ANA reports that the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) said on Thursday that Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa was not welcome to attend the fifth commemoration of the Marikana massacre next week.
This came after unconfirmed news of Ramaphosa’s the wish to attend events marking the anniversary of the shooting of striking miners for the first time in five years. On 16 August 2012, police gunned down 34 mineworkers who were participating in a strike at platinum miner Lonmin. Addressing the media on Thursday, Amcu president Joseph Mathunjwa said that the Marikana widows had “made it quite clear that he (Ramaphosa) is not welcome there for now. They need space.” In May this year, Ramaphosa, who had been a Lonmin non-executive director in 2012, apologised for a series of emails that he wrote to other Lonmin executives and government ministers in the days leading up to the massacre. The commemoration of the massacre will be held next Wednesday on the “koppie” where the workers were killed.
- Read this report in full at The Citizen
- See too, Ramaphosa not welcome at Marikana fifth anniversary, say widows, at The New Age
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