Mr Speaker, hon Deputy President, and hon members ...
Uyimamele le nkosi inguTerror mkhuluwa, iyabetha, iyabetha, iyabetha! Iyayivusa ingxongxo, itsho nale Ndlu yaphila. [Kwahlekwa.] (Translation of isiXhosa paragraph follows.)
[Are you listening to the hon Terror, my big brother? He is really, really doing this thing! He is enlivening the debate and as such this House is now more attentive.] [Laughter.]
May the souls of the mineworkers who lost their lives last week in the Marikana massacre, rest in peace. To their families and friends, our hearts and prayers are with you during this time of grief.
Hon Minister Mthethwa, I disagree completely with the tactics that the SAPS used to disarm and disperse striking Lonmin mineworkers. Firstly, the police surrounded the place that the mineworkers had occupied with razor wire, and left only one exit. Interestingly, this one and only available exit point was where the heavily armed contingent of police had gathered to oversee what was supposed to be a peaceful dispersal of the gathering.
Secondly, the SAPS members then fired teargas at the workers, forcing them to run all over the place looking for an exit point. However, we are told that the police fired on them with live ammunition as some were running towards the exit. The police accused the workers of advancing towards them with intentions of attacking them, when it appears that the workers were only seeking a place of safety. According to the workers' version of events, this is what led to the brutal murder of 34 mineworkers last week in Marikana.
With these mistakes, one wonders whether a plan to ambush the workers had not been carefully crafted because, by running towards the exit, the workers seemed to have walked right into a police trap.
Sadly, however, Marikana massacre-type incidents are here to stay, unless we do away with the deployment of people with no professional police backgrounds to senior SAPS levels, to command juniors with military training. [Applause.] Perhaps it is time this House reviewed the mechanism of civilian oversight in the SAPS. Should we not confine civilian oversight to the office of the Minister, and let the experienced police personnel run the SAPS?
Another area of concern is the proximity of certain trade unions to the ruling party, and the deployment of ruling party senior individuals to the private sector, which compromised the Lonmin workers. For example, just a few hours before the Marikana shoot-out, the National Union of Mineworkers, NUM, the police and Lonmin reportedly held a meeting to discuss the situation, without involving the other union, the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union, Amcu. We should not lose sight of the fact that both NUM and Amcu workers have one thing in common - they demand a salary adjustment. Therefore, this House should closely monitor these salary negotiations, given the questionable involvement of the police in this labour dispute.
During the visit of parliamentary opposition parties yesterday to Marikana, what was more shocking was the extent of poverty in which the mineworkers live. It is ironic to see that the people responsible for extracting our country's mineral wealth live in conditions of squalor. We call on Lonmin mine's black economic empowerment, BEE, partners to approach their partners in the United Kingdom to do something about the plight of their mineworkers. What we saw there yesterday is completely unacceptable, especially when considering the fact that some of these BEE partners have impeccable struggle credentials.
In conclusion, the UDM supports President Zuma's decision to institute a commission of inquiry into the Marikana massacre. However, we believe that it should be a judicial commission of inquiry. The terms of reference for the commission should be broad enough to allow for investigation into investment schemes that trade unions offer mineworkers, among other things. Workers complain about monthly deductions from their salaries, to pay for investment schemes that never yield results for them. The question is: Who really benefits from them?
Finally, we also need to investigate the extent of the involvement of some trade union investment arms in the ownership and control of the same mine, which compromises the workers' struggles, as alleged by the workers.
Akuhlanga lungehlanga, thuthwini. Enkosi. [Please accept what has happened as fate; may you be consoled. Thank you.] [Time expired.] [Applause.]