adminThe Legal Resource Centre (LRC) said yesterday that it had obtained multiple eyewitness testimonies that blame police brutality for the killings of strikers who were calling for pay raises.
Some witnesses have said that police shot protesters who were either trying to escape confrontation with the police by hiding behind rocks, or while surrendering to authorities.
The LRC also said it has forensic evidence that suggests a police cover-up of the killings.
Police opened fire on a crowd of miners engaged in a strike at the Lonmin platinum mine in Marikana on 16 August.
Video showed a densely packed crowd of miners, some armed with clubs and machetes, approaching heavily armed police, who claimed self-defence in the shooting.
The incident was the climax of an escalating stand-off between rival unions that had already killed 10 people, including two police officers.
Government officials and police officers have repeatedly rejected Al Jazeera’s request to comment on the allegations, saying they would not speculate until a judicial inquiry into the incident was complete.
Danny Titus, a representative of the South African Human Rights Commission, said that the organisation was very concerned with allegations of human rights violations.
“We are really concerned about the allegations coming from the miners really giving us so much detail about what really happened,” he said.
Titus added that he believed police shot the workers out of “vengeance”.
“There was not a crowd-control approach (by police). These police already went before parliament to explain themselves, and one of the first kind of defences they put forward was the fact they did not have training in crowd-control very high in their priority, which is very strange.
“And beyond that there are further allegations of torture (of striking miners).”
Meanwhile, striking mine workers say they will not return to work until their demand for more pay is met, the leader of a key union said.
Workers are facing today’s deadline to return to the Lonmin PLC mines, paralysed by a four-week strike that has sent company shares plummeting, raised world platinum prices and stoked worries of labour unrest spreading through the mining sector of Africa’s largest economy.
“When the employer is prepared to make an offer on the table, we shall make ourselves available,” Joseph Mathunjwa, president of Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU), told a news conference on Friday.
Mathunjwa was responding to his union’s decision not to sign a “peace accord” with its rival National Union of Mines (NUM) and the mine’s management on Thursday.
While the AMCU says it represents about 7 000 workers, Mathunjwa told reporters that he supported the workers but could not speak on their behalf, according to local media reports.
Talks on the wage demand begin today. Gideon du Plessis, general secretary of Solidarity, one of the unions that have signed the accord, said all parties involved, including AMCU and representatives of the striking workers, have been invited to the negotiations. — AP.
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