Tag: Lonmin

Death of South Africa’s Lonmin Mining House. “Murder by Money” By Prof. Patrick Bond

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30 May 2019 — Global Research

Autopsy reveals the British-South African corpse’s poisoning by microfinance, ‘development finance’ and corporate finance

The death of the 110-year old mining house Lonmin at a London shareholders meeting on May 28 occurred not through bankruptcy or nationalisation, as would have been logical at various points in time. It was the result of a takeover – generally understood as a rip-off of investors and workers – by an extremely jejune (7 year-old) South African corporation, Sibanye-Stillwater. The latter’s chief executive, Neil Froneman, is known for extreme aggression in both corporate takeovers and workplace cost-cutting, with by far the highest fatality rate in the mining industry.

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Marikana Massacre Hangs Over South Africa's New Extremely Rich ANC Leader

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19 December 2017 — TRNN

After a tight race that exposed stark divisions within the party, the African National Congress elected Cyril Ramaphosa, an anti-apartheid crusader, business tycoon, and key suspect in the 2012 Marikana Massacre is positioned to be the country’s next president. But will he root out corruption, or is he part of the problem? (inc. transcript) Continue reading →

South Africa: Sectarian shame of the SACP By Terry Bell

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16 August 2013 — Terry Bell

Shortly after the column below was written and blogged, the SA Communist Party issued its statement on Marikana that reveals the deep and dangerous sectarianism of this organisation. Here, I feel, is exposed one of the roots of the problem. I include here the final paragraph of that statement as an introduction to a repeat of the Inside Labour column that appeared here yesterday: Continue reading →

Video: Platinum Miners and Class Struggle in South Africa By Patrick Bond

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10 January 2013 — The Real News Network

 

Patrick Bond: Platinum miners strike inspires workers across <strong class=’StrictlyAutoTagBold’>South <strong class=’StrictlyAutoTagBold’>Africa; Billionaire mine owner becomes deputy head of ANC

 

Bio

 

Patrick Bond is the Director of the Center for Civil Society and Professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in <strong class=’StrictlyAutoTagBold’>South <strong class=’StrictlyAutoTagBold’>Africa. Bond is the author and editor of the recently released books, Politics of <strong class=’StrictlyAutoTagBold’>Climate Justice and Durban’s <strong class=’StrictlyAutoTagBold’>Climate Gamble. (inc. transcript) Watch full multipart Platinum Miners and Class Struggle in South Africa Continue reading →

South Africa: Politics, profits and policing after the Marikana Massacre By Patrick Bond

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20 December 2012 — Links International journal of Socialist Renewal

Lover of fast cars, vintage wine, trout fishing and game farming and the second richest black businessperson in South Africa (global financial publication Forbes puts his wealth at $675 million or £416 million), Cyril Ramaphosa (left) celebrates his election as deputy president of the ANC with South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma. Ramaphosa demanded that police break the Marikana mineworkers’ strike; police massacred 34 mineworkers and wounded 78 others.

By Patrick Bond

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The Marikana Massacre and the South African State's Low Intensity War Against the People By Vishwas Satgar

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5 September 2012 — The   B u l l e t • Socialist Project • E-Bulletin No. 693

The <strong class=’StrictlyAutoTagBold’>massacre of the <strong class=’StrictlyAutoTagBold’>Marikana/<strong class=’StrictlyAutoTagBold’>Lonmin workers has inserted itself within <strong class=’StrictlyAutoTagBold’>South <strong class=’StrictlyAutoTagBold’>Africa’s national consciousness, not so much through the analysis, commentary and reporting in its wake. Instead, it has been the power of the visual images of <strong class=’StrictlyAutoTagBold’>police armed with awesome fire power gunning down these workers, together with images of bodies lying defeated and lifeless, that has aroused a national outcry and wave of condemnation. Continue reading →

Ronnie Kasrils: Marikana – It was like poking a hornet's nest

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26 August, 2012 — Sunday Times (South Africa) — Those in power say, don’t point fingers. But we need exactly that if we’re to learn from this, writes Ronnie Kasrils.

Our country reels with horror and shock at last week‘s Marikana shootings. There is disbelief around the world that this has happened in a democratic South Africa.

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Can't you hear the thunder? By Jay Naidoo

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22 August 2012 01:09 — The Daily Maverick
NewImage

The headlines scream ‘Marikana Massacre’; ‘Killing Fields of Rustenburg’. Radio and TV Talk shows and social media all display the anger and expose the psyche of a nation badly wounded. The bloodiest security operation since the end of apartheid has left us shocked and asking what went wrong? The reality is, many things went wrong. Way too many things went wrong, for way too long now. 

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Democratic Left Front: Justice now for the Marikana workers and community!

