Will we ever know the truth?

Of the 34 crosses that were planted to remember the dead at the Marikana koppie where miners gathered daily during a deadly wildcat strike in 2012, only two remain.

Behind the bald rock, at the cluster of stone and bush known as the "killing koppie", where 17 miners were shot dead by the police - many from close range - electricity wires crackle overhead and traces of the deaths have disappeared.

Time and the elements have erased the spray-painted numbers marking where each body fell. The odd loop of human faeces and a scattering of cigarette stubs and broken liquor bottles are the only traces of human existence.

Closer to Lonmin's mining operations, men in overalls and hardhats get off shift and wander towards informal settlements such as Nkaneng, where the broken-down living conditions of two years ago have hardly been improved.

A long line of train carriages moves towards the Rowland processing plant. On this Wednesday afternoon, the price of platinum is hovering at about $1457 (R16000) an ounce.

The world appears as it always has.

Late in June this year, Agnes Ntsenyeho was beaming with relief as she stood next to the recently unveiled tombstone of her husband, Andries, in a cemetery just outside Sasolburg in the Free State. "Now the world will know how much I love my husband ... perhaps they will remember him," she said.

For the past two years, part of Ntsenyeho's struggle has been against people forgetting Marikana. Her husband was one of the 34 miners killed by the police on August 16 2012. He can be seen in police video footage from August 13, negotiating respectfully with the police to let a group of miners return to the big koppie with their weapons because they feared being attacked.

Andries, like the other miners who speak to North West deputy provincial commissioner General William Mpembe in the video, address him as "Malume", or "Uncle". The police would later fire tear gas and stun grenades, leading to a skirmish that left three miners and two policemen dead on August 13.

Ntsenyeho - like many of the widows of Marikana, including the wives of the security guards, policemen and other miners who were killed in the days before August 16 - has religiously attended the Farlam commission of inquiry into the matter.

The commission, which first sat in October 2012, will be almost two years old when it completes its work at the end of September.

For the widows of Marikana, it has been a journey from trauma towards recovery and renewal. Mirroring their emotional state, traditional mourning clothes have been replaced by hipper threads. Some have regained their confidence by talking about their husbands and their post-Marikana experiences at public gatherings, including National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa meetings and commemoration events.

The commission has been a source of both frustration and hope for them. When evidence and forensic detail have shed light on the manner of their husbands' deaths or the level of official culpability, it has been worthwhile, they say.

When witnesses, such as national police commissioner General Riah Phiyega, have refused to say anything during their testimonies, it has been frustrating. Many remain concerned that the commission may not provide an adequate public record of what happened at Marikana, and why it was allowed to happen.

According to lawyers at the commission, its initial "meandering" nature during the examination of witnesses who, like Phiyega, were not on the scene on August 16, has meant vital time lost. Some are critical that the South African Police Service has been allowed to stall the commission with long-running presentations.

"It is absurd that not a single policeman who pulled a trigger on August 16 has appeared before the commission," said one lawyer, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

In direct contrast to its early proceedings, the commission now moves swiftly and leaves less time for cross-examination. This has led, in some instances, to more focused cross-examination and, in others, to evidence and testimony not being fully interrogated.

And there will be missed opportunities: K9 dog unit police member Hendrich Myburgh, in a statement to the commission, said he was at scene two after most of the shooting had stopped and "found three injured people lying down".

He "turned away from them searching for other suspects. I suddenly heard a gunshot behind me. As I turned, I saw a NIU [National Intervention Unit] constable who is unknown to me putting his side firearm in his leg holster while he was standing next to the injured I first met, who was wearing a jersey wrapped around his arm."

Myburgh asked the constable what was going on. "He replied by saying they deserve to die and he moved away."

"It is absolutely criminal that someone like Myburgh is unlikely to appear before the commission," said another lawyer. "The commission's findings will be limited in getting to both direct culpability and how far up the chain of command this goes."

Lawyers have also been critical about the "drip-feed" of evidence from the SAPS and Lonmin. One cited the example of Lonmin security head Graeme Sinclair, who made a statement for the commission in October 2012.

However, it was released to lawyers only a few weeks before he gave testimony in July this year.

Lawyers have also criticised the police's crime scene management and the commission's management of evidence. One highlighted the fact that journalists discovered bullet shells at the scene two weeks after August 16 and that independent pathologists were not allowed by the police to inspect the scene following the shootings.

The discovery of vital information on Lieutenant-Colonel Duncan Scott's hard drive last year suggested that the police had not been completely forthcoming with evidence. During evidence leader Kameshni Pillay's cross-examination of Sinclair, it emerged that reports of Lonmin security officials shooting at people - and seemingly raising the volatile temperature in Marikana - had been deleted from submissions to the commission.

Yet, there has been progress. A detailing of the bullet entry wounds, position of bodies and photographic evidence of the police having tied the hands of some of the 17 miners killed at scene two has left lawyers confident that they can argue that the police executed a number of the 17 miners killed there.

Gary White, an international policing expert from Northern Ireland, testified that the police had acted with gratuitous force and against both SAPS and international best practice, and that culpability extended to people such as North West provincial commissioner Lieutenant-General Zukiswa Mbombo, despite her protestations.

SAPS testimony to the commission has at times been questionable. For example, Major-General Ganasen Naidoo denied vehicle movements on August 16 - despite vehicle tracking evidence to the contrary.

And he ordered paramedics to scene two after the shooting at scene one, where miners required medical attention.

The question of who ordered the tactical response team to open fire on miners at scene one appears to have been answered by Lonmin security official Dirk Botes. Under cross-examination, he stated that he had heard Brigadier Adriaan Calitz over the police radio saying "engage, engage, engage" directly before an eight-second burst of fire.

The commission chairman, retired Judge Ian Farlam, and his commissioners will grapple with questions of culpability and accountability when they deliberate their findings after September.

Their recommendations will influence the daily struggle of the widows of Marikana and their ability to pursue civil litigation. It will also affect the struggle to remember the slain of Marikana.

Sites of a massacre

The investigation into the Marikana killings has centred on two sites:

Scene one: This is at the cattle kraal on the edge of Nkaneng informal settlement.

Lawyers for both the families of the miners killed and those arrested on August 16 have indicated that they will argue that miners leaving the main koppie at Marikana were "channelled" there by police Nyala movement and the unrolling of barbed wire.

The miners were then fired on by tactical response team members. The eight-second fusillade left 17 miners dead.

This incident was captured by television cameras and broadcast around the world.

Scene two: After apparent government and police obfuscation, it was revealed - prompted by an investigation by journalist Greg Marinovich - that 17 of the miners had actually been killed at a smaller koppie behind the large one at which they had gathered daily during the strike.

Lawyers at the commission have pieced together testimony, footage and forensic evidence that suggest that the miners here, many of whom appeared to have been hiding or fleeing from the police, judging by the positions of their bodies, may have been executed. - Niren Tolsi