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City Press reports that a scathing court ruling has found President Cyril Ramaphosa might carry some blame for the lead-up to the bloody Marikana massacre.
The Johannesburg High Court ruled last week that a case could be made that he “participated in, masterminded and championed the toxic collusion” between mining company Lonmin and the SA Police Service (SAPS) that led to the Marikana massacre. The ruling has opened a door for the 349 surviving Marikana mine workers to hold Ramaphosa personally liable for compensation for their injuries during the 2012 carnage near Rustenburg, North West. The mine workers had applied to court to claim damages against Ramaphosa and Sibanye-Stillwater (which acquired Lonmin a few years after the massacre) for the injuries suffered during the incident in August 2012, when police shot and killed 34 striking Lonmin employees. The complainants are among the striking workers who were wounded in the hail of bullets and were subsequently arrested. They are seeking nearly R1 billion in compensation from Ramaphosa and Sibanye. In defence, Ramaphosa raised eight grounds of exception, citing why the application should be dismissed, while Sibanye raised 10. In terms of the notice of exceptions, Ramaphosa and Sibanye wanted the mine workers to remove from the application allegations that were “vague and embarrassing”. On Friday, Judge Frits van Oosten upheld four of the president’s exceptions, but rejected one, in which he found that Ramaphosa had taken part in, planned and endorsed the cooperation between Lonmin mine in Marikana and the SAPS, which had culminated in the deaths, injuries, arrests and detention of the striking mine workers. The Farlam commission of inquiry into the shootings was of the view that Ramaphosa could not be said to have been the cause of the massacre
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Setumo Stone at City Press (subscriber access only)
- See too, Ramaphosa ‘liable’ in Marikana mine debacle, at The Citizen
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page