Last week saw Jacob Zuma release the long-awaited Marikana report, something you can watch in full HERE if you really feel like spoiling your Monday.

Of course opposition parties (and many reasonable people across the country) were quick to criticise Zuma’s approach on the matter and the truth, whilst it may never be fully known, paints a complicated and intricate picture.

Last month saw the Mail and Guardian’s Nick Davies write an excellent article titled ‘The savage truth behind the Marikana massacre’ and, in particular, one person who has come to be known as ‘the man in the green blanket’. Below are excerpts taken from the article:

 On August 16 2012, South African police opened fire on a large crowd of men who had been on strike at a platinum mine at Marikana in North West Province. They shot down 112 of them, killing 34. In any country, this would have been a traumatic moment. For South Africa, it was a special kind of nightmare…

In response, President Jacob Zuma appointed a commission of inquiry, chaired by retired judge Ian Farlam, which sat in public for a total of 293 days, hearing evidence from miners, their bosses and the police, and reviewing video, audio and paper records of the shooting and of the seven-day strike that preceded it.

Right, that is the scene set, let’s get down to finding out who the green-blanketed gentleman is:

The name of the man in the green blanket was Mgcineni Noki. He was aged 30, and known to his family and friends as Mambush…

Mambush – a rock-drill operator with no official rank – emerged from the mass of black workers as a rebel leader demanding justice, while some of those who once spearheaded the fight against repression acted as a shield protecting privilege, exploitation and extreme violence. It is a story about power changing hands and changing colour but failing, finally, to change the lives of those in whose name that power is held.

Now as mentioned before the story is a complicated, multifaceted one that requires a good understanding of the events that led up to the fateful day but we’ll jump to August 16 and see the final scene play out:

Mambush tried to raise morale, talking to the strikers through a megaphone, his left hand beating the air, urging them to stay until Lonmin agreed to negotiate: “We are tired of being captive. We will decide who will remain here – either the police or us. You cannot have two bulls in the same kraal.” At 1.30pm, senior police met to discuss their plan to “disarm and disperse” the strikers…

At 3.30pm the Amcu leader came back to the koppie and spoke to the strikers with passion, at one point dropping to his knees: “Comrades, the life of a black person in Africa is so cheap … They will kill us, they will finish us and then they will replace us and continue to pay wages that cannot change black people’s lives. That would mean we were defeated and that the capitalists will win. But we have another way. We urge you – brothers, sisters, men – I am kneeling down – coming to you as nothing. Let us stop this bloodshed that the NUM allowed this employer to let flow. We do not want bloodshed!”

As he finished, hundreds of striking miners began to walk down from the koppie. Xolani was at the top and had been watching what looked like preparations for war: firearms being handed out, police vans with racks of coiled barbed wire, three helicopters circling. He called Mambush, who was in a small group at the foot of the koppie, on his phone to warn him.

One of those alongside him was Mzoxolo Magidiwana, known as Mzo, a burly locomotive driver aged 24. He knew Mambush from village football games in the Eastern Cape. He said that Mambush decided to lead the strikers away, saying: “Don’t run. We haven’t done anything wrong”…

Mambush led them to the left around a small animal enclosure, made of bushes and blackthorn trees. But as they reached the far side, with the settlement in front of them, more police vans blocked their path. There was teargas. A water cannon opened fire. And then bullets, from behind and to their left…

For 15 minutes, there was no firing. Then two groups of officers closed in on one of the two smaller koppies. Several dozen strikers were now hiding among its rocks and bushes. Police opened an explosion of intense fire – 295 bullets, many aimed from the top of the koppie down at the shapes of men huddling below. Seventeen more men died there. Police in one of the helicopters were lobbing stun grenades at fleeing miners.

Mambush was mowed down and killed alongside those whose voices he was trying to champion, a casualty of what was a brutal showing of police force both unnecessary and unwarranted – not too mention inhumane.

The story of Mambush and the miners is really only done justice by reading the full article (HERE), with the story painting a picture that should anger all of us far more than it seems to.

[source:mg]