The EFF donated R1-million to the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union’s (Amcu) Marikana trust fund, EFF leader Julius Malema announced during the Marikana commemoration in the North West on Tuesday.
He was followed by DA leader Mmusi Maimane and UDM leader Bantu Holomisa who each donated R50 000 of their own personal funds to the trust.
The two leaders had, however, been subtly coerced by Amcu president Joseph Mathunjwa into making the donations.
Maimane had earlier told journalists he needed to speak to his party to determine if it would donate to the trust. Mathunjwa did not let him off the hook.
After making his address to the gathered crowd, he urged Maimane and Holomisa to go on to the stage and declare how much they would donate towards Marikana victims’ families.
Hesitant at first, Maimane walked to the stage after loud cheers by the crowd and declared he would donate from his own personal funds.
When the crowds demanded that former Congress of SA Trade Unions general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi chipped in, Mathunjwa joked that Vavi was unemployed and like the families of the victims of Marikana, Amcu needed to open a trust dedicated to him.
March to Union Buildings planned
Mathunjwa said the trust will help provide material support to the families of those killed in the mass shooting.
He said Amcu was intending to march to the Union Buildings to demand better wages and working conditions for miners.
“We ask Lonmin to approach government to give us the right to march. If they don’t we will down our tools and march without permission. We lost a lot in this koppie. Workers still die in these mines,” he said.
Amcu was commemorating the anniversary of the Marikana massacre in the North West on August 16 2012. On that day police shot and killed 34 miners, apparently while trying to disperse them during a strike.
Ten people, including two police officers and two Lonmin security guards, were killed in the preceding week.
The Farlam Commission of Inquiry was instituted to investigate the shooting and the circumstances around it.
Its recommendations included a probe into suspended national police commissioner Riah Phiyega’s fitness to hold office. – News24