About 150 people from different municipalities gathered in Grahamstown on Tuesday 16 August to commemorate the 34 people who died during the Marikana miners’ strike in September 2012.
About 150 people from different municipalities gathered in Grahamstown on Tuesday 16 August to commemorate the 34 people who died during the Marikana miners’ strike in September 2012.
The miners were demanding a decent wage increase and that resulted in police opening fire and killing 34 people with 78 injured. The Tuesday march was organised by the Rural Peoples Movement (RPM), Unemployed Peoples Movement (UPM), Voices of Women of Africa (VWA) and Masifunde Education and Development Project Trust. There were also some EFF members who wore their regalia in the march.
The RPM is an organisation of people from Makana, Ndlambe and Ngqushwa municipalities. VWA is a women’s organisation based in Grahamstown.
People from the municipalities came in numbers and supported the march. It started at Chan Henry in Dr Jacob Zuma Drive and went up to the St George’s Hall in High Street.
Lungiswa Majamani addressed the crowd and explained the purpose of the march. She said the significance of the march was to support the families of those who lost their loved ones during the police shoot-out.
“The miners were fighting for a very important thing, a decent salary that would enable them to support their families and send their children to schools and get an education.
“The police got a mandate from our government to shoot and kill the innocent miners. Police are meant to protect people but in that case they were the killers. Our government is on the capitalists’ side and we are slaves.
“It is us women who mostly felt the pain of that incident. Women are the ones who are looking after homes and children and making sure that everything is going well. It is the wives of those men who are now suffering and with nothing to put on the table,” said Majamani.
UPM leader Ayanda Kota said it was all because of the ANC that the miners were killed. He said the march was to wake people up and to not forget what the ANC-led government did to poor families.
“We shall never forget 34 mine-workers that were assassinated by the Zuma regime because any nation that forgets its martyrs will soon forget itself.
“Our history is written in blood and pain. We shall never forgive them for betraying the cause, the noble cause of our Struggle for emancipation of humanity. We shall never forgive them,” said Kota.
