Deputy Speaker, the people of Marikana are bewildered in their anguish. Ten individuals were brutally murdered and thirty-four shot in cold blood. They need support so that they may heal. The people in Marikana live in fear. There are people there capable of great brutality.
The police, who should bring safety to all, are distrusted and even hated. Workers of Marikana labour in a broken environment. The system of labour relations needs reform so that everyone is included. There should no longer be two classes of workers - first-class and second-class workers.
Workers of Marikana live in an artificial environment. They are still migrant workers. We are defined by ubuntu's sociality and not by the cold alienation of male isolation.
Communities of Marikana live in division. The now nonracial bourgeoisie and the labour aristocracy are the new insiders. The migrant workers from the Eastern Cape, from KwaZulu-Natal and from Mozambique are the outsiders.
People of Marikana don't need your platitudes, hon Motshekga, they desire justice. They wish to live in safety. They ask merely for fairness and they want to be heard. Yesterday, over 12 000 people joined us for three hours, sitting in the unforgiving sun of the Highveld because they merely wanted to be understood and heard. They also wanted to be comforted.
We were told that workers were shot in the back. We went to visit a mine hospital and saw for ourselves that four workers had indeed been shot in the back. How do you shoot somebody in the back? That is the act of cowards. That is what happened at Sharpeville, where people were running away and were shot in the back. So, I want the Minister of Police to please explain how it is that the workers were shot in the back. Thank you.
The DEPUTY MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE, FORESTRY AND FISHERIES: Chairperson, in the normal power struggle between unions on the one side and employers, no one is supposed to die. When one person dies, it is abnormal and a crisis. When more than 40 people die, it is a massacre of unthinkable proportions, a catastrophe. Because of what happened at Lonmin's mine on 16 August, the name Marikana is echoing throughout the world and will be for many years to come.
As leader of the FF Plus, I want to convey my sympathy and condolences to the families of the miners who were killed, but also to the families of the security guards and policemen who were brutally murdered.
The question in a situation like this is: At what stage should maximum force be used, and when minimum? In my experience, the better the police force is trained, the less force is necessary to contain a difficult situation like this.
Volgens die huidige feite wat ons het, het die stakers met wapens op die polisie afgestorm. So 'n gewapende stormloop moes onafwendbaar eindig met f 'n slagting van die polisie f van die stakers. Die polisie het hulle Donderdagmiddag in 'n posisie bevind waar hulle min ander opsies gehad het.
Die dilemma is dat di drie minute se slagting nie in isolasie beoordeel kan word nie. Die vraag is: Hoe het die polisie en stakers, nadat die staking vir 'n week aan die gang was, in so 'n skaakmatposisie beland? Was die polisieonderhandelaars goed genoeg opgelei? Was die polisie se intelligensie goed genoeg? Wat was die rol en verskuilde agendas van die leiers en opstokers van die stakers? Was alle ander vreedsame metodes reeds uitgeput? (Translation of Afrikaans paragraphs follows.)
[According to the latest facts at our disposal, the strikers stormed the police with weapons. Such an armed charge inevitably had to end with a massacre of either the police or the strikers. On Thursday, the police found themselves in a position where they had few other options.
The dilemma is that this massacre that lasted for three minutes cannot be judged in isolation. The question is: How did the police and the strikers arrive at this checkmate position after a week of ongoing strikes? Were the negotiators for the police sufficiently trained? Was the police intelligence good enough? What were the role and hidden agendas of those who were leading and instigating the strikers? Had all other peaceful methods already been exhausted?]
The final question: Who is to blame for what happened?
I believe no role-player can be singled out. All the role-players share the guilt: firstly, the unions for the way in which they conducted their power struggle; secondly, the employers who colluded with the established unions, like the National Union of Mineworkers, NUM, to keep the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union, Amcu, out and leave minority unions with no rights; thirdly, the police for allowing the situation to develop into such an uncontrollable state; fourthly, the union leaders for the violence they incited and allowed as part of this strike, similar to major strikes elsewhere in the past where they never forcefully condemned violence; and lastly, the government for their failure to keep unions accountable and to demand that unions exercise their power without the language of intimidation and without violence as a bargaining tool.
Let me give you examples. In 2006, the three-month security guards' strike, led by the South African Transport and Allied Workers' Union, ended with about 40 nonstriking workers killed during that strike. In Soweto, two guards who chose to defy the call to strike were kidnapped, beaten and flung from a moving train. The union leadership weakly condemned this, with no further action against union members.
Remember the public sector strike of 2010, when workers attacked patients and nurses in hospitals? And yearly, when municipal workers strike in Johannesburg or Cape Town, most people flee the city centre. Why? Because they know what is coming, a marauding and angry mob of workers with hostility and aggression, who destroy everything in front of them. In the end, the city centre resembles a wasteland of rotting food, trash and broken glass.
This violent theme has been present in every major strike during the last decade. As deaths and injuries mounted, the union leadership and government were mostly passive.
It is estimated that this year alone there have been about 400 violent protests around South Africa. Think about the attacks on foreign business people operating in poor neighbourhoods. These communities take out their frustrations on foreigners. They beat them. They stab them. They shoot them.
Violence has become the norm in South Africa. How does a society become as broken as this? Redi Tlhabi asks in the Sunday Times of 19 August 2012, and I quote:
How did we become such a brutal people? Our excuse cannot simply be that we have a violent past, when there are many other societies whose histories are littered with atrocities. Have we accepted that our violent history will also permeate our present and future?
Hoekom gebruik mense geweld? Omdat hulle glo dat hulle met geweld hulle eie posisie gaan verbeter en hulle opponent s'n gaan verswak. Wat is die feite? Eers later volg die verrassing dat almal na geweld in 'n slegter posisie is. Dit is wat by Marikana gebeur het. (Translation of Afrikaans paragraph follows.)
[Why do people resort to violence? Because they believe that through violence they will be able to improve their own position and weaken that of their opponents. What are the facts? Only afterwards does the surprise set in that everybody's position is actually worsened by the use of violence. This is what happened at Marikana.]
During the turbulent violence between Inkatha and the ANC in the 1990s, former President Mandela said, "Take your weapons, your knives and pangas, and throw them into the sea." Surely, sir, that should now be the message, 18 years into the new South Africa, in regard to labour disputes and how we handle these things. It cannot be done through violence as it is done at the moment. It was asking for a tragedy.
Once the reports are released, the unions, the police, the employers and government must act to ensure that this never, ever happens again. I thank you.