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Abstract
The Marikana Commission of Inquiry was established following the killing of 34 Lonmin strikers by South African police on 16 August 2012. This article provides a substantive review of the Commission’s Report, released in June 2015. It highlights the Commission’s assessment that a decision made by top generals the evening before the massacre was ‘the decisive cause’ of the deaths. This and other findings against the police are contrasted with failure to make any recommendations for prosecution. Evidence presented to the Commission is used to draw different conclusions from those in the report. In particular, the article argues that the initial killings, broadcast live on television, were a consequence of planning by the operational commander, rather than a response to workers’ aggression. Culpability for the massacre is also considered. While the narrative presented by the police was discredited, that articulated by workers was largely vindicated. However, this did not restrain the Commission from making comments hostile to the workers, and this antipathy is viewed as a factor leading to errors of judgement. The article was written in honour of Colin Murray. Resonating with his work, it ends by urging historians to take workers’ voices seriously, something that Lonmin, the police, media reporters, and the Commission conspicuously failed to do.
Acknowledgements
An earlier version of this article was presented at the African Studies Association (UK) conference in September 2014. Much happened in the months that followed. Importantly, the Marikana Commission of Inquiry delivered its report in June 2015. My father died just as I started revising my text, and my mother died as I got under way. Dad was a well-read historian, who provided feedback on nearly everything I wrote, and he was a major influence. This article is dedicated to his memory. I am grateful to the editors for accepting an article in somewhat unconventional form, and for being unfailingly generous in delaying deadlines to allow for personal grief. The support of South Africa’s Department of Science and Technology and its National Research Foundation, which, respectively, fund and administer my Research Chair in Social Change, is also acknowledged.
Notes
1 A. Atmore, ‘Review of Families Divided’, African Affairs, 81, 324 (1982), p. 449.
2 E-mail from Kammila Naidoo, 14 February 2016.
3 C. Murray, Families Divided: The Impact of Migrant Labour in Lesotho (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1981), p. 176.
4 C. Murray, ‘Class, Gender and the Household: The Developmental Cycle in Southern Africa’, Development and Change, 18, 2 (1987), pp. 235–49. He added (p. 49) that the former ‘must be applied in a manner that is subordinate to and not alternative to a class analysis’.
5 Out of the 34 men killed in the massacre, 26 were buried in the Eastern Cape, four in Lesotho, two locally, one in Gauteng, and one in Swaziland. See P. Alexander, T. Lekgowa, B. Mmope, L. Sinwell and B. Xezwi, Marikana: A View from the Mountain and a Case to Answer (Johannesburg, Jacana Media, 2012), pp. 196–9.
6 W.H. Sewell, Logics of History: Social Theory and Social Transformation (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2005). See also P. Alexander, ‘Marikana, Turning Point in South African History’, Review of African Political Economy, 40, 138 (2013), pp. 605–19.
7 P. Alexander, ‘Op-Ed: AMCU Victory is More than Just About Figures’, Daily Maverick, Johannesburg, 29 June 2014.
8 I am grateful to Marcel Paret and Claire Ceruti, respectively, for these examples.
9 See references included in a longer version of this article: P. Alexander, ‘Marikana – What Happened and Who Was Responsible? A Critical Reflection on the Commission of Inquiry’, available at South African Research Chair in Social Change website, http://www.uj.ac.za/faculties/humanities/sarchi; see specifically footnotes 183–90. An important new addition to the literature is L. Sinwell and S. Mbatha, The Spirit of Marikana: The Rise of Insurgent Trade Unionism in South Africa (London, Pluto Press, 2016).
10 G. Marinovich, Murder at Small Koppie: The Real Story of the Marikana Massacre (Johannesburg, Penguin, 2016); K. Forrest, Marikana Commission: Unearthing the Truth or Burying It (Johannesburg, Society, Work and Development Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, 2015).
11 I.G. Farlam (chairperson), P.D. Hemraj and B.R. Tokota, Marikana Commission of Inquiry. Report on Matters of Public, National and International Concern Arising out of the Tragic Incidents at the Lonmin Mine in Marikana in the North West Province. To the President. Signed at Pretoria, 31 March 2015 (hereafter, MCR [Marikana Commission Report]).
12 SAPS, ‘Media Statement: General Phiyega Pronounces on Mine Unrest’, retrieved from http://www.gov.za/general-phiyega-pronounces-mine-unrest on 8 August 2016.
13 MCR, pp. 392–9.
14 T. Lekgowa, B. Mpope and P. Alexander, ‘How Police Planned and Carried Out the Massacre at Marikana’, Socialist Worker (online), 21 August 2012; G. Marinovich, ‘The Murder Fields of Marikana. The Cold Murder Fields of Marikana’, Daily Maverick, 8 September. A team from the September National Imbizo group visited Marikana at about the same time as ourselves and provided a similar report (see B. Fogel, ‘September National Imbizo Report on Marikana’, Amandla, 21 August 2012).
