Rustenburg a tinder box as strikers start to break ranks

The 16-week-long strike on the platinum belt, the most expensive stayaway in South Africa's history, is coming to a head.

Police are poised to move in tomorrow after reports that at least one - and possibly as many as three - miners have been killed and many more injured in the Rustenburg area in strike-related violence over the past two days.

The fact that some cash-strapped miners seem to be preparing to return to work in defiance of the majority union, the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union, appears to be the catalyst for the latest blood-letting.

After Amcu rejected their latest revised wage offer last month, Lonmin, Anglo American Platinum and Impala Platinum have stepped up their efforts to get the miners to return to work, contacting them direct by cellphone text messages and sending teams to the rural areas.

News agency reports yesterday quoted rival union the National Union of Mineworkers as saying that three of its members had been killed in the area, and the police reported that six workers were stabbed and injured while walking to work.

Lonmin, the most financially vulnerable of the platinum majors, is spearheading efforts to get workers to return to work from tomorrow.

Many will choose not to and will hold out for Amcu's demand that monthly wages for entry-level workers be upped to R12 500 (excluding allowances) by 2017. It is their right to do so - even if the wage demand is not affordable and a further extension of the strike will force the producers to restructure and shed jobs.

But thousands of miners who are desperate to return to work also have rights, and the Amcu leadership needs to ensure that its members respect them.

Bypassing Amcu is a risky, if necessary, strategy by the mining companies and they and the police need to do everything in their power to make sure that those miners who decide to return to work are safeguarded.

After the terrible events at Marikana we can afford no more bloodshed.