UNITED FRONT SUPPORTS CALLS FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE OF THE MARIKANA REPORT

26 May 2015

The United Front joins the Marikana Support Campaign (MSC), the Right2Know Campaign (R2K) and the South African History Archive (SAHA) in submitting a Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) to the Presidency demanding the release of the Farlam Commission Report on the Marikana massacre. We also fully support the court action taken by AMCU, the workers injured and arrested in the Marikana massacre and their families to force President Jacob Zuma to release the Marikana report. We demand nothing less than justice for Marikana! We demand immediate full public access to the full report and its findings!


In terms of PAIA, the Presidency must respond to the request within 30 days. The report was sent to the President on 31 March, but is yet to be made public. President Zuma has avoided all questions around when he will be releasing the report to the public. The delay in the release of the Marikana report is unacceptable. This delay is likely to affect accountability from those responsible for the Marikana massacre. We demand the immediate release of the Marikana report without further delay. 

We cannot but link the delays in the release of the Marikana report with the increase in police repression and brutality as we see in the horrible Operation Fiela that we see visited on our sisters and brothers from other African countries and other working class townships. This Operation Fiela is about how protest is criminalised, how the poor are policed like criminals and when they raise their problems and grievances the answer is violence by the ruling class and the bourgeois state. This was what led to the Marikana massacre. The United Front opposes Operation Fiela as it is about the criminalisation of protest.

Statement issued by Mazibuko K. Jara, United Front Interim National Secretary, May 26 2015