OneYear After The Masacre Miners in South Africa Still Waiting For Answers.

Miners gather to mark first year anniversary  of Marikana massacre in south Africa and a lot of questions are still hoping to get answers.  

One year after 34 striking workers from a Lonmin mine were shot dead by South African police in a massacre that captured the world’s attention, the turmoil continues. The tensions between the rival unions are a sign of political unrest in the sector, which is dominated by NUM, the powerful political ally of the ruling ANC party. Workers, poverty-stricken and desperate, have left NUM for AMCU, a more militant party that says it is fighting for the people, not the government. The country’s unions are politically influential heavyweights and the protracted union war promises sustained productivity losses and more strikes, scaring investors from South Africa and hurting the country’s economy, Africa’s largest.

 

 

 

 

 

Despite South African President Jacob Zuma promising change — “We must unite against violence from whatever quarter,” he said — and launching a commission to investigate the deaths, no charges have been laid and miners say their conditions have not improved. The Farlam Commission of Inquiry, convened by Zuma to investigate the deaths of 44 people at the Lonmin Marikana mine last August, has undergone multiple delays, most recently because the miners have been unable to secure legal funding, damaging its credibility. Zuma also set up a committee to find solutions to social inequities in the mining communities, but it has yet to make any recommendations.