[LISTEN] Marikana: ‘We have made very little progress’
South Africa will commemorate the seventh anniversary of the Marikana massacre when 34 miners were gunned down by the police at Lonmin in North West.
“The mineworkers and their families have yet to see real justice,” says civil rights organisation Right2Know’s Thami Nkosi.
Nkosi believes political opportunism have crippled reconciliation and social cohesion.
Thousands are expected to attend a commemoration at the koppie and open field where police shot and killed 34 striking Lonmin employees on August 16, 2012.
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In the days leading up to the massacre 10 police officers, security guards and striking and non-striking mineworkers were brutally murdered.
“There has been very little action with regards to the holding accountable the politicians that made the decisions to unleash the police on the striking miners. The executive of Lonmin who at the time were colluding with high level politicians to actually summon the police on the miners.”
This while Democratic Alliance (DA) national spokeperson Solly Malatsi believes the African National Congress (ANC) has failed the families of the miners who were brutally killed.
“It has been 7 years since the government-inflicted tragedy and the victims’ families and loved ones have yet to see justice served.”