a Hippo, he came in his own car.40According to Mineworker 6, Mathunjwa said that he was sympathetic to the strikers, but cautioned them that he too had been denied access to the employers. However, he added that because he had members at Karee he would try again to meet them the following day.
The police presence had increased on the Wednesday, and on the Thursday morning, 16 August, more forces arrived. This time the police were accompanied by ‘soldiers’, probably para-military police dressed in similar uniform to soldiers.41Trailers carrying razor wire (which the workers mostly refer to as barbed wire) also arrived.42Mineworker 9 says that workers ‘shouted’ for other workers to join them. In the early afternoon on this fateful day, Mathunjwa returned, this time without any escort.43According to Mineworker 10, he told his audience that the employer never ‘pitched’ for their scheduled meeting, using the excuse that he was at another gathering (presumably with police chiefs).44Mineworker 10 added that Mathunjwa told the strikers they should return to work, because if they stayed on the mountain any longer a lot of people might die. There was some scepticism about this advice. For instance, Mineworker 2’s response was that Mathunjwa should ‘go back, because we are not AMCU members, we are NUM members’. Mineworker 8’s response was that, on the mountain, they had been eating together and making fire together, and it was like home. They weren’t leaving, he said, adding that ‘we do not want any union here’. Mineworker 9’s account was slightly different again. According to him: ‘We said, Comrade, go home. You did your best, but we will not leave here until we get the R12,500 we are requesting, and if we die fighting, so be it.’ The last phrase resonated with a famous speech by Nelson Mandela, and Mineworker 9 pursued this, albeit with a twist. He said: ‘We should talk and negotiate through striking, that is how Mandela fought for his country.’ Mathunjwa made one last attempt to convince the workers. He went down on his knees and begged them to leave.45Few accepted his plea. Twenty minutes later the massacre began.
The massacre of 16 August 2012
There are photographs of the assembled workers when Mathunjwa was addressing them, just before he left the scene (see inside back cover for example). They are a large crowd, roughly 3,000 strong, spread between the mountain, the hillock to its north and lower ground between the two (see Map 5). They look peaceful, not threatening anyone. Yet, additional armed police were rapidly brought to the field around the mountain, and some were manoeuvred into new positions, almost encircling the workers. Much of this build-up was watched by strikers still sitting on the mountain. The media quickly retreated from just below the mountain to a safer position, from where they would record the opening of the massacre.46Mineworker 8 reveals Lonmin’s direct involvement. Two ‘big joined buses from the mine’ arrived delivering yet more police to the scene. Also ‘soldiers’ appeared on top of their Hippos. We later learned there were vehicles from each of the neighbouring provinces, but it seems there was even one, perhaps more, from the Eastern Cape. Mineworker 4 tells of strikers talking to homeboys from towns in the Transkei, and a witness quoted by Greg Marinovich mentioned that he’d been told that an Eastern Cape policeman had claimed ‘there was a paper signed allowing them to shoot’.47Mineworker 8 says: ‘What really amazed me was that the truck that carries water and the other one that carries tear gas, they were nowhere near, they were standing right at the back’. Ominously, mine ambulances were already present when the shooting started.48
A major concern for the strikers was seeing the police rapidly reel out the razor wire using two or more Hippos. See Map 5. This shows the approximate position of the wire, which was positioned in a line northwards from a pylon close to the electrical power facility and then took a turn to the right in the direction of a small kraal (the first of three in that area). Mineworker 2 said they were being ‘closed in with a wire like we were cows’, and one of the miners’ wives said that the fencing was for ‘rats and dogs’.49The comments are significant because the police had begun treating the workers as if they were no longer human beings. A group of the miners’ leaders, including Mambush, tried to remonstrate with the police near a point marked + on Map 5. Their plea that a gap be left open, so that strikers could leave like human beings, fell on deaf ears. With guns aimed at the workers, it was clear that the police were now ready to shoot. A large number of the strikers rushed north-eastwards in the direction of Nkaneng, where many of them lived.
It was about now that the first shot was fired. According to members of our Reference Group, this came from behind the miners who were heading towards Nkaneng, hitting a worker at a point close to the second + on Map 5. Some fleeing strikers, including several leaders, now turned to the right, hoping to escape through a small gap between the wire and the first kraal. Most continued onwards, so there were no hoards of armed warriors following this leading group, as suggested in some media coverage though not by TV footage. One woman, a witness, later made the point that the strikers were running with their weapons down, and so were not a threat, and this can be seen in some photographs.50 It was too late. The leaders’ path was blocked by Hippos, and they were trapped. Mineworker 2 recalled: ‘People were not killed because they were fighting... We were shot while running. [We] went through the hole, and that is why we were shot.’
The order was given to fire. The command may have come from a white man, who did so, according to Mineworker 6, using the word ‘Red’.51There were no warning shots.52According to Mineworker 2, who was clearly present, ‘the first person who started to shoot was a soldier in a Hippo, and he never fired a warning shot, he just shot straight at us’. Within seconds seven workers had been slain, killed by automatic gunfire right in front of TV cameras (see Map 5). In photographs, their bodies are pictured in a pile, with a shack nearby. Moments later, another group of five men were killed, their bodies crushed against a kraal, as if cornered without any possibility of escape. Mineworker 8 questioned: ‘I get very amazed when the police say they were defending themselves, what were they defending themselves from?’
Some of the leading group were able to turn back. They joined other workers scattering in all directions. Many fled north; some went westwards in the hope of reaching Marikana; others just ran as far as they could and as quickly as their legs would carry them; and one, at least, crawled a long distance across rough ground, hoping to dodge bullets and Hippos.53It is difficult to imagine how terrifying and disorienting the situation must have been. There were armoured vehicles all around; there were helicopters in the sky; horses charging to and fro; police sweeping through on foot; stun grenades making a noise as loud as a bomb; tear gas; water cannons; rubber bullets; live rounds; and people being injected with syringes. This was not public order policing, this was warfare. A strike leader remarked: ‘Water, which is often used to warn people, was used later on, after a lot of people were shot at already’.54Perhaps confirming this, on 20 August we found blue-green water-canon dye in an arc well to the west of the mountain, far from the initial front line. Similarly, Mineworker 10 asserted: ‘They lied about rubber bullets. They did not use them.’ I have not heard of the use of injections before, and it remains to be seen why they were used and to what effect. There were many complaints that workers were trampled to death by Hippos.55Some had been made dizzy by tear gas and some had stumbled perhaps.56Some people we spoke to described deceased workers whose bodies were so badly crushed they could only be identified by finger prints. Helicopters used a range of weapons.
Of the 34 workers who were slaughtered on 16 August, 20 died in the opening encounter or very soon after and close by. The remainder were killed in one small location. This is the place known by some as Kleinkopje. But South Africa is littered with small koppies and it seems more appropriate to call it Killing Koppie. Here, some 300 metres to the west of the mountain, on a low rocky outcrop covered with shrubs and trees, the police killed 14 workers. On a grassy plane with few large bushes this was an obvious place to hide from bullets and Hippos, but it was relatively easy for the police to encircle and then move in for the kill. Workers told us that two helicopters came from the north, depositing their paramilitary cargo, and two or three Hippos moved in from the south. Mineworker 9 recalled: ‘That is where some of our members went in and never came back... the people who ran into the bush were ones being transported [in ambulances and
