For a week I lived in the shacks of Marikana, eating, sleeping, drinking and talking with the Lonmin miners as the strike ground on, trying to understand what led to the events of August 16 where 34 of their colleagues died in a volley of police fire a spitting distance away from us.
Said Carlos Zunguza from Mozambique: “As you can see for yourself I live in a tin and it’s hot but I have no choice because I have to save money for those 12 people back at home who rely on me.” The dozens of miners and other locals tell identical stories about the strike: a basic bread-and-butter workplace dispute at its heart. They had complained about their drilling quotas and the long hours expected of them and the pay they received in return. They first turned to the National Union of Mineworkers for help after they met among themselves on August 9. They claim they were rebuffed. Initially they organised themselves through the warren of shacks and the hostels in which they live.
Many of us have been earning peanuts for years and no union wanted to listen to us, so we decided to do things ourselves.The community is dominated by single men who come from traditional backgrounds, having had to learn to do their own washing, cleaning and cooking. “I am tired of the strike. We are running out of food and we have to borrow money. But we have lost so many men we can’t go back until our demands are met.”
Miners say he charged each man R1 000 for muti protection from the police and mine security. It’s unclear how many used it, but the miners said most of the 4 000-odd on the koppie had done so. They still believed the muti worked, even after 34 of their comrades died.
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