South Africa commemorated, this Tuesday, August 16, the tenth anniversary of the Marikana massacre. In this mining region, northwest of Johannesburg, in 2012, a demonstration by miners ended in a bloodbath: the police opened fire, killing 34 and injuring 78. A shock for the young democracy, which had reminded the inhabitants of the repression of demonstrations under apartheid.
As every year, commemorations were organized on August 16 in Marikana, and several thousand people gathered, at the call of Amcu, one of the powerful mining unions in the region, in order to remember this massacre that the government would prefer to forget.
Our correspondent in South Africa, Claire Bargeles, went there to follow the ceremony. She met Teboho there, installed on the “koppie”, this small hill where, ten years ago, he had joined the crowd of angry miners. A decade after the tragedy, his memories are intact.
It’s very moving to be there, really. At the time, I was at the very top of the hill, and when we came down, we didn’t understand what was happening, we saw people being killed in front of us, it was terrible.
“Those responsible must be identified”
At the time, the miners demanded higher wages. A decade later, the survivors, the children of victims, and even the South African journalists who had covered the tragedy, came to pay their respects, in an atmosphere that remained rather jovial, but all in conscience.
On the green t-shirts distributed by Amcu, the mining union which had led the negotiations with the workers during the strike, one can read: “Ten years of betrayal”, “No justice, no excuses”, and “Nobody held accountable”, while no member of the police has been convicted.
This is exactly the feeling of Sebolai, who came to pay homage to his father, one of the victims of the massacre, and who is also expressed on our antenna.
Justice must be done. It’s really weird that the culprits are still walking around freely among us, ten years later. Thirty-four people killed in one day, if it’s not a crisis situation… Those responsible must be identified.
“Let the government beg forgiveness”
While in the distance, the tin roofs of informal dwellings glisten in the sun. Here, the residents regret that nothing, in ten years, has really changed, despite all these lives lost under the bullets of the police. Especially since even compensation procedures drag on, too.
For the ANC government, and for current President Cyril Ramaphosa, who at the time sat on the board of directors of the Lonmin mining group, Marikana remains an embarrassing memory, on which it is better to remain silent. Sinovuyo, who lives in the region, regrets this posture.
It’s impossible to turn the page on what happened. That is why we are asking the government to speak out, and ask people for forgiveness. We need to be able to move forward.
While wages in the mines have since increased, the inhabitants of the region nevertheless regret the lack of development in the surrounding townships.
Many unanswered questions
The question of responsibility for the Marikana drama remains. This is also the observation made by Julien Brown, author of a book on the subject, joined by our colleague Alexandra Brangeon.
We know the police fired. We know when and how the miners were shot. But we don’t know if an order from above was given to shoot, or if it was a mistake by the police on the ground. And we never got an explanation why half of the miners appear to have been killed as they surrendered to the police, some were lying on the ground, and some had their hands tied in the back.
Julian Brown, author of “Marikana: A people’s history”
►Archive: In South Africa, clashes between striking miners and police left at least 30 dead
A post-apartheid South African trauma
If Marikana remains as a real national trauma, in South Africa, it is also because this government which had fired on its own population was black, post-apartheid. This is explained by Nicolas Pons-Vignon, researcher at the University of the Witwatersrand, in the city of Johannesburg.
The absence of a real strong reaction to such a massacre confirmed a real divorce within South African society, and a real divorce in particular between the ANC, the government led by the ANC since 1994, and a large part of the working class. We must not forget that in South Africa, the government is run by a sort of tripartite alliance between the Communist Party, the Cosatu trade union center and the ANC.
Nicolas Pons-Vignon, University of the Witwatersrand
►Read again: In South Africa, ten years later, the difficult commemoration of the Marikana massacre