[miningmx] — THE campaign of violence that has engulfed Lonmin’s Karee
operations in North West so far claimed the lives of nine people – two police officers
and seven mine employees – as the situation remains tense and volatile.
Until now no party has claimed responsibility for the attacks or made demands from
Lonmin’s management following an illegal strike by 3,000 rock drill operators on
Friday. However, the situation is reminiscent of the deadly rivalry between the
National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the Associated Mineworkers and
Construction Union (Amcu), which brought Impala Platinum’s Rustenburg operations
to a standstill in February.
The two policemen were hacked to death with pangas on Monday afternoon while
three employees were fatality wounded when police returned fire.
Two security guards were shot Sunday morning, while another two workers were
killed on their way to work – one shot and one hacked to death. Gideon du Plessis,
Deputy Head of trade union Solidarity, said three of its Lonmin members were also
stabbed with knives.
No further incidents were reported by Tuesday morning, according to Sapa.
Frans Baleni, General Secretary of NUM, said Friday’s meeting of the rock drill
operators was the catalyst for the violence. “They used a muti which they thought
would make them untouchable. Then they started with a campaign against all other
workers – exactly the way it was at Impala in February.’
According to him, the group again convened on Monday evening on a hill outside the
Karee shaft.
Barnard Mokwena, Lonmin’s Executive Vice President for Human Capital, said
thousands of workers stayed away from work on Monday.
“We got literally hundreds of telephone calls of staff who were too afraid to come to
work,’ he said. “The strangest thing is that we’ve received no demand from any staff
or union about issues that they’re unhappy with. We spoke to both Amcu and Num,
and both denied they had anything to do with this.’
NUM previously represented 70% of Lonmin’s workforce of 22,000, before 8,000
workers were dismissed during an unprotected strike at its Marikana operations in
May last year. Many of these workers were rehired, but have subsequently joined
Amcu, which now represents around 17% of Lonmin’s work force.
– Sake24
