4 August 2020 — Tricontinental
An Anti-Eviction Campaign activist gazes at the construction site of the Delft transit camp, a ‘temporary relocation area’ for people evicted from shacks closer to the city. March 2009.
Kerry Ryan Chance
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
12 April 2013 — Amandla!
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) is in the midst of the biggest crisis in its 27-year history. This crisis has arisen from a South African Communist Party (SACP)-driven attempt to oust democratically elected COSATU general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi, under the guise of corruption charges. The conflict’s roots are in longstanding political contradictions and ideological tensions between COSATU and its Alliance partners – the ruling African National Congress and the SACP. At stake is not only the leadership of COSATU, but its political and moral direction.
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
28 August, 2012 — RT
South African police are facing accusations of mass murder after autopsies on the victims of a bloody crackdown at Marikana platinum mine, showed that miners were shot in the back. Meanwhile, new violence has broken out at the location.
26 August 2012
The African National Congress (ANC) won a resounding victory in South Africa’s first democratic election in 1994 with a host of promises that it would improve the lives of the Black majority (85% of the population). And whilst there have been gains in some areas, overall, most Black South Africans are materially worse off now than they were under Apartheid.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.”
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.
14 August 2012 — Daily Maverick
The New Dark Age 