Marikana video fingers cops

A video shown at the Marikana Commission of Inquiry yesterday, shot on August 16 2012, when the police shot 34 striking miners, appears to disprove the police version of events.

The police claimed that the miners had attacked them and that they had used non-lethal force before resorting to live ammunition at "scene one", a cattle kraal near the Nkaneng informal settlement, where 17 miners were killed.

The video was commissioned by the SA Human Rights Commission.

By creating a video in which all events were depicted in strict chronological order, as determined by time stamps on source material, including media and police footage, video production house TiNT Post established the following:

• The barbed wire rolled out by the police at "scene one" was laid well after the miners in the "lead group" had moved from the koppie towards Nkaneng. The police had said that the barbed wire had been laid to form a "barrier" between "police resources" and the miners. The video and animated recreations showed that the wire was positioned well after the miners' movements and that the miners would have had ample time in which to attack the police as they moved.

Instead the "lead group" attempted to move towards a road to Nkaneng that other protestors were using, according to photographs taken about 10 minutes before the shooting.

• Minutes before the shooting, a police Nyala armoured car blocked the miners' access to the road to Nkaneng, at the cattle kraal, forcing them to move around the kraal, the only route to Nkaneng left open.

The miners were then hemmed in by a line of Nyalas to the right of the cattle kraal. This created a channel that led the miners towards the Tactical Response Team officers, who minutes later shot at them.

• According to expert analysis, 37 miners got around the corner of the kraal to be met by rubber bullets fired by members of the Public Order Police Unit to their left. This again channelled the miners towards the Tactical Response Team line. Photographs show miners hunched down with blankets over their heads running towards the TRT line. Seconds later they are mowed down by the TRT officers.
• Narration on the video, which enhanced and zoomed in on pivotal moments during the massacre, notes the absence of dust eddies, indicating that the TRT officers fired no warning shots into the ground - as is required by law - before shooting the miners. Photographic evidence before the commission had established that some miners at scene one were shot in the head.
• The police contend that teargas was used before the Nyala reached the kraal to close off the miners' access to the road to Nkaneng, but video evidence refutes this and the narrator says there is no evidence that teargas or stun grenades were used until a few seconds before the TRT volley.
• The video showed one of two water cannons fired only "four seconds" before the TRT volley.

This undermines the police contention that they used lethal force only as a last resort after using non-lethal methods to stop the miners.

The video established that TRT members were shooting well after calls to cease fire, the last shot coming after the 14th call.

• The footage shows only one shot fired by a protester.

The police have objected to the video on the grounds that the person who synchronised the footage was not a ballistics or forensics expert and was unqualified to draw the "narrated" conclusions.