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 Zokwana left, Joseph Mathunjwa, president of AMCU, arrived, and although he was accompanied by 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