Thirty-four miners were shot dead by police at a mine outside Rustenburg, South Africa last week. The 3000 rock-drill operators, from a Lonmin owned platinum company, had been gathered on a hill for four days, demanding a wage increase from recalcitrant owners. Heinrich Böhmke, 22 August 2012 (originally in Africa Report) The leaders belonged to Amcu, a militant breakaway from the Cosatu-aligned National Union of Mineworkers. In the days before the massacre, ten people were killed in skirmishes, including two police officers and a NUM shopsteward. Police gave a final ultimatum for the workers, carrying pangas and spears, to disperse. They refused. Television footage showed a group of approaching workers sprayed with automatic weapon fire by police. They fell in heaps upon the ground.
Marikana: A lesson in late liberal democracy
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