‘We will never witness justice for Marikana miners’
The annual Marikana memorial lecture has heard that families of the slain miners might have to accept that they will never receive justice.
Xolani Dube, from the Xubera Institute for Research and Development, spoke at an event to pay tribute to the 44 workers who died during the strike at Lonmin in August 2012.
The Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) held the commemorative event on Wednesday ahead of the 9th anniversary of the Marikana Massacre on Thursday.
Dube told the families that there won’t be justice for all the people who lost their lives.
“I think about kids that you left at home, what goes in their mind each and every day when they switch on the television and they see the faces that claim to care for them? That is the most painful thing when there is no justice.
“How can you tell a child whose father was killed in Marikana that in South Africa there is justice. There is no justice that is real and we will never witness it, that is the reality. We will come each and every year and peal our wounds.
“This thing must stop, it must stop. How can we say we are having a caring president, someone who told the world that one day I’ll go and apologise, as we speak today, that man never did that is the arrogance of people who claim to be your leaders,” Dube told the families.
Dube said by offering money to the families, President Cyril Ramaphosa admitted guilt.
“It is an admission of guilt to say I'll pay money, it is an admission of guilt to say I will apologize why pay money and apologise for something he didn't do?
“Why is the world not frowning upon this man, where is the business people to say we want justice. Where are the defenders of democracy to take the people who killed innocent people of Marikana to the International Court of Justice so that we can see that South Africa is a country where justice is served.”
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