15 J. Duncan, The Rise of the Securocrats: The Case of South Africa (Johannesburg, Jacana Media, 2014), pp. 181–2.
16 Alexander et al., Marikana: A View.
17 R. Desai (director), Miners Shot Down (Johannesburg, Uhuru Productions, 2014); B. Nzimande, ‘Anti-Majoritarians Developing Full-Blown Regime Change Ambitions – SACP’, Politicsweb, 8 July 2015.
18 D. Mpofu, M.A. Qofa and R. Tulk, Heads of Argument on behalf of Injured and Arrested Persons (hereafter I&AP), p. 37; Marikana Commission of Inquiry website (hereafter MCI website); MCR, p. 60.
19 MCR, pp. 66–78.
20 MCR, pp. 91–4; H. Barnes and A. Gotz, AMCU Heads of Argument (hereafter AMCU), p. 129.
21 The ‘mountain’ was a koppie, that is, a granite mound rising abruptly from the surrounding plain.
22 I&AP, p. 227.
23 MCR, pp. 511–12.
24 G. Budlender, M. Chaskalson, K. Pillay, C. Wesley, T. Lupuwana, and M. Mojapelo, Heads of Argument of evidence leaders (hereafter EL), MCI website, pp. 124–5.
25 AMCU, p. 128.
26 AMCU, pp. 131–2; MCR, p. 99.
27 MCR, p. 121.
28 I&AP, p. 43.
29 MCR, p. 479. My account mentions 43 of the 44 people killed in Marikana between 12 and 16 August. The 44th was a man whose body was found near the mountain on 14 August. It is possible that he was thought to be an impimpi (informer). MCR, p. 171.
30 MCR, pp. 414–15; EL, p. 163; Marikana Commission of Inquiry Transcription (hereafter MCI), Day 41, p. 4434. ‘Day’ refers to the day of the inquiry, with these running from 01 (1 October 2012) to 200 (14 November 2014).
31 Senior SAPS officers are listed in Table . For conversation between Mpembe and Mbombo, see EL, pp. 192–3.
32 D. Ntsebeza, T. Motloenya and N. Lewis, Families’ Heads of Argument (hereafter Families), MCI website, p. 123; EL, p. 223.
33 EL, p. 220.
34 Families, pp. 8–11; EL, pp. 217–9.
35 I&AP, pp. 231–3. For Counsel I&AP, ‘political pressure’ was a third ‘game-changer’. The Commission rejected this implicitly, especially in relation to Ramaphosa.
36 R.D. Bruce, Submission, 27 October 2014, MCI website, p. 7.
37 MCR, p. 513.
38 EL, pp. 209–14.
39 MCR, p. 185.
40 MCR, p. 341. Emphasis added.
41 MCR, p. 521.
42 MCR p. 184.
43 Ibid.
44 MCR, p. 452.
45 EL, p. 292.
46 MCR, pp. 188–9.
47 EL, p. 298; M.M. Le Roux, T. Fisher, K. Hardy, P. Madi, C. Grobbler and W.H. Trengove, Written Submissions of the South African Human Rights Commission (hereafter SAHRC), MCI website, pp. 86, 148.
48 EL, p. 300. The mortuary wagons had room for 16 corpses.
49 EL, p. 307. In South Africa, the right to strike is protected by the constitution, and strikes are not illegal. Phiyega also believed that the action was aimed at ‘ending the strike (not the ending of violence)’, EL, p. 555.
50 AMCU, pp. 66–77.
51 AMCU, p. 78.
52 MCR, p. 198; EL, p. 336; AMCU, pp. 86, 89.
53 MCR, pp. 206–7.
54 MCR, p. 200. See also AMCU, p. 94.
55 EL, p. 248.
56 G. White, Final Statement, Exhibit JJJ178, MCI website p. 22.
57 MCR, pp. 202–6.
58 MCR, p. 209.
59 EL, p. 351.
60 Figure comes from an animation and Figure from a plan. Both use Google images as a base.
61 During the main action, Mbombo, Mpembe and Annandale were away from the field, mostly at the JOC.
62 SAHRC, pp. 331–3. Evidence came from synchronising and analysing video footage, with times adjusted to those on the eTV camera, producing time codes agreed by the Commission.
63 I&AP, pp. 99, 152. Emphasis added.
64 SAHRC, pp. 331–47, 358. The formation of the TRT line would have been invisible to the strikers.
65 Papa 11 was attacked by the lead group with spears and stones (MCR, pp. 214–18). This means that either the workers reached further north than shown in Figure or Papa 11 was further south than shown in Figure , or both. In my view, it is rather likely that this group wanted to continue northwards, which provided an alternative route to Nkaneng.
