Were Marikana miners killed in cold blood?
Image by: MOELETSI MABE
Many of the 34 people killed at Lonmin's Marikana mine on August 16 were hunted down and murdered by the police, an acclaimed news photographer and author claimed yesterday.
Writing on the Daily Maverick website, Pulitzer prize-winning photographer Greg Marinovich said that, after nearly two weeks at the site of the massacre, he had concluded that most of the killings were deliberate.
"It is becoming clear to this reporter that heavily armed police hunted down and killed the miners in cold blood. A minority were killed in the filmed event [in which] police claim they acted in self-defence. The rest was murder on a massive scale," he said.
National police spokesman Captain Dennis Adriao said he had not read the article.
He said the police were no longer commenting on the Lonmin shootings because it was the subject of a judicial commission of inquiry.
"Legally, the police can no longer talk to the media . before the conclusion of the inquiry."
Marinovich, co-author of the book The Bang-Bang Club, said that about a dozen miners died in the shooting captured by TV news cameras and broadcast repeatedly.
But at least 14 died about 300m away, among boulders and out of sight of the cameras and reporters, he said.
Marinovich said he had inspected the scene, at which the location of each body was marked by a letter - A to N - sprayed in yellow paint.
He concluded that the 14th victim, whose place of death was marked with an N, must have been shot by someone no more than 2m away.
"And, on that deadly Thursday afternoon, N's murderer could only have been a policeman. I say 'murderer' because there is not a single report on an injured policeman on that day.
"I say 'murderer' because there seems to have been no attempt to uphold our citizens' rights to life and fair recourse to justice.
"It is hard to imagine that N would have resisted being taken into custody when thus cornered. There is no chance of escape out of a ring of police," he said.
Marinovich quotes an Eastern Cape miner identified only as Themba who described how the police shot from a helicopter at miners running for cover.
The witness said some victims were deliberately and repeatedly run over by police trucks.
"In light of this, we could look at the events of August 16 as the murder of 34 and the attempted murder of a further 78, who survived despite the police's apparent intention to kill them," Marinovich concluded.
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Posted 265 days agoSouth_One
OBigOneKenobi
I personally, from having lived in SA all my life, think that African culture is generally very pleasant and mild. One thing I don't understand, though, is the tendency towards extreme violence in certain cases. Is this a learned trait from the years of oppression where this was the only way to get heard?
Surely you have to logically expect that people will die when armed groups confront each other with weapons? I seems that the expectation was somehow that there be an armed clash with no casualties. I don't understand?
It's generally accepted that people must accept the consequences of their actions. If an individual takes up arms against somebody else, they are making a conscious CHOICE to put themselves in harms way. Surely if you choose the action, you also choose the consequence?
staren
Of course colonialism, and other social upheaval played a large part in more recent times, but I think that the almost subconscious and perhaps primal tendency towards violence that we see throughout Africa is in some ways very much a reflection of the very nature of the land itself; Africa is inherently a very harsh place, and life and death struggles are very much the norm for just about everything that tries to survive here, and more often than not, I think we see that reflected through ourselves, our culture and our actions...
South_One
staren
yes, that is true to some extent, however our cultures are very much a reflection of the way we live and Africa is a much harsher place to live than Europe - I'm yet to recall any Scotsman that was mauled by a lion whilst on his way back from collecting wood, or any snatched from the banks of a river by a croc after having hiked 20km's to collect water for example (and these things still happen here).
Literally everything in Africa is a life and death struggle, so I think it would be naive to assume that that would not be (at least partially) reflected in our cultures and ways ...
m1si2zi3nzo4
Posted 265 days agoTrouble kicks when vulgar politicians use these differences to split countries they want to rule, into segments, so that they can control their thoughts, and by the same token treat the 'others' as 'bad', and undeserving of citizenship, or largesse.
RSA.MommaCyndi
Posted 265 days agoThere is no doubt that this is a tragedy which should never have happened and which should be scrutinised so that it never happens again. But can we please have some hard evidence and someone with a better qualification than 'photographer' to analyse that evidence.
The cops can be hard - they have to be to do the lousy jobs they have - but I seriously do not think they all got up that morning, high fived each other and decided to have a 'barrel shoot' of a bunch of men in Marikana.
QPCLCD308
ppss
Posted 265 days agoSouth_One
RSA.MommaCyndi
Daffy
Posted 265 days agobut the what about the magistrate to charge all 174 miner arrested for murder erm? is it possible when there is more dead miners than police.
RSA.MommaCyndi
Those cops are doing their job the way they are told to do them. They are also fathers, sons, uncles and husbands. I cannot possibly see them all being some kind of horrible alien creatures who take delight in death. They are probably as traumatised about this as the community is - if not much more traumatised.
QPCLCD308
Posted 265 days agoAB301
QPCLCD308
i_stub_born
Posted 265 days agoLong before the situation became red hot, the "cold blood/hippo-hide-thickness" executors including the ANC Syndicate Minstrels of Minerals, Labour, Police, the axis NUM/NUMSA-COSATU/Vavi-SACP and the "worth-of-their-millions"Lonmin executives were supposed to fix the problem.......they contributed with their useless actions(or inactions rather) to the miners execution.........
Incidentally, if the sangoma who charged 500 bucks per victim's head for his Harry Potter's muti, got 5000 bucks tax-free, in minutes, assuming 10 fools were duped, am I right?????..........Yep!.....small to medium business enterprises move the economy........
i_stub_born
Posted 265 days agom1si2zi3nzo4
Posted 265 days agoIn this case police were not even protecting citizens, but interfere in a labour dispute, and followed the only instruction they understand better. People should not exercise selective morality.
davgol
Posted 265 days agoelguevara
Posted 265 days agom1si2zi3nzo4
QPCLCD308