Cape Town - The long-awaited report from the Marikana commission of inquiry has lambasted police for the 2012 shooting that left 34 striking miners dead, raised the spectre of criminal charges against officers and put the jobs of the national and North West police commissioners in the balance.
However, the report found that nobody in President Jacob Zuma’s cabinet, including then police minister Nathi Mthethwa, could be held responsible for the biggest loss of life in a single police operation in post-apartheid South Africa.
Releasing key findings from the 600-page report on Thursday evening, Zuma said police had jumped the gun and it was likely that waiting one more day, instead of storming striking miners on a hill near Lonmin’s Marikana mine, could have prevented the fatalities of August 16, 2012.
“The commission has found that it would have been impossible to disarm and disperse the strikers without significant bloodshed, on the afternoon of the 16th of August,” Zuma said in a special televised address, nearly three months after the findings were first handed to him.
“The police should have waited until the following day, when the original encirclement plan, which was substantially risk free, could have been implemented.”
Significantly, the report ordered that there should be a probe by prosecuting authorities in North West to ascertain whether any of the police officers who were involved in the operation at Marikana could be held criminally liable. Nearly three years after the fact, it calls for this to be accompanied by renewed forensic investigations.
It pointed out that the police’s original strategy at Marikana would have seen officers circle strikers with barbed wire, leaving them a small passage through which to file away from the site. However, this was only enforceable early in the morning when there few miners on the koppie. Instead, police followed instructions from the provincial command, that were approved at national level, to use force to disperse the miners late on the afternoon of the 16th. In the preceding week, 10 people had died in violence at the mine.
“The decision was instead taken by Lieutenant-General Mbombo, the North West Police Commissioner, and was endorsed by the SAPS leadership at an extraordinary session of the National Management Forum.”
The commission found that the police operation should have been halted after the shooting at the koppie, and that there was “a complete lack of control and command” as police pursued miners.
Zuma said the commission had questioned police management’s conduct during the inquiry, notably a failure to disclose that in fact the decision to storm the koppie was taken on August 15, and not on the spot the following day as the situation deteriorated.
Futhermore, the Farlam commission noted that there was a delay of about an hour in getting medical help to strikers who were injured in the shooting and concluded that “at least one striker might have survived if he had been treated timeously”.
Zuma said he had written to Phiyega to inform her of the probe the Farlam commission ordered against her. Mbombo would likewise be briefed.
“I have written to the national commissioner to inform her of the recommendations pertaining to her. The minister of police will inform the former North West police commissioner on matters affecting her.”
The president was releasing the report after months of sustained political pressure from the opposition and began by thanking the families of the victims for taking part in the work of the commission, headed by retired Judge Ian Farlam, in difficult conditions.
It found that neither Mthethwa, nor his then counterpart at mineral resources, Susan Shabangu, or any other minister could be held responsible for the police’s actions at Marikana.
“The commission found that the executive played no role in the decision of the police to implement the tactical option on 16 August 2012, if the strikers did not lay down their arms, which led to the deaths of the 34 persons.”
Nor could any responsibility for the death of the miners be laid at the door of Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, who was at the time a non-executive director at Lonmin.
In an email released to the commission by advocate Dali Mpofu – who represented the many miners injured and arrested at Marikana – Ramaphosa criticised the strike as criminal and urged “concomitant action” to address the situation.
It was sent by Ramaphosa to Lonmin’s chief commercial officer and has seen the Economic Freedom Fighters charge that the former National Union of Mineworkers leader and business tycoon had blood on his hands.
The commission faulted Lonmin on five counts, including an insistence that miners who were not on strike come to work while it could not guarantee their safety at the mine near Rustenburg. The report criticised the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and rival Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) for not exercising effective control over their members.
“They (AMCU) sang provocative songs and made inflammatory remarks which tended to aggravate an already volatile situation,” Zuma said.
The NUM did not do its best to resolve the dispute between the union and the striking workers, who were mostly AMCU members.
Political analyst Steven Friedman said he would be surprised if Phiyega held onto her job.
ANA