66 SAHRC, pp. 352–3.
67 EL, p. 377. At 15.53:40, one of the workers fired a pistol, probably in response to being shot at with rubber rounds. The bullet hit the ground and had little or no impact on subsequent events (SAHRC, p. 367). Some 522 rubber rounds, each with two balls, were fired. As counsel for the families commented: ‘[t]his is extraordinary when compared to the amount of teargas and the number of stun grenades utilised’, Families, p. 233. Use of ‘shot-gun pellets’ – a term that includes bird-shot, but also buck-shot – is illegal, EL, p. 395; MCR, p. 259.
68 Families, pp. 159, 244.
69 EL, p. 379 ; MCR, p. 232.
70 EL, p. 329.
71 Families, p. 245. According to MCR, 53 persons fired R5 rifles at Scene 1, 52 were from TRT, and one was from POP (see pp. 516, 558).
72 MCR, pp. 255–6; SAHRC, pp. 79, 335.
73 MCR, p. 256; Families, p. 248.
74 EL, p. 401.
75 Families, p. 247, MCR, p. 259.
76 MCR, pp. 261–2. See also Families, p. 448.
77 See SAHRC, p. 360, for a summary.
78 AMCU, p. 188.
79 MCI, Day 160, p. 18270. See also EL, p. 367; Families, p. 221.
80 EL, pp. 369–70.
81 MCR, pp. 227–8; MCI, Day 229, pp. 28312–13. Calitz himself was in Papa 1, the northernmost nyala in Figure ; SAHRC, p. 407.
82 EL, pp. 367–8.
83 For Calitz’s order to support Papa 11, see MCR, p. 215.
84 SAHRC, p. 69.
85 EL, p. 360.
86 EL, p. 361; AMCU, p. 187.
87 MCI, Day 229, p. 28320.
88 AMCU, p. 189.
89 For example, Loest in MCI, Day 229, p. 28320.
90 EL, p. 575; and see SAHRC, p. 373.
91 EL, p. 403; SAHRC, p. 370; AMCU, p. 192; Families, p. 239.
92 MCR, p. 258.
93 SAHRC, pp. 376, 382.
94 EL, pp. 402–3.
95 EL, p. 585.
96 MCR, pp. 271–312. In addition, some shots were fired by members of POP (MCR, p. 558). For map showing lines of fire, see EL, p. 480.
97 Families p. 320. This is a time given by SAPS. If correct it would mean that 18 minutes elapsed between the Scene 1 and Scene 2 killings. Elsewhere a figure of 13 minutes is given (Families, p. 308).
98 Families, p. 316; MCR, p. 316–17.
99 Families, pp. 316–412; EL, 452–91. Valuable eye witness evidence was given against Naidoo’s units by the crew of Papa 11.
100 EL, p. 457.
101 EL, p. 493.
102 MCR, p. 313–14.
103 Families, p. 413.
104 EL, pp. 642, 685.
105 I&AP, p. 295.
106 EL, p. 453.
107 EL, p. 431; also pp. 686–7.
108 MCR, pp. 194, 342.
109 AMCU, pp. 148–52. In South Africa, strikes are either ‘protected’, meaning workers cannot be sacked, or ‘unprotected’.
110 M. da Costa, Witness Statement, Exhibit OO17, MCI website. Da Costa was head of Lonmin’s Karee operations. This was the first time the demand for R12,500 was raised.
111 A. Bowman and G. Isaacs, ‘The 2014 Platinum Strike: Narratives and Numbers’, Review of African Political Economy, 42, 146 (2015), pp. 643–56.
112 AMCU, pp. 160–61. City Press, Johannesburg, 29 May 2016, published evidence purportedly showing that Mokwena was a ‘deep cover’ source working for the State Security Agency. Mokwena denied the claim but, to the best of my knowledge, has not sued for defamation.
113 MCI, untitled transcript of meeting involving Mbombo, Mokwena and others, Exhibit JJJ192, MCI website.
114 Exhibit JJJ192, pp. 2–3.
115 Ibid., p. 11.
116 Ibid., p. 13.
117 Ibid., p. 14.
118 Ibid., p. 12.
119 I&AP, pp. 219–21.
120 MCR, pp. 506–8; Alexander et al., Marikana: A View, p. 178.
121 I&AP, pp. 219–21. Neither Mbombo nor Mokwena mentioned their co-operation meeting in initial statements (see EL, p. 260).
