WATCH | I may be mingling daily with my husband's killers: Marikana widow

Marikana widow Aisha Fundi often wonders to herself if she is unknowingly mingling with her husband's killers.

It’s an uncomfortable thought that occurs especially when she’s at work in the human resources department of the Sibanye-Stillwater (formerly Lonmin) offices in Marikana.

Though her husband's killers are yet to be brought to book, Fundi knows some of those who took part in the violent incident that led to the death of the father of her children are now her colleagues.

Her husband, Lonmin mine security guard Hassan Fundi, and a colleague were murdered by striking mineworkers, who also cut off some of his body parts.

Hassan and Frans Mabelane, his work colleague and close friend, had been thrown into the lion's den when asked by Lonmin mine management to keep an eye on hundreds of their striking colleagues.

Hassan and Mabelane died during their impossible mission of trying to stop about 300 protesters from marching to the offices of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) that day in 2012.

Hassan, a Malawian, was hacked to death by striking mineworkers who were armed with sticks, knobkerries, spears, machetes and pangas, while his colleague’s body was burnt beyond recognition after they were outnumbered and ambushed.

Fundi, a former maths teacher at a government school, reluctantly quit her teaching job to take up a job at Marikana’s Sibanye-Stillwater offices as part of a job replacement programme involving families of the victims.

A dream in which her husband asked her to take up the position persuaded her to make the move. The post was one of those the mine offered to 44 families of victims of the violent week in Marikana.

“I dreamt of him showing me a direction and that direction was towards the mine,” she said.

As the 10-year anniversary of the Marikana massacre approaches, Fundi says it hasn’t been an easy decade for her and her family as they haven’t seen justice. However, her biggest worry is she may be smiling and laughing with those behind her husband’s death.

“I may be finding myself in the midst of the people who killed my husband.”

On her way to and from work, Fundi passes the area where her husband was killed.

Fundi believes her husband is happy with her decision to work at the mine as she feels his presence in a way she cannot explain.

“I feel his presence even though I don't know how to explain it. I feel his spirit, and I think being there [at the mine], he's at peace,” Fundi said.

She said she's not aware of anyone ever being arrested for his death and is slowly losing hope for justice.

Fundi and nine other families of those who were killed in the days leading up to the August 16 massacre are labelling themselves the “forgotten families”, as the spotlight has largely been on the 34 families of the mineworkers who were killed by police.

She highlighted how the 10 families even struggled to find a lawyer to represent them as the focus had been on the other families.

However, for the first time in the 10 years, Fundi and the nine families have been invited by the Socioeconomic Rights Institute (Seri), representing 36 families of 37 mineworkers who were killed between August 13 and 16 2012, to an event aimed at marking the 10th-year anniversary of the massacre.

Fundi is unsure how to feel about this. She feels they have been ignored for the past 10 years as she’s got used to watching the Marikana commemorations on television with her family.

When speaking to TimesLIVE Premium, she had not decided whether to go.

“The 10 years [since my husband died] have been hard for me and my children. I had to work in Marikana; I had to take up his role, and it was not easy,” Fundi said.

Fundi’s life came to a standstill during the Marikana commission chaired by Ian Gordon Farlam, a retired judge of the Supreme Court of Appeal. She religiously attended the commission hoping for answers on the death of her husband, to no avail.

“I followed the commission from day one until the last. I had hoped we would get closure,” Fundi said.

The closure she was looking for included establishing who was behind the murder of her husband and father of their three children.

Though the commission criticised the mine for not providing its security staff with hard-shell vehicles to deal with the kind of violence that was erupting then, Fundi and her family were expecting more from the commission.

She said her son had fallen into depression and struggled to focus on his studies. As a result, he has dropped out of his tertiary studies, which were funded by the mine.

However, she is hopeful since Sibanye-Stillwater took over from Lonmin in 2019. She believes the 10 families have now been afforded an ear and taken into consideration.

She lives in a donated home in an affluent part of Rustenburg, where she lives with her children and elderly mother.

The rumour mill has been on overdrive as the family caught wind of money being paid to the Marikana trust fund, which has been set up for the benefit of the Marikana victims and their families, into which Lonmin apparently deposited funds.

“That money has never reached us, but we were told by other families of the mineworkers that some of them received money,” Fundi said.

She's pinning her hopes on the intervention by Sibanye-Stillwater.

“Now that Sibanye-Stillwater is investigating this matter, I am a little hopeful that something will come out of this and we will also be compensated,” Fundi said.

She still hopes President Cyril Ramaphosa, who promised during the funeral of ANC stalwart Winnie Madikizela-Mandela that he would visit Marikana, will eventually live up to that promise.

“I had hoped that he [Ramaphosa] will come and address Marikana ... I am quite disappointed that he's not a man of his word, [especially] because he was a unionist,” Fundi said.

Elizabeth Maubane, sister of warrant officer Hendrick Monene, who was also killed by mineworkers at Lonmin's platinum mine in August 2012, has, just like Fundi, lost hope that anyone will ever be held accountable for her brother's death.

Maubane said she felt her brother, who died in the line of duty, was not afforded the same recognition as the miners who were killed by police.

“What I am not comfortable with is that my brother lost his life without having any blood on his hands,” Maubane said.

Just like Fundi, Maubane said her family is struggling to find closure and the wounds of her brother's passing are still fresh 10 years later.