What authority, in this country in which the Constitution does not allow the death sentence, has the right to tell the police to shoot with live ammunition that was definitely going to take lives? Who is this authority? Was it the President, the Minister of Police or the commander? Who was this person who was above the Constitution, who had the authority to decide that the right to life would be suspended for a day and for a moment - and therefore, shoot? I didn't see water cannons, teargas or rubber bullets, but live ammunition was unleashed on the people.
So, this question must be answered: Who had the authority to waive the right to life and to mow down the number of people that were slaughtered on that day in Marikana? Where did we get the authority to change the titles of people to prepare these young people in a manner that could only have resulted in this outcome? So, we must also ask the question: How many of the striking workers had machine guns and how many even had handguns? How many live guns were used to shoot at these people?
Many of us have gone through those situations times without number and we thought that this Constitution that we have would prevent this from happening again, but now it has happened. And then the leadership says it is shocking. But who was leading? Who gave the orders? Where was the leadership to manage those things? What intelligence reports did the police have? When you arm those young people with machine guns, you must have knowledge of machine guns and that there are other things in there. What reports did the intelligence services provide before this command was given for these people to be shot and killed?
Of course, we have to go beyond that. One of the issues about that situation is the fact that there was clearly another violation of the Constitution, where the ruling party is allied to some of the trade unions that were involved there. The Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union, Popcru, is affiliated to Cosatu and therefore allied to the ruling party. The National Union of Mineworkers, NUM, is affiliated to Cosatu. Therefore, it is allied to the ruling party.
Why should the tax money of citizens who do not support the ruling party be used to pay the salaries of your members? Members of the Public Service in this country must cease to be allied to any political party. They can vote for any party they want to vote for, but they cannot formally or in that way be allies to you. And don't pay them with our tax money because we don't support you. Only those who support you must give their money to you and others must give it to us. You must accept that the teachers who are paid with the salaries of all of us, whether they support you or not, cannot be allied to you. You are breaking the Constitution.
Public servants are there for all of us. They are paid by all of us. Please let them serve all of us evenly because the question will arise, as it did yesterday when we were there: How can we be sure that this police force, allied to the NUM or affiliated to Cosatu, treats us with the same fairness as that with which it treats other workers? Go to any democracy in the world today. Where do you find public servants who are allied to a political party and paid with the tax money of all of the citizens of the country? We must look at ourselves again. The lives of our people have been lost here today. As we speak now, they will never come back to life.
So, we must say this: Was it by accident that Minister Shabangu, when she visited there - the Minister of all of us - decided that she would only meet with the NUM, but not with other unions, particularly the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union, Amcu, which is heavily involved? Where is the Minister of the Amcu people? We saw the Minister of the NUM meet with NUM. But where is the Minister of Amcu? [Laughter.] So, how then can the workers believe that they are given fair and even-handed treatment by you? I thank you. [Time expired.] [Applause.]