SPEECH BY CHIEF WHIP MATHOLE MOTSHEKGA DURING THE SPECIAL NATIONAL ASSEMBLY DEBATE ON THE LONMIN MINE TRAGEDY, 21 AUGUST 2012

We demean our common humanity when we resort to violence. We debase our Constitution when we turn on one another in deadly clashes and we devalue human life when we snuff it out with such ease.

The past weeks have brought home the horrors of what we believed we left behind with our apartheid past. The violent and dreadful crisis at the Lonmin Marikana Mine in Rustenburg stirred in all of us memories of our traumatic past where Black life and in particular, African life, was so cheap and easily discarded.

The Lonmin tragedy speaks to the many ills which continue to plague mine workers in the mining industry. In 1987 South Africa's longest and biggest strike took place where approximately 360 000 Black miners in the gold and coal went on strike over wage and working conditions. It lasted for three weeks costing the Chamber of Mines close on R250 million. In an attempt to break the strike, the Chamber of Mines retrenched approximately 50 000 workers.

The mineworkers' strike was violent, 11 people died, 500 were injured and over 400 workers were arrested. The mineworkers' strike finally came to an end after an agreement was negotiated with the Chamber of Mines outlining new working conditions and wage increases for mineworkers.

The early 90's was equally volatile with mine violence during the strikes and loss of lives. The first ever nation-wide mining strike occurred in 2007 in protest over working conditions and safety in the country's mining industry. The strike impacted over 240,000 workers in 60 of the nation's mines and the strike was spurred on by a rise in worker fatalities from 2006 to 2007, despite a government plan in October to reduce fatalities.

Thus the Lonmin tragedy, must be seen in the context that the mainstay of the mines was and is cheap labour, cheap black labour. A typical day as a miner at Lonmin mine can be characterized as such:

"Every single day, the drill operators are expected to drill through 30 metres of rock. His allocation is 10 metres every shift. The tunnel is only about 1.3 metres tall, and so he has to squat and point the heavy drill into the rock and hold it as steady as he can as it thumps away. He does this for eight hours per shift, in stifling heat, surrounded only by the din of the drill and the occasional presence of a shovel boy who shifts the broken rock that pile at his feet. The work takes a huge toll on the body and for those who have been there before hearing protection was introduced in 2008, on the ears as well." (Sipho Hhlongwane- Daily Maverick- 18 August 2012)

A study conducted by the Bench Marks Foundation culminated in a report titled "Communities in the Platinum Minefields" and released last week, highlights the many challenges facing such mines. The Foundation is an independent, non-governmental organization mandated by the Churches to monitor the practices of multi-national corporations to ensure they respect human rights, operate in a way that protects the environment and do not externalize costs, that profit-making is not done at the expense of other interest groups and that those negatively impacted upon are heard, protected and accommodated 

Regarding Lonmin's operations some of the key problems highlighted by the report include a high level of fatalities, very poor living conditions for workers, community demands for employment opportunities and the impacts of mining on commercial farming in the area. Almost a third of Lonmin's workforce is contracted labour, and community demands for employment have led to protests and unrest. The company was also in a union dispute, after which Lonmin dismissed 9 000 workers at the Marikana operations.

It is necessary to contextualize the situation of Lonmin especially in light of the impending Commission of Inquiry instituted by President Zuma. It would be necessary and extremely important to examine all underlying socio-economitragedy and should be broad enough to encompass all the variables that played such important roles in the escalation of the violence.

As a nation, we have seen and heard many media reports, heard many voices, felt many emotions and we require resolutions that are not a quick-fix or merely superficial bandaging of wounds. This inquiry must be able to give us a comprehensive understanding of how we descended into such anarchy and how we move forward.

Ours is not to apportion blame on the parties involved. But we should be worried that 18 years after achieving democracy and laying to rest the ghost of apartheid, we could so easily regress into possibly the worst tragedy since the end of apartheid. There have been local and global media reports trying to understand and make sense of this heartbreak.

There have been the usual doomsayers, ready to write South Africa off as another statistic and to quote one British journalist, Lindsay Johns on the Daily Mail who says South Africa is a "nation in turmoil, perennially be-devilled by the psychological scars of its past, and beset with a plethora of pressing socio-economic problems which those in power have spectacularly failed to rectify.

On balance, things do not augur well for the Rainbow Nation. The fears of a descent into internecine violence and even more bloodshed which plagued South Africa in its transitional, post-apartheid phase were to some degree allayed, but now all of a sudden seem very real once again." There are many others positing similar views.

Here at home, the Honourable Wilmot James of the DA has already made a ruling on the situation just by his visit to Lonmin and he states and I quote: that "favours for the politically well- connected members of NUM, as well as the gruesome nature of the ten murders earlier in the week, appear to have played a significant part in instigating the atrocities experienced at the mine last week." (Politicsweb- 20 August 2012).

Surely, we need a deeper analysis and a more- well informed diagnosis than his politically opportunistic comment? A party that does not understand the collective bargaining dispensation, calls for "more flexible labour market", defends labour-brokering and demonises COSATU is ill informed to offer constructive solutions.

As South Africans we acknowledge that the decades of apartheid's divisiveness and the untold suffering and deprivation it wreaked upon the majority of our people, is still prevalent. We saw the evidence of its legacy in this past week's shocking and disturbing events at Marikana.

We are a country in mourning this week, as we remember the lives lost in this tragedy. What was a fight for a better wage in order to live a better life, took a desperate and catastrophic turn resulting in 44 deaths. In an instant our country was plunged back into the dark years of our past and we saw the rainbow nation fast disappearing in the wake of such brutality.

If our history has taught us anything, it is that we are a people of negotiators, a people of forgiveness and a resilient people of peace.

Apartheid categorized us a country with a violent and horrific past, who the whole world believed would descend into civil war. But, we proved them wrong. They did not count on our leaders, skilled negotiators who believed that peace was the only way to achieving our goals.

They did not count on the South African nation, a people, though fractured and wounded from decades long discrimination, racism, downtrodden and broken from having every aspect of their lives degraded and dismissed, who rose to the challenge of compromise, accommodation and negotiating with the enemy to forge a new South Africa. That is who we are- survivors and peacemakers.

We are a generation who experienced first-hand the effects of peace, negotiation and forgiveness. No elected national leader has better reflected its influence than Nelson Mandela, the prototype of the leader whose influences comes not from military or economic might, but from the power of ideals and the ability to capture the minds and hearts of people of all corners and colors of the universe.

In a speech in New Delhi in 2004, he stated that " peace and development are indivisible. He added that: "South Africa, the country that inspired the Mahatma and that was inspired by the Mahatma, chose a path of peace in the face of all the prophets of doom. We chose his path, the route of negotiation and compromise.

And we hope that we honoured his memory. And that in remembrance of that great tradition others will follow. Human beings will always be able to find arguments for confrontation and no compromise. We humans are, however, the beings capable of reason, compassion and change."

There is no doubt that we are a violent society. The crime against humanity that was apartheid, and which was inflicted on the masses for decades, has contributed to a certain numbness when we are confronted with the horrors of violence. We have tried to heal as a nation, but there are triggers which conceal how volatile certain aspects are.

Despite this, we know that just as our liberation was in our hands, so too is our democracy.

Our Constitution embodies the values of a just and caring society including:

• Reconciliation and creation of a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights;
• A democratic and open society in which government is based on the will of all the people and a society in which all citizens are protected by the law;
• Improvement of the quality of life of all citizens and freeing the potential of each person.

What we have witnessed the past week points to the fact that the process of social cohesion, nation building and reconciliation remains under threat from the very real disparities between the rich and poor, black and white, women and men, rural and urban. These widening gaps between the haves and have-nots continue to undermine our reconciliation efforts and pose a great threat to nation building.

The National Planning Commission (NPC) Report has identified many fault lines which are triggers to derailing unity and stability in the country. They have identified the following "fault lines": 

The pervasive, divisive effects of institutionalized racism whereby "hundreds if not thousands of laws to separate people, to banish them far from their places of birth, to move people and to subjugate them, and to implement these laws, was built sophisticated institutional machinery used to deprive black people in general and African people in particular from decent education and health care, housing, jobs and from places of worship." 

• Class Divisions which parallel racial classification
• Social fragmentation
• Language
• Exclusion
• Gender and Sex
• Unemployment
• Unequal experience of the law
• Incomplete healing process

As Bishop Tutu so succinctly declared: "For unless houses replace the hovels and shacks in which most blacks live, unless blacks gain access to clean water, electricity, affordable health care, decent education, good jobs, and a safe environment- things which the vast majority of whites have taken for granted for so long- we can just as well kiss reconciliation goodbye.

In this period of national mourning, we need to be able to call for cool heads, for calm and rational dialogue to prevail and to commit to ensuring that we never witness another Marikana tragedy again. We extend our deepest sympathies to the families, friends and colleagues of those who lost their lives.

Issued by the ANC Parliamentary Caucus, August 21 2012

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