122 AMCU, p. 202.
123 MCR, p. 508.
124 MCR, p. 445.
125 Exhibit JJJ192, p. 10.
126 MCR, pp. 168–9.
127 Joseph Mathunjwa, Witness Statement, Exhibit NN, MCI website, p. 20.
128 Exhibit JJJ192, p. 15.
129 MCR, p. 445.
130 MCI, Day 286, pp. 37071, 37072, 37080, 37082. See also, MCR, pp. 445–7.
131 MCI, Day 286, p. 37082–3.
132 MCR, p. 439.
133 MCR, p. 441–2.
134 EL, p. 503.
135 P. de Wet, ‘Zuma Announces Inquiry into Marikana Shooting’, Mail and Guardian, Johannesburg, 17 August 2012, available at http://mg.co.za/article/2012-08-17-police-go-with-bravado-on-marikana, retrieved 14 July 2016.
136 Ramaphosa’s company, Shanduka, owned 9 per cent of Lonmin. See MCR, p. 411.
137 There has been considerable discussion in the media. See also, I&AP, pp. 233–42, 278–86; MCR, pp. 411–38.
138 EL, pp. 534–5; MCR, p. 430.
139 C. Ramaphosa, ‘Re: Security Situation’, email to A. Jamieson et al., 14.58, 15 August 2012, Exhibit BBB4. Emphasis added.
140 C. Ramaphosa. ‘Re: Security Situation’, email to A. Jamieson et al., 12.18, 15 August 2012, Exhibit BBB4.
141 See also A. Jamieson, ‘Security Situation’, email to C. Ramaphosa et al., 09.43, 15 August 2012, Exhibit BBB4.
142 MCI, Day 278, p. 35634. See also Jamieson, ibid.
143 MCI, Day 278, p. 35592. This wording comes from the Inquiry rather than a transcript of the interview.
144 MCR, p. 428. MCR Exhibit QQQQ1.3. This is not available on the MCI website.
145 MCR, p. 432.
146 Jamieson, email. It is almost inconceivable that he was unaware of Lonmin’s role in the JOCCOM planning and the Mbombo/Mokwena meeting. Mokwena was copied into Ramaphosa, email 12.18
147 See MCI, Day 278, pp. 35715–19 and Day 298, p. 39422, for exchanges about corruption.
148 C. Ramaphosa, ‘Re: Marikana’, email to R. Phillimore, 00.47, 15 August 2012, Exhibit BBB4.
149 MCR, p. 433.
150 MCR, p. 435. His influence is clear from comments made by Mbombo in conversation with Mokwena. See Exhibit JJJ192, pp. 9–10.
151 See discussion of the law in Alexander, ‘Marikana – What Happened’.
152 EL, pp. 625.
153 EL, pp. 511–12.
154 SAHRC, pp. 206, 347, 380. SAPS was able to argue a false case for 22 months.
155 MCR, p. 542. On transfer pricing, see D. Forslund, ‘Briefing on the Report The Bermuda connection: profit shifting, inequality and unaffordability at Lonmin 1992–2012’, Review of African Political Economy, 42, 146 (2015), pp. 657–65.
156 MCR, pp. 515, 546.
157 IPID, Briefing to the Portfolio Committee on Police on ‘the Implementation of Farlam Judicial Commission’s Recommendations’, 2 February 2016, available from https://pmg.org.za/committee-meeting/21964/, retrieved 14 February 2016. It is alleged that Malahlela and Naidoo attempted to defeat the ends of justice.
158 Ibid.
159 Police Portfolio Committee, minutes, 12 April 2016, available at https://pmg.org.za/committee-meeting/22369/, retrieved 31 May 2016.
160 IPID, Briefing to the Portfolio Committee.
161 See Alexander et al., Marikana: A View; B. Ndibongo, ‘Women of Marikana: Survival and Struggles’, MA dissertation, University of Johannesburg, 2015.
162 MCR, p. 42.
163 MCR, p. 564.
164 MCR, pp. 561–2.
165 Marikana Support Campaign, ‘Findings and Recommendations that Should have been Made by the Farlam Commission’. Undated, though probably July 2014. Copy in possession of author.
166 Quoted in Forrest, Marikana Commission, p. 25.
167 For a while, the Commission proceeded without the Injured and Arrested Persons being represented, because Legal Aid South Africa refused to pay their lawyers (a decision overturned in the High Court).
168 Forrest, Marikana Commission, p. 23.
169 Amandla, ‘Can the Farlam Commission Deliver Justice for the Slain Miners?’, interview with J. Nichol, 9 March 2015, Amandla, 37/38 (2015), available from http://amandla.org.za/can-the-farlam-commission-deliver-justice-for-the-slain-miners/, retrieved 14 February 2016.
170 MCI, Phase 2: Preliminary Report. The senior researcher was Kally Forrest. The comprehensive report was never made public. Phase 2 included three seminars, which are available on the MCI website.
171 An important exception was the City Press ‘Faces of Marikana’ project.