South Africa: Murder and War Talk As the Killing Fields Move to Amplats

analysis

Johannesburg — No peace is to be found on Rustenburg's platinum belt - tensions are rising at Amplats, where a worker was shot dead by police last week and 12,000 workers got sacked. Strikers said they'd die before allowing new labour on site, while police demanded that workers get permits for gatherings. But leaders of the wildcat strike say conditions for permission to assemble are impossible to comply with, and add that labour will gather in defiance of any ban. The situation looks increasingly dangerous.

"They shot that worker in cold blood. It is nothing more than cold-blooded murder, but the state doesn't have the political courage to own up to this," Mametlwe Sebei, a leader in SA's Democratic Socialist Movement, told Daily Maverick. Sebei is talking about 48-year-old mine worker Mtshunquleni Qakamba, who died after police opened fire on strikers. The workers gathered on a hill adjacent to Anglo American Platinum's Merensky reef near Rustenburg on Thursday 04 October 2012, to get an update on the wildcat strike.

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