First it was Marange in November 2008, then came Marikana three years later in August 2012. The two incidences left hundreds of miners dead and hundreds more injured between them.
BY Farai Maguwu
The state-sponsored terror and violence in both the Marange and Marikana incidences, though similar in many ways, draw parallels in terms of ways forward.
In November 2008, the government of Zimbabwe, without warning, deployed the Zimbabwe National Army and gunned down hundreds of artisanal miners.
Conservative estimates put the figure at over 200, though the actual figure may be several times higher.
On August 16 2012, the South African police fired 327 rounds of live ammunition on striking Lonmin workers. Thirty four miners were killed while around 70 were wounded.
The total number of those injured will never be known as workers feared arrest in the aftermath of the massacre.
At Marikana 270 striking workers were arrested. President Zuma refused to release them, citing independence of the judiciary. In Zimbabwe over 1 500 injured artisanal miners were rounded up by the army during Operation Hakudzokwi (Operation you will not return) and thrown into crowded police cells with no access to treatment. Magistrates in the eastern border city of Mutare conducted mass trials for the artisanal miners who were brought to court in groups of 10-12 and forced to make chorus pleas.
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Tinoziva Bere of the Law Society of Zimbabwe who represented some of the artisanal miners had this to say at the time of the arrests:
“Most detainees claim that they were taken to various detention places and police stations where they were kept in crowded filthy conditions for as long as four to five days, in some cases before being brought to court. The numbers were high such that the toilet and bathing facilities were inadequate to non-existent. Most when brought to court had not bathed since arrest and some had had nothing or little to eat.”
How the Presidents of South Africa and Zimbabwe reacted to the massacres.
President Jacob Zuma hastily left a Sadc summit in Maputo to attend to the crisis at Marikana and immediately declared one week of national mourning. He also visited the Lonmin workers at Marikana and listened to them. “This is painful to all of us. It is not acceptable for people to die where talks can be held. But I do feel your pain and have come personally to express that. I am certain that the Commission of Inquiry will get to the bottom of what happened here,” Zuma told the workers at Marikana, adding that “If there is anything that needs me, I will come in person again”. Of course Zuma’s sincerity must be interrogated, but certainly it’s not the subject of this article. To his credit, he acknowledged the tragedy. He showed remorse and to some extent solidarity.
President Robert Mugabe has not uttered a word on the Marange massacres since 2008. Instead, it was Nathaniel Manheru, believed to be his spokesperson, who gave the first official acknowledgement of the massacre, rather sarcastically:
“The Untouchables of Chiadzwa are either slaving, wounded or dead. Gullied Chiadzwa needs to be reclaimed, declared the authorities. Reclaimed by those who wounded it in the first place.
“Those accused of damaging it may not use shovels, hoes or some such implements. They shall use their fingers, and accomplish the job in record time, these gwejas and gwejesses. It is a season of tears as man become beast to get beastly men and women to repair the heinous damage they have wrought on innocence. It is painful payback time. The deep gullies are being refilled with bare hands. Fingers are sore and finishing, well before a quarter of the job is done. Chiadzwa, once a place for dashing fortune-seekers, has become Chiadzwa the place of unrelieved pain.”
In South Africa political parties, labour unions, civil society, the media and the nation at large have continued to demand answers from the government and to demand that those responsible for the deaths of the miners be brought to book, but in Zimbabwe the Marange massacre has been relegated to the dustbin of history. In South Africa government set up a Commission of Inquiry to investigate what happened on that fateful day. In Zimbabwe it has been business as usual. More people died in Marange than in Marikana but it is in South Africa where the matter has been and continues to be discussed publicly.
Who is responsible? In both Marikana and Marange no one wants to take responsibility for the massacres. However, in the case of Marikana, South Africa’s and ANC Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa stands out as one of the chief instigators of the massacre.
In an email to Lonmin’s chief commercial officer, Albert Jamieson, Ramaphosa wrote: “The terrible events that have unfolded cannot be described as a labour dispute. They are plainly dastardly criminal and must be characterised as such. There needs to be concomitant action to address this situation.” He has not denied authoring the email. Many expected Marikana to mark Ramaphosa’s exit from active politics. Ramaphosa however became the Deputy President of South Africa in May 2014.
In the case of Zimbabwe, there is no document in the public domain explaining who ordered the massacres. However, it is clear the Zimbabwe National Army was deployed into Marange to commit atrocities against artisanal miners. A Commission of Inquiry would have helped to shed some light on this dark chapter of Zimbabwe’s history.
Labour Rights Whereas strikes and protests have been rising in South Africa, the story has been different in Zimbabwe where workers live in arguably worse conditions than those of their South African counterparts.
There has been an influx of Chinese miners in Zimbabwe’s extractive sector with numerous reports of an increase in gross violations of workers’ rights.
Established companies are shutting down, thereby creating uncertainty among mine workers whose daily anthem is now “half a loaf is better than no bread”.
In both countries, the crisis in the mining sector is set to reach calamitous levels unless the grievances of workers and host communities are seriously considered in the mining equation.
Could there be another Marikana/Marange looming? How can we ensure this will never happen again?
