be strong... You are just sitting here, and making fire and putting money together’. Mineworker 9 added: ‘We were helped by the people in the nearby shacks who brought us food’.
It was only at this point, after the shooting of their comrades, that workers gathered their traditional weapons. Mineworker 8 responded to the question ‘So it was NUM that pushed you into carrying weapons?’ with: ‘Yes, because they shot at us and we were afraid that they will come back. We do not have guns, and so we thought it will be better that we have our traditional weapons.’ Mineworker 1 provided valuable insight on the issue. ‘My brother’, he began, ‘what I can say about the... spears and sticks [is] that we came with [them] from back home. It is our culture as black men, as Xhosa men... Even here... when I go look at anything... at night [such as the cows]... I always have my spear or stick... or when I have to go urinate, because I don’t urinate in the house... I take my stick’. Then he added: ‘A white man carries his gun when he leaves his house, that is how he was taught, and so sticks and spears that is the black man’s culture’.
Deaths
The next morning, workers again went to remonstrate with NUM officials. Again they numbered between 2,000 and 3,000, but this time some were carrying their weapons. Beyond the stadium, inside the hostel area, they were stopped by mine security (who included two ‘boers’) and ‘government police’ who had a Hippo with them.31According to Mineworker 4: ‘The mine security guards shot at us. But we did not go back. We kept going forward.’ From subsequent conversations with workers we learned that two security men were dragged from their cars and killed with pangas or spears. Their cars were later set ablaze, and we saw the remains of one of these, which was located on a corner by the small taxi rank inside the hostel area. These new killings occurred close to where the striker had allegedly died the day before (see Map 3).
Later the same day, 12 August, two NUM members were stabbed to death. These were Thapelo Madebe and Isaiah Twala. The following day, a third NUM member, Thembalakhe Mati, was killed, this time by gunshot.32The circumstances surrounding these killings are obscure, and there is no evidence that they were ordered by strike leaders or AMCU officials. However, they contributed to a sense of outrage, especially within the NUM leadership.
Monday, 13 August, was another day of bloodshed. Early in the morning, strikers received information that work was being undertaken at Karee No. 3 shaft (known as K3). Since this was the first full day of the strike it was not surprising that there was an element of scabbing, and a relatively small contingent was despatched to explain to the workers that they were expected to join the action. Accounts of the size of this ‘flying picket’ (to use a term from the UK) vary from under 30 to about a 100. See Map 2 (this shows that the entire journey would have been about 15 kilometres there and back). Mineworker 2 provides a detailed account that is corroborated in other interviews and by versions we received from workers in loco. At K3 the deputation spoke with security guards, who said that, while they would look into the matter, as far as they knew nobody was working. According to the workers, the guards told them that rather than returning to the mountain via the K3 hostel and Marikana, which would have been the easier route, they should take paths across the veld (mostly flattish rough ground with occasional thorn trees and other shrubs). For the hike back to the mountain the group may have grown a little, but all our informants placed its size at under 200 people.
At first the route follows a dirt track alongside a railway line. After a detour around a small wetland, the workers found their way blocked by a well-armed detachment of police that had crossed the railway line on a small dirt road and turned left onto the track (see Map 4). The precise size of the police contingent is unclear, with Mineworker 2 saying the police included ‘maybe three Hippos and plus/minus 20 vans’ and a Reference Group contributor specifying about 14 Hippos but not mentioning vans (possibly treating armoured police ‘vans’ as ‘Hippos’). The police forced the workers off the path and encircled them (with a line of police stretched out along the railway line). The response, it seems, came from Mambush, later famous as ‘the man in the green blanket’ and probably the most respected of the workers’ leaders. He is reported to have said that, while they were not refusing to give up their weapons, they would only do so once they reached the safety of the mountain. Mineworker 2 recounts that a Zulu-speaking policeman then warned that he would count to ten, and if they had not conceded by then he would give the order to fire. After the counting had started the workers began singing and moved off together towards the weakest point in the police line, which was probably to the north-east, the direction of the mountain. At first the police gave way but, according to Mineworker 2, after about ten metres they started shooting. In the commotion that followed, three strikers and two police officers were killed. One of the strikers and two of the police were killed to the west of the dirt road that crosses the railway line (see Map 4). There is a suggestion that one of the police may have been shot, accidentally, by another police officer.33On the other side of the road, a wounded civilian was hidden inside, or next to, a shack, but this was noticed by the police, who pursued him and then shot him several times at close range. The fifth fatality occurred north of the shack and to the east of the river (see Map 4). This worker was clearly fleeing.
Photographs of the two deceased police officers were widely and rapidly circulated within the police service, mainly through cellphones (mobiles). These showed the grisly remains of men who had been hacked to death, thus, one assumes, re-enforcing a desire for retribution. It would be surprising if the railway line event, and the way it was handled by the police, were not a factor in the subsequent massacre.
Failed negotiations
On Tuesday, 14 August, a police negotiator arrived at the mountain, accompanied by numerous Hippos. He was a white man, but addressed the workers in Fanakalo, which was regarded as novel for a white policeman.34He said that he came in peace, in friendship, and just wanted ‘to build a relationship’ (a formulation used in a number of interviews). He entreated the workers to send five representatives, five ‘madodas’ to talk to him (Mineworker 3). ‘Madodas’ literally means ‘men’, but it sometimes carries the connotation of self-selected or traditional leadership, thus implying a certain ‘backwardness’, in contrast to trade unions. In reality, as we have seen, the workers operated through an elected and representative workers’ committee, one typical of well-organised modern strikes. As requested, the strikers selected five representatives, and sent them to talk to the negotiator. Mineworker 3 provides a detailed account of proceedings. The representatives claimed that the negotiator and his team refused to leave the Hippo and speak to them on the same level, face to face. They also refused to provide their names, which was disconcerting to the workers, and at some point, later on, an amadoda tried to take a photograph of the police on a cellphone, but this was stopped. A worker who was part of the delegation claimed that one of the senior police was a white woman and that a company representative was also sitting in the Hippo. Apparently this was denied by the police.35Nevertheless, the five madodas conveyed the view that all they wanted was to talk with their employer. They wanted him to come to the mountain, but, if necessary, they would go to him. The police departed, leaving workers with the impression that they would inform the employer of their request. However, when they returned the next day, Wednesday, 15 August, it was without a representative of the employer.36Lonmin was refusing to talk to its striking workers. According to a strike leader, only three of the five madoda would survive the massacre that was imminent.37Later on Wednesday, towards sunset, Senzeni Zokwana, president of NUM, arrived in a Hippo. Mineworker 10 complained that: ‘We didn’t see him, we were just informed to listen to our leader.’ Mineworker 1 concurred: ‘He was not in a right place to talk to us as a leader, as our president, this thing of him talking to us while he is in a Hippo. We wanted him to talk to us straight if he wanted to.’ When he did speak, his message was simple, crude even. ‘Mr Zokwana said the only thing he came to tell us was that he wanted us to go back to work, and that there was nothing else he was going to talk to us about’.38Apparently the workers repeated their demand that they only wanted their employer to address them, not Zokwana.39About five minutes after
