South African police opened fire on a crowd of striking miners Thursday, killing up to 18 people and leaving a field strewn with bodies in a massacre that instantly revived memories of the brutality of apartheid. The South African Police Service had no immediate explanation for why its officers chose to shoot with automatic weapons into a crowd of men a few meters away as they tried to disperse them. But the strike at the Lonmin platinum mine in Marikana in northern South Africa had already claimed 10 lives in clashes between two rival unions, the National Union of Mineworkers and the more radical Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU), whose supporters have armed themselves with pistols, machetes, spears and clubs — and earlier police had vowed to move the strikers on and end the violence by the end of the day. Mac Maharaj, spokesman for South African President Jacob Zuma, said the head of state was “in shock that an industrial dispute has degenerated to such a point, to such a tragic loss of lives.” Lonmin chairman Roger Phillimore added in a written statement: “We deeply regret the further loss of life in what is clearly a public order rather than labor-relations-associated matter.” The company shut down production at the world’s third largest producer of platinum on Tuesday after 3,000 workers walked out a week ago, demanding a tripling of wages.
(PHOTOS: In South Africa, Police Fire on Striking Mine Workers)
Regardless of whether, as the police later claimed, they were provoked, the shooting of protesters automatically invokes memories of massacres of protesters carried out by the South African forces under apartheid, which ended in 1994. It will also pour fuel on a fire of smouldering and sometimes violent discontent in South Africa‘s townships at the corruption of Zuma’s African National Congress (ANC) government, its failure to alleviate poverty and the continued white domination of the economy. Every week sees a fresh “service delivery” protest erupt in different parts of South Africa. In July, the opposition Premier of the Western Cape asked Zuma to deploy the army to the Cape Flats, the sprawling township outside Cape Town that is home to million, after 23 people, including seven children, were killed in gang shootings. A war between rival gangs over territory and the drug trade were the immediate cause. But in the longer term, the violence is founded in the deprivation of a vast area in which what jobs exist rarely extend beyond casual, manual labor that pays as little as $10 a day; and a political system which, though ostensibly a democracy, is so dominated by a single political party, the ANC — a legacy of its victory over apartheid under the towering leadership of Nelson Mandela — that it is all but unaccountable to the electorate and offers little hope that social grievances will be addressed.
Some in the ANC do understand this. On Wednesday, presenting a revised national plan to parliament, which called for the creation of 11 million jobs by 2030, Minister in the Presidency Trevor Manuel warned of a “huge chasm” between today’s South Africa and one where poverty and hunger were eliminated. Around 40% of the country survived on an income of 432 rands ($52.71) or less per month, he said. “Without faster progress, there is a real chance that South Africa could slide backwards [as] dealing with the immense challenges overwhelms our capacity to succeed,” he added. Setting out a series of targets and milestones for government, Manuel said, “We’re aware we will not hit all of these, but all of us need a consciousness of how wide off the mark we actually are.” Whether the likes of Manuel can succeed in turning the South African government into an entity truly willing and capable of addressing the needs of its people is open to question, however. As Manuel admitted to reporters outside parliament: “Our weakness is implementation.”
(PHOTOS: In South Africa, Police Fire on Striking Mine Workers)
Regardless of whether, as the police later claimed, they were provoked, the shooting of protesters automatically invokes memories of massacres of protesters carried out by the South African forces under apartheid, which ended in 1994. It will also pour fuel on a fire of smouldering and sometimes violent discontent in South Africa‘s townships at the corruption of Zuma’s African National Congress (ANC) government, its failure to alleviate poverty and the continued white domination of the economy. Every week sees a fresh “service delivery” protest erupt in different parts of South Africa. In July, the opposition Premier of the Western Cape asked Zuma to deploy the army to the Cape Flats, the sprawling township outside Cape Town that is home to million, after 23 people, including seven children, were killed in gang shootings. A war between rival gangs over territory and the drug trade were the immediate cause. But in the longer term, the violence is founded in the deprivation of a vast area in which what jobs exist rarely extend beyond casual, manual labor that pays as little as $10 a day; and a political system which, though ostensibly a democracy, is so dominated by a single political party, the ANC — a legacy of its victory over apartheid under the towering leadership of Nelson Mandela — that it is all but unaccountable to the electorate and offers little hope that social grievances will be addressed.
Some in the ANC do understand this. On Wednesday, presenting a revised national plan to parliament, which called for the creation of 11 million jobs by 2030, Minister in the Presidency Trevor Manuel warned of a “huge chasm” between today’s South Africa and one where poverty and hunger were eliminated. Around 40% of the country survived on an income of 432 rands ($52.71) or less per month, he said. “Without faster progress, there is a real chance that South Africa could slide backwards [as] dealing with the immense challenges overwhelms our capacity to succeed,” he added. Setting out a series of targets and milestones for government, Manuel said, “We’re aware we will not hit all of these, but all of us need a consciousness of how wide off the mark we actually are.” Whether the likes of Manuel can succeed in turning the South African government into an entity truly willing and capable of addressing the needs of its people is open to question, however. As Manuel admitted to reporters outside parliament: “Our weakness is implementation.”