South African Marikana miners charged with murder

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

Workers arrested at South Africa's Marikana mine have been charged in court with the murder of 34 of their colleagues shot by police.
The 270 workers would be tried under the "common purpose" doctrine because they were in the crowd which confronted police on 16 August, an official said.
Police opened fire, killing 34 miners and sparking a national outcry.
Police have not been charged because a commission of inquiry would investigate their actions, the official said.
Six of the 270 workers remain in hospital, after being wounded in the shooting at the mine owned by Lonmin, the world's third biggest platinum producer, in South Africa's North West province.
About 100 people protested outside the Ga Rankuwa magistrates court near the capital, Pretoria, to demand the immediate release of the accused.
National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) spokesman Frank Lesenyego told the BBC the 270 workers would all face murder charges - including those who were unarmed or were at the back of the crowd.
"This is under common law, where people are charged with common purpose in a situation where there are suspects with guns or any weapons and they confront or attack the police and a shooting takes place and there are fatalities," he said.
BBC South Africa analyst Farouk Chothia say the decision to bring murder charges under the "common purpose" doctrine is politically controversial because the former white minority regime used it against activists fighting for democracy in South Africa.

(More at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-19424484)

[Prometeo liberado]

One of the competing threads may have covered this but I'll go over it anyway. Apparently the new, upstart Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union(AMCU) is under suspicion for being funded by the mine owners as a bulwark against the entrenched National Union of Mineworkers(NUM). This tactic of funding the opposition, for divisive purposes, goes back to the days of the ANC and the Inkatha Freedom Party. What is striking here though is that the notorious Marikana mine, one of the last to open up ownership via shares to black South Africans, has ties to the ANC led government. Such as ANC member Cyril Ramaphosa. So who is to blame here? The South African Communist Party recently asked the question of how one side in the conflict could be armed primarily with clubs and spears, the NUM, and the other, AMCU, with the Police and guns? How after so long in power is Nationalization still not on the table? Who benefits from from this chaos? Just like the street fighting between the ANC and Inkatha, the real enemy still sits safely above the fray, controlling it's pawns.

[Clarion]

How after so long in power is Nationalization still not on the table?

The Police Force which murdered the strikers was a nationalised firm. How would ownership of the mine by that same state help the workers there?

[Prometeo liberado]

The Police Force which murdered the strikers was a nationalized firm. How would ownership of the mine by that same state help the workers there?

I'm talking about nationalizing the mines. Something that was a top priority when the ANC first came in to power. Nationalizing the mine would take two very important factors out of this violent equation, the influx of unaccounted for arms and money aimed at breaking one union in favor of another.
It's just a stepping stone of course. And as for the pigs, well pigs will always protect the money'd class until there is none.

[Clarion]

the influx of unaccounted for arms and money aimed at breaking one union in favor of another. There's no reason to assume that would be the case. The National Coal Board in the UK ran union-busting operations in the 1980s, a more co-ordinated and successful one than any private owner has pulled off since.

And if nationalisation does stabalize the situation it will do so in the interests of capital.

[Robocommie]

So let me get this straight, the miners are being charged with the murder of their compatriots, the ones who were actually killed by the police? What the hell kind of miscarriage of justice is that? You might as well pin the murders on the dead men themselves and try them post-mortem for as much sense as this makes.

[Prometeo liberado]

So let me get this straight, the miners are being charged with the murder of their compatriots, the ones who were actually killed by the police? What the hell kind of miscarriage of justice is that? You might as well pin the murders on the dead men themselves and try them post-mortem for as much sense as this makes.

I read somewhere, and I'm currently trying to find it, that the SACP has done a preliminary investigation and talked to witnesses that say some of the AMCU members were armed with guns and did indeed fire them. And not towards the cops. That begs the question that if they were who supplied them?