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23 August, 2012 — Democratic Left Front statement on the Marikana massacre

On August 16, 2012, post-apartheid democracy lurched into a horror. It was estimated 34 mineworkers at the Lonmin mine in the North West province were brutally gunned down by police, and in total over 70 workers have been injured. The death toll at this stage is still not completely verified, with the community still reporting loved ones missing and not accounted for in official body counts.

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Turmoil at South Africa’s Platinum Mines by Pratap Chatterjee

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23 August 2012 — CorpWatch Blog

Cyril Ramaphosa photo courtesy Mining Weekly video. Rustenberg platinum processing plant courtesy bbcworldservice. Used under Creative Commons license

A third wildcat strike this year has closed yet another South African platinum mine less than a week after the police opened fire and killer 34 miners at the Lonmin mine north of Johannesburg. The latest to lay down tools are a thousand workers at the Royal Bafokeng Platinum Mine at Rasimone this Wednesday.

The strikes have hit the global supply of platinum, which is mostly used by the car manufacturing industry to make catalytic converters. Some 80 percent of the world’s supply of the precious metal is mined in South Africa.

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Echoes of the Past: Marikana, Cheap Labour and the 1946 Miners Strike Chris Webb

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21 August 2012 — The Bullet • Socialist Project E-Bulletin #684

On August 4, 1946 over one thousand miners assembled in Market Square in Johannesburg, South Africa. No hall in the town was big enough to hold them, and no one would have rented one to them anyway. The miners were members of the African Mine Worker’s Union (AMWU), a non-European union which was formed five years earlier in order to address the 12 to 1 pay differential between white and black mineworkers. Continue reading →

Lonmin, the 'unacceptable face of capitalism' By Sipho Hlongwane

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20 August 2012 — Daily Maverick

The company that preceded Lonmin was once dubbed ‘the unacceptable face of capitalism’ by a British prime minister. Tiny Rowland, man who turned the company into an international colossus, wore the slur happily. In the aftermath of the Marikana shootings, it seems like not much has changed since his day. By SIPHO HLONGWANE. Continue reading →

NGO accuses platinum mine owners of neglecting communities

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17 August 2012 11:44 — SABC

Several Platinum miners have dismissed a non-governmental organisation report on their operations in the Rustenburg area. The Bench Marks Foundation is accusing platinum miners of neglecting mining communities in pursuit of profits. Mineworkers union National Union of Mineworkers has come out in support of Bench Marks findings.

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Letter from a South African reader on the Marikana miners massacre

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18 August 2012 — WSWS

The WSWS received the following letter from a reader in South Africa on Thursday’s police massacre of striking miners Rustenburg’s Marikana platinum mine.

Shortly before the police attack on striking mine workers at Rustenburg’s Marikana platinum mine, police spokesperson Dennis Adriao issued a chilling threat, a portent of the massacre to follow: “Today is unfortunately D-Day.”

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Marikana: NUM: Rival union 'may have planned' mine violence

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Friday 17 August 2012 — The Morning Star

South Africa‘s police force admitted today that its officers had killed more than 34 miners at the Lonmin Marikana platinum mine on Thursday.

National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) secretary general Frans Baleni put the toll at 36 and blamed the unrest on the rival Association of Mineworkers and Communication Union making promises which could never be delivered and, in the process, organising an illegal action which led to the loss of lives.

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South Africa: Lonmin's Killing Fields By Greg Nicolson

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14 August 2012 — Daily Maverick

Background
Johannesburg — Two police officers were hacked to death at a Lonmin platinum mine on Monday, where workers have been protesting. Already at least seven people have been killed. The arrival of senior police commissioners at the scene appears futile in the latest instalment of a turf war over union power.

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At least 18 killed as S. African police open fire on thousands of striking miners (PHOTOS)

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16 August, 2012, 18:46 – RT

A policeman gestures in front of some of the dead miners after they were shot outside a South African mine in Rustenburg, 100 km (62 miles) northwest of Johannesburg, August 16, 2012. (Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko)

A policeman gestures in front of some of the dead miners after they were shot outside a South African mine in Rustenburg, 100 km (62 miles) northwest of Johannesburg, August 16, 2012. (Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko)

At least 18 bodies were seen lying bloody and motionless on the ground after local police opened fire on striking miners, a South African news agency reports. Some of the protesters were allegedly armed with machetes and spears.

­The incident is believed to have occurred after police, in the process of laying down barricades of barbed wire, were outflanked by a crowd of 3,000 demonstrators.  

Nine people had been killed prior to Thursday’s clashes in a spate of protest in the mining town, located northwest of Johannesburg. The platinum mine, owned by Lonmin PLC, has been the focal point of protests over wage disputes since last Friday. 

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