The South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union (Satawu) has distanced itself from Monday night’s murder of six people at a train station in Benoni, saying ”no member of Satawu was involved”.
”There is no way any member of Satawu can be involved in any killing,” Satawu spokesperson Jackson Simon said on Wednesday.
”By the same token, the media must stop its attempts to link Satawu to the incident and therefore discredit Satawu.”
When the six were killed, Satawu members were not at the station as police had stopped them when they attempted to travel to Johannesburg to attend a Satawu meeting.
”This was at noon on Monday,” Simon said.
On Tuesday, six people died on the East Rand after they were thrown from a moving train by suspected security guards targeting scab labour during a protracted strike, police said.
Police were alerted late on Monday that ”people were being thrown off the train” between two stations at Benoni, about 20km east of Johannesburg, spokesperson Eugene Opperman said.
”Police did a search along the railway lines and found five bodies. A sixth person was found alive but died on the way to hospital,” he told Agence France-Presse.
All the dead suffered multiple injuries.
Police were questioning a witness and believed the attackers were members of a security guard union on strike for higher wages.
”We are investigating at the moment but we believe the attacks may be linked to the ongoing strike,” Senior Superintendent Opperman said.
”It is believed that the attackers may have been looking for people who were not taking part in the strike,” he said.
Thousands of members of Satawu launched a second wave of strikes earlier this month after the Labour Court overturned an earlier ruling declaring the strike illegal.
Meanwhile, security guards who earlier were in Pretoria for a march and later travelled to Johannesburg were shot at by police in a confrontation on Wednesday.
The guards allegedly threw stones at police who retaliated with rubber bullets.
Some of the guards sustained minor injuries in the confrontation.
Minister of Labour Membathisi Mdladlana had agreed to intervene in the strike, Simon said, adding that this was despite a statement issued by the department of labour denying this.
Simon said that Mdladlana agreed to call the employers to the negotiating table, ”not to negotiate on behalf of Satawu”. — Sapa