AMCU: Mining minister has betrayed us
Hundreds of AMCU workers protested for several hours at the department of mineral resources offices in Pretoria on Thursday.
Lead by union president Joseph Mathunjwa, demanded that Minister of DMR Joseph Zwane receive their memorandum demanding that the retrieval of bodies of their three colleagues at the Lily Mine in Barberton.
“Members of Amcu and workers in general are here to register to the minister that he needs to make some means to make sure that the container with the bodies is found. Since the time we got here in, we have not received any cooperation from this department,” said Mathunjwa at the locked DMR offices.
“We’re here to deliver a memorandum to Minister Zwane but he has betrayed us. His office assured us that he would be available today and suddenly today he has become unavailable.”
Yvonne Mnisi, Pretty Nkambule, and Solomon Nyerende were trapped underground in February when the lamp-room container they were working in fell into a massive sinkhole created by a collapsed crown pillar. Their bodies have not been retrieved yet, despite different efforts.
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As the sun set over Pretoria on Thursday evening, Mathunjwa said the workers and families of the three trapped Lily Mine workers were not about to leave.
“The people you see here left Mpumalanga last night [Wednesday]. They have been travelling to this place without rest. We never thought that this government of ours would one day behave like the Nationalist government. Now it’s clear that we’re led by people who do not have any conscience, who do not have any political understanding and who do not listen to the electorate.
Mathunjwa said the past six months have been unimaginably difficult for the families of the three trapped miners.
“The families looking at that mine everyday and are in anguish, knowing that their loved ones remain trapped there,” said Mathunjwa.
Several police officers were manning the locked DMR offices along Meintje Street. At intervals, Mathunjwa and attorney Andries Nkome would be called to the entrance to liaise with official through the security fence.
The protesters waved placards written: “Lily Mine- they put you to power, their lives matter”.
They had marched for kilometres across Pretoria CBD, to the DMR offices.