ANA reports that the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) said on Tuesday that 16 August, the day in 2012 when 34 striking miners were shot dead by police and many others wounded at platinum producer Lonmin’s Marikana operations, should be a public holiday.  

“Our primary demand that we raise every year is that, like Sharpeville, Langa, and Soweto massacre, Marikana massacre must also be recorded on our history.  We must take the day off from our daily duties as a way of displaying honour to the fallen martyrs, who fought the ANC elite capitalist government which serves the interests of comrades rather than the popular masses,” the party said in a statement.  The PAC indicated that it was dissatisfied with the living conditions of the mineworkers five years after the fatal demand for a R12,500 minimum wage at Lonmin.  “We have not seen the government taking responsibility to compensate the lives of Marikana massacre victims, they do not want to account for what they have done,” the party stated.

• Read this report in full at The Citizen

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