South African police block miners’ march Lonmin workers have been on strike over pay since August 10 in a dispute that has claimed the lives of 45 people. A Lonmin spokeswoman told Bloomberg that the South African army will help police to subdue any protest action by Lonmin miners who are striking about wages. Strikes and demonstrations have continued ever since police shot 34 workers dead at the Marikana mine a month ago, the bloodiest police action in the country since the end of apartheid.
A day earlier police had used tear-gas and rubber bullets to disperse the miners, after claiming they had discovered machetes and other weapons in an early morning raid. Sunday’s demonstration ended more peacefully however, as the protesters agreed to do things by the book. Strike leader Evans Ramokga said: “As the leaders, we always think of the safety of the workers, we will wait for that permit. As we wait that does not mean we are going back to work. We don’t go to work. They will strike but we keep staying indoors until we get that permit.”
South African police on Sunday blocked and dispersed a march by hundreds of protesting miners against a security crackdown, as the army was drafted in to help subdue further violence at Lonmin's nearby Marikana platinum mine. "The police have blocked us. They are dispersing us. Now we are telling our people to go back to where we came from" in order to avoid any conflict, Gaddhafi Mdoda, a workers' committee member at Anglo American Platinum, told AFP. Workers dispersed peacefully, and were not carrying their usual protest gear of machetes, spears and sticks a day after police moved into platinum giant Lonmin's strike-hit Marikana mine to raid worker residences and seize weapons.
Hundreds of officers raided worker hostels and also used rubber bullets and tear gas Saturday, with clashes breaking out in a shantytown opposite the mine. Workers at mines in the area had planned the march to protest against the use of force by police. Several people were injured by rubber bullets on Saturday at platinum giant Lonmin's Marikana operation after government orders to stamp out flaring unrest in the key mining sector. Absent from the march was the usual protest gear of machetes, spears and sticks, after piles of weapons were seized on Saturday in early morning raids on worker hostels by hundreds of officers.
Police raided the residences with the support of the army, confiscating piles of weapons and firing tear gas and rubber bullets after Friday's announcement by the government that it will no longer tolerate the growing mines troubles. The clampdown is targeting illegal gatherings, weapons, incitement and threats of violence that have characterised the unrest, with police telling the leaders of Sunday's protest that they needed permission for the march. Chrome mine worker Lunsstone Bonase hit out at the government for blocking the protest. "The government is against people of South Africa and allows people to be killed. But we are suffering as workers of mines," he said. "They are forcing us to go to work as they did under apartheid," he added. Analysts estimated this week that Lonmin could have lost as much as £102m in revenues since the onset of a violent strike in South Africa.
The FTSE 250-listed group may have missed out on total revenues of between $147m (£91m) and $165m because of the disruption to production at its Marikana mine, which has led to the loss of about 2,000 ounces of platinum a day, analysts said. In the worst-case scenario, the group may lose as much as $289m in revenues before the situation is fully resolved and production returns to normal, according to one expert. “We will update the market as soon as we’ve got accurate figures but clearly it’s a delicate and fluid situation on the ground and changing every day,” a spokesman for the company said. Sunday marked a month since the deadly bloodshed at Lonmin, where an already deadly strike in which two police officers had been killed exploded into the police shooting on August 16, sending shockwaves around the world with its echoes of apartheid-era brutality.
A mediator in Lonmin's wage talks, which are set to resume on Monday, warned that the government's crackdown could lead to a "complete revolt across the platinum belt". "Government must be crazy believing that what to me resembles an apartheid-era crackdown can succeed," said Bishop Jo Seoka, president of the South African Council of Churches. "We must not forget that such crackdowns in the past led to more resistance," he added. South African mining union officials said on Saturday that Lonmin had raised its pay offer, more than doubling an increase that had been rejected by workers on Friday, but to a level still below the 12,500 rand (£936) monthly pay demanded by the miners.
Sources:
The Australian
Telegraph
euronews
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