Striking miners have decided to stick with violence as a means to solve the problems at Lonmin’s Marikana mine. Representatives of protesting workers who marched 5km to Lonmin’s Karee mine today from Marikana, said that they will kill Lonmin management unless they stop operations at the platinum mine.

This is quite the negotiation tactic. IOL reported that five representatives told manager Jan Thiroun that management had today and tomorrow to close the mine’s K3 shaft or “they would end up dead and the mine would be burnt down.” The K3 shaft is the mine’s busiest.

Jan Thiroun, who arrived at the mine’s gate with two heavily armed bodyguards told the workers’ representatives to go back to the negotiating table and sign the peace accord. “Violence doesn’t solve anything. It is not in everyone’s interest,” he said. The miners obviously think differently.

The workers from Marikana marched to the Karee mine in an attempt to get their colleagues to stop working, and also to issue out some death threats. On their way there, the strikers carried knobkerries, sticks and iron rods singing, as IOL reports:

We died because of [President Jacob] Zuma. [Bantu] Holomisa please come and rescue us.

The police attempted to thwart the march but, as with nearly all the tragic events at Marikana, they failed. The crowd pushed through and carried on to the mine. Local residents of the Karee West informal settlement cheered them on shouting “Viva R12 500. Viva”.

Meanwhile, the mine has warned that the strike could cost 40 000 jobs if it continues; it remains shut down with fewer than five per cent of miners turning up for work.

[Source: IOL]