assassinations?
Ferial Haffajee
A COURT case in the Thabazimbi Magistrate’s Court on Friday could hold the key to a spate of mysterious assassinations at Anglo American’s Amplats platinum mines in the North-West and Northern provinces.
Twenty-two suspects arrested in the past fortnight at Amplats’ Amandelbult mine in the Northern Province will apply for bail. They are likely to be represented by the Workers’ Mouthpeace lawyer Caesar Bungane, though it could not be confirmed that they are in fact members of the recently registered union.
Meanwhile, it transpired this week that Peoples Assurance Brokers -the company apparently owned by Piet and Matt Joubert, the official representatives and benefactors of Mouthpeace – is not officially registered as a company. Further checks on Piet Joubert have shown that he has numerous debt judgements against him.
Amplats representative Johan Adler said this week that the mines had all been quiet and the company was using the calm to attempt to kick-start the peace deal signed there a fortnight ago. They have commissioned a team of mediators to meet with both the Mouthpeace and the National Union of Mineworkers. Since June, five members of the NUM and three of their children have been killed in well-planned assassinations; many miners have fled the violence and returned to their Eastern Cape homes.
Police this week said that nobody had come forward with information to aid their investigation, despite a R250 000 reward offered by the company. The Northern Province police appear to be ahead of the pack in an investigation that saw them arrest three more suspects this week. Their members have been despatched to the Transkei to do background checks on those arrested.
The NUM’s regional co-ordinator for the North-West province, Mahlakeng Mahlakeng, welcomed the company’s new peace moves. ”We hope Amplats can stop the violence, but we’re worried that they haven’t brought the parties together yet.” He was also concerned that violence could again stalk the Eastern Cape when Simon Chalana and his son, who were killed in their hostel room while sleeping last week, are buried in Mount Frere this weekend.
Eastern Cape police believe a plot to launch an attack at the rural funeral of an NUM member may have been violently foiled.
Media reports at the weekend alleged that two men shot and killed in an ambush in their car last week may have been Mouthpeace members who had gone to the Transkei. The dead men were heavily armed and police were this week running tests on their weapons.