Fallen and forgotten: On 16 August it will be 12 years since 34 miners were killed by the police at Lonmin mine during a strike, but the state still has not apologised to the families of the victims.
Thobile Mpumza was one of the last people to be executed at “scene 2” at Marikana on 16 August 2012. He was shot 13 times from the front and back, suggesting that he was shot at by more than one police officer. A visual recording of his death shows police officers gathered around his body, gloating about his murder and swearing at him as he lay dead.
According to evidence cited in the families’ heads of argument submitted to the Farlam Commission of Inquiry, the police later moved his body, preventing the exact site of his death from being analysed. Mpumza was only 26 years old when he died. No one has been held accountable for his death, or the way in which the circumstances of his death had been misconstrued.
Twelve years later, the Mpumza family’s struggle with the state’s lack of accountability magnifies the lack of justice for the victims of Marikana. Mpumza was known to his family as a quiet, caring and supportive brother and uncle. After the death of his parents, he became the breadwinner of his family. His work at Lonmin mine enabled him to provide for his four siblings and nieces and nephews.
The state has also refused to compensate the Mpumza family for loss of support despite having settled claims for 34 of the 36 families represented by the Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa (Seri). The state argues that Mpumza did not have a legal obligation to support his siblings and their children, even though he did so in practice.
The state has further not made any progress on four other claims that were submitted on behalf of the family in August 2015 by Seri. These claims include a request for an apology from the state, compensation for medical expenses for the family, as well as general and constitutional damages.
In total, the state has settled claims to the value of about R331 million paid to almost 300 miners who were injured and arrested in the aftermath of the massacre, as well as 35 families, which includes a family that was represented by the Wits Law Clinic.
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A year ago, solicitor general Fhedzisani Pandelani, who oversees litigation on behalf of the state, remarked at a press conference: “I think we [ the state] have done enough. The question that needs to be asked is, ‘how long is a piece of string?’ … These matters have been with us for 11 years and at some point in time we really, really need closure … Just imagine government, from taxpayers money, something that is audited, paying R331 million. Eleven years down the line people still flock back, the same claimants saying, ‘No. By the way, it’s not enough.’ It is not legally permissible.”
He also referred to the families as “a bus-load of people” claiming to be related to the deceased miners, suggesting that the families have been opportunistic and dishonest in their pursuit of general and constitutional damages. Factually, the families represented by Seri constitute about 315 individual claimants, some of whom have since died, with families that ranged from two to about 20 members.
According to recent data on household composition, at least 43% of families in rural South Africa, where most of the miners were from, are households in which extended family members live together and that about 20% comprise six or more members. Rural households are also more likely to be skip-generation (grandparents living with grandchildren) and triple generational households than households in urban areas.
Many South African households depart from the Eurocentric notions of the nuclear family because they have been shaped, in part, by our history and the structure of sectors in our economy. For example, the mining industry has depended on cheap migrant labour entrenched in the colonial and apartheid eras. This ruptured black families while generating profits for a privileged white minority. Data on household income underscores this reality, especially in regions such as the Eastern Cape, home to a significant portion of the Marikana victims. Here, remittances constitute about 18% of household earnings, coupled with social grants that contribute 65%. South Africa’s high unemployment and deepening poverty explain the dependence of extended family members on the breadwinners.
The families’ claims can, in financial terms, be juxtaposed with the estimated millions of rands that the state has dedicated to legal costs to avoid civil and criminal accountability. The state’s refusal to compensate the Mpumza family for any portion of their claim, or tender a public apology to the families of the miners, has instead denied them closure, and they continue to struggle to repair their families and to make ends meet.
The state has failed, after all these years, to fully appreciate the glaring reasons families of the massacred would seek damages, or even an apology. This could be related to how the state views the events of that day — not as a massacre, but as a “tragedy” or an “unfortunate incident”, which is how the state refers to it.
With the12th anniversary of the massacre, we urge the state to do all that it can to bring closure to the families. The state needs to apologise to the families of victims of the massacre and must take steps to expedite finalising reparations. The justice department should prioritise channelling the necessary resources to the National Prosecuting Authority and the courts to expedite the prosecution and trial of criminal cases to bring truth, justice and closure for the victims and the country. We cannot allow the state to act with impunity and escape accountability or its duty to deliver justice to victims of Marikana. We have a responsibility, as a country to keep the memory of Marikana alive for it to never happen again.
Thato Masiangoako is a researcher and Justin Winchester is a litigation intern at the Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa.