Marikana Killer Cops Still Walking the Streets: R2K and MSC call for the dismissal of implicated police!
7 July 2015
Following the release of the Farlam Commission report last week, the Right2Know Campaign and the Marikana Support Campaign have used the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) to demand answers from SAPS on what steps it has taken in the past three years to investigate wrongdoing amongst its members.
The Farlam Commission report was released at the end of last month, three months after it was sent to the Presidency. The report has been met with disappointment from families of those who were killed and the survivors of the massacre, as well as social justice organisations.
The soft treatment given to the executive in the Commission’s findings has been highlighted in many analyses and reports. Many have expressed disappointment in the Commission’s failure to find anyone in particular to be responsible for the deaths of 34 miners on 16 August 2012. Rather, the Report, pins the blame on processes, or lack thereof, within the south African Police Services. The outrage over not acknowledging personal responsibility and accountability should not eclipse the question of what needs to be done to ensure that police who pulled the trigger, and others who implicated in unlawful action at Marikana, are held accountable.
Up until the very last day of the Commission the SAPS’s stance was that it had done nothing wrong at Marikana. Now that the report has been released it can no longer justify this stance. Despite the unsatisfactory nature of the report it clearly confirms there are considerable grounds for believing that a large number of SAPS members at Marikana acted unlawfully. The Report also indicates that several members of the SAPS deliberately mislead the Commission itself. The implication that these members acted unlawfully cannot – and should not – be disregarded by the SAPS.