Whether the aftermath of Marikana will spell the downright end of the National Union of Mineworkers, the resentment against the traditional structures of bargaining and the union leadership is palpable in the platinum belt, sometimes bordering on murderous anger. The...
went
AMCU at the Commission: “It was one big crime’ | by Jeanne Hefez
In its first months of hearings, the Farlam Commission has shown us clear evidence of a bungled police cover up of a massacre, the National Union of Mineworkers' (NUM) own attempt to hide its role, and an alarming level of complicity between state and capital. The...
Voices from Marikana
"They killed us with hippos" Eyewitness account (interpreted from SeTswana): 'They killed us with Hippos. These Hippos arrived here, ran over people. People ran the opposite side (gestures towards 'Killing Koppie')...and the police still went and shot them. When they...
Discussion with Charles Abrahams: Class action suit on 100 years of mineworker neglect
Silicosis lawsuit filed against South Africa's gold miners. After decades of chronic and systematic neglect of mine-related diseases, a bold class action suit was filed in August on behalf of up to half a million black mineworkers, who had been worked to death or sent...
Can’t you hear the thunder? | by Jay Naidoo
The headlines scream 'Marikana Massacre'; 'Killing Fields of Rustenburg'. Radio and TV Talk shows and social media all display the anger and expose the psyche of a nation badly wounded. The bloodiest security operation since the end of apartheid has left us shocked...
Radio 786 Interview
On Radio786 in Cape Town from 9:30-10:30pm tonight, Ashraf was the interviewer, and to open, David van Wyk of Bench Mark Foundation (church-backed research group) did a terrific job setting out the extent of the crisis, including the social and labour plans which were...
Miners’ wives rage at South African police brutality after ‘massacre’
Women performing apartheid-era toyi-toyi dance condemn mine company as they wait for news of victims of police shootings Nosisieko Jali's husband is missing. She has heard a rumour that a bullet hit him in the head, yet he survived. One witness said all his clothes...
Violence could have been foreseen | by Stuart Theobald
SIX weeks ago I went on a tour of Lonmin's operations in the Bushveld Complex near Rustenburg. It was a PR exercise. I was shown the Marikana clinic where the company had invested millions in impressive facilities. With a group of journalists, we saw schools it...
Book Review: 2010 and South African Denial | Reviewed by Mark Fredericks
South Africa's World Cup A Legacy for Whom? Edited by Eddie Cottle Published by UKZN Press, Durban. 2011. Benito Mussolini once described fascism as "the merger between corporate and state power". If we are to seriously consider Il Duce's words, then surely, South...




