Widows support Marikana postponement

The widows of miners killed during strike-related unrest at Marikana last year are in support of the Farlam Commission of Inquiry being postponed, the commission was told on Thursday.

 

 

Dali Mpofu, for miners wounded and arrested during the unrest, has requested that the commission be halted as he and his legal team attempt to get funding from the State.  Mpofu and his team have provisionally withdrawn from the commission because of the lack of funding. A letter from one widow, Zameka Nungu, was read before the commission on Thursday.  In her letter, Nungu said it was important that the commission only proceed in the presence of the miners.She said besides the journalists, the miners were the only other people who were present when police shot dead their relatives at Marikana. Nungu said the answers all lay with the miners. She did not believe the police version of events prior to the shooting.

 

 

She said the outcome of the commission would assist relatives to heal, find closure and see justice served. Mpofu has been to the high court and the Constitutional Court to try to compel the State to fund them. Both courts dismissed his application. He was heading back to the High Court in Pretoria on September 25 and 26 to appeal the decision. The commission, sitting in Centurion, is investigating the deaths of 44 people during strike-related unrest at Lonmin's platinum mining operations at Marikana, near Rustenburg in August last year.

 

  

Thirty four people -- almost all striking mineworkers -- were shot dead in a clash with police on August 16.Ten people, including two police officers and two security guards, were killed in the preceding week.

 

  -Sapa