South Africa

South Africa

Marikana: Will SAPS do the right thing?

Marikana: Will SAPS do the right thing?

Two weeks after the release of the Marikana Commission of Inquiry report into the Marikana Massacre, some organisations are taking action, reviewing aspects they disagree with and calling for steps to be taken on the parts they support. If you were a police officer involved, it might be time to face the music, or at least a suspension. Holding the executive to account will be much more difficult. By GREG NICOLSON.

Right2Know and the Marikana Support Campaign on Tuesday announced they have filed a Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) request with pertinent questions on the Marikana massacre. It’s been almost three years since the killings and little is known about what has happened to the police officers involved or whether there has been any attempt to interrogate their role.

Have the police tried to identify officers who could have exceeded the bounds of justifiable force? Has the SAPS launched any criminal investigations or disciplinary action against its members? Are those cops still carrying firearms? Are they still with their different units? Was there a review on the officers’ suitability and fitness to continue careers in the SAPS? Has there been an attempt to look at what impact Marikana might have had on the cops involved in the massacre?

The Marikana report has been criticised for failing to hold the executive to account and for making broad findings on evidence presented in detail over two years where it could have made much more specific conclusions, which would have helped the relatives of the victims find a sense of closure. But, broadly speaking, the police took a hammering.

Up until the very last day of the commission the SAPS’ stance was that it had done nothing wrong at Marikana. Now that the report has been released it can no longer justify this stance,” said Right2Know and the Marikana Support Campaign. “Despite the unsatisfactory nature of the report it clearly confirms there are considerable grounds for believing that a large number of SAPS members at Marikana acted unlawfully. The report also indicates that several members of the SAPS deliberately misled the commission itself. The implication that these members acted unlawfully cannot – and should not – be disregarded by the SAPS.”

The report found that a number of police officers could be guilty of murder or attempted murder, though proving murder will be difficult given the struggle to link bullets back to specific guns, and key police leaders faced adverse findings, including Brigadier Adriaan Calitz, Major General Ganasen Naidoo, General Riah Phiyega, Lieutenant General Zukiswa Mbombo and Major General Charl Annandale. Eight officers faced negative findings for firing their weapons in automatic mode – the report identifies them by name.

The report made the broad recommendation that the unlawful acts at Marikana, including killings, be investigated by a panel for potential criminal charges. What Right2Know and the Marikana Support Campaign are saying is that the SAPS should not wait for the outcome of that investigation. A commission of inquiry has made findings against its officers and it has a duty to act.

We therefore call for the dismissal of these officials and all others who are found to be implicated in the killings. We also call for General Phiyega to resign immediately from her position as police commissioner of the SAPS,” reads the statement. Phiyega has until the end of the month to respond to findings against her and a recommended inquiry into her fitness to hold office.

During the commission the SAPS closed ranks, giving its version of what happened in Marikana, lying and hiding evidence from the inquiry. It seems unlikely it will take action against its own and it’s hard to believe the police internally acknowledge anything other than the claims from Phiyega after the massacre that it “represents the best of responsible policing”. By demanding information, however, the civil society groups may increase pressure on the police to act against its own.

The Marikana Support Campaign issued an independent press release on Wednesday, detailing the points of the report that it rejects. It opens with a quote from the beginning of the report: “… the tragic events that occurred during the period 12 to 16 August 2012 originated from the decision and conduct of the strikers in embarking on an unprotected strike and in enforcing the strike by violence and intimidation, using dangerous weapons for the purpose.” While the report looks at specific issues throughout the body, the beginning and end set the tone that the miners are responsible for what happened. “There is no evidence to back it up. The Marikana Support Campaign considers this finding as a gross defamation of the miners,” reads the press release.

While SAPS is rightly castigated, the commission’s findings are based on the ‘cock up’ theory of mismanagement and poor planning. The Marikana Support Campaign contends that this is insufficient. The evidence clearly points to an attack that was preplanned, and the direct result of pressure from the government,” the group argues. “In the coming months, the Marikana Support Campaign will be consulting widely on the form of an independent, civil society-led, initiative that will seek to analyse the evidence presented before the commission. This will result in a published, authoritative report into the massacre at Marikana.”

While the group’s review is pending, it believes the report should have found that on 16 August the miners did not try to attack police at scene one, a point the commission spent considerable time on which was largely dismissed by chairman Judge Ian Farlam, and the police murdered strikers at scene one and scene two and attempted to murder the many who were injured.

The report exonerated Lonmin non-executive director and deputy president, Cyril Ramaphosa, and mineral resources minister Susan Shabangu and essentially said it could not make a finding either way on what police minister Nathi Mthethwa may have known about the planning of the operation. But the Marikana Support Campaign is adamant they, along with the police, National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and Lonmin are to blame as the massacre “originated from the decisions and conduct of the above parties in refusing to treat the miners as decent human beings and in enforcing such decisions by violence and intimidation”.

The Campaign supports charges laid by the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) against Ramaphosa, Shabangu, Mthethwa, Phiyega, Mbombo and Lonmin executives on murder, attempted murder and conspiracy to murder. While the report recommended Lonmin be investigated for criminal charges, the EFF’s charges against members the executive are a long shot and seem unlikely to ever see a court given the commission’s findings and the lack of categoric evidence against the leaders.

The organisations who disagree with the commission’s findings face an uphill battle against the perception that the report is the conclusive view on Marikana. For the relatives of many of the victims, however, civil claims will be filed in August for compensation from the state, which seems likely to be granted given the findings against the police, but could take years. DM

Photo: A policeman gestures in front of some of the dead miners after they were shot outside Marikana, August 16, 2012. REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko

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