vaal, the Roman Catholic Church in Sebokeng’s Zone 12 was packed to honour a remarkable individual, Father Patrick Noonan, a priest who has dedicated 50 years of service to the community.

Marikana: a cover-up for all to see

by Greg Marinovich, The Guardian

The Farlam Commission into the Marikana mine killings continues to be the vehicle for revealing the most shocking information about what happened at the place called Small Koppie on 16 August.

On Monday, Captain Jeremiah Apollo Mohlaki, crime scene investigator, was presented with two sets of images taken at the scene. The first set was taken while there was still daylight and showed the dead miners, few of whom had weapons near them. The commission then presented corresponding images of the same miners with traditional and hand-made weapons close by, even on top of the dead strikers.

The murder fields of Marikana. The cold murder fields of Marikana.

The majority of the dead in the 16 August massacre at Marikana appear to have been shot at close range or crushed by police vehicles. They were not caught in a fusillade of gunfire from police defending themselves, as the official account would have it. GREG MARINOVICH spent two weeks trying to understand what really happened. What he found was profoundly disturbing. The Daily Maverick

Of the 34 miners killed at Marikana, no more than a dozen of the dead were captured in news footage shot at the scene. The majority of those who died, according to surviving strikers and researchers, were killed beyond the view of cameras at a nondescript collection of boulders some 300 metres behind Wonderkop. On one of these rocks, encompassed closely on all sides by solid granite boulders, is the letter ‘N’, the 14th letter of the alphabet. Here, N represents the 14th body of a striking miner to be found by a police forensics team in this isolated place. These letters are used by forensics to detail were the corpses lay. There is a thick spread of blood deep into the dry soil, showing that N was shot and killed on the spot. There is no trail of blood leading to where N died – the blood saturates one spot only, indicating no further movement. (It would have been outside of the scope of the human body to crawl here bleeding so profusely.)

Marikana: Cabinet ministers feel full force of striking miners' fury

by Sipho Hlongwane & Greg Marinovich, The Daily Maverick

The inter-ministerial committee put together by President Jacob Zuma to deal with the aftermath of the Marikana shootings met Tuesday with a group of miners outside of the Wonderkop squatter camp. It was the committee that was told what’s what. After delivering a severe dressing down, the leaders of the miners made it clear that things would be running on their terms, not those set by the Lonmin, police or the national cabinet. By SIPHO HLONGWANE (words) and GREG MARINOVICH (images).