South Africa is not a country at peace with its people.

Miners sit together during a strike calling for increased wages at a platinum mine in Marikana.

Deep underground, men crouch in low galleries, eight hours a day. Their arms held straight ahead, they drive the 25kg drills into the rockface. The heat is stifling, the din unbearable. The miners at the Lonmin platinum mine at Marikana earn less than £350 a month. Their patience finally snapped, resulting in the clash last Thursday that left 34 bodies in the veld.
The National Union of Mineworkers headquarters in central Johannesburg is a world away. The air-conditioned offices of the general secretary, Frans Baleni, with black leather furnishings and glass coffee table, speaks of power and influence. He is a man used to dealing with mining bosses – the Randlords of old. He is a staunch ally of President Jacob Zuma, now fighting for his political life ahead of December’s ANC party elections.
Baleni rose through the union ranks, but today he’s accused of turning his back on his grassroots. When I met him it was about another dispute – the Aurora mine. Bought by Khulubuse Zuma (the president’s grandson) and Zondwa Mandela (Nelson’s grandson) they had left its 5,500 workers without pay for 18 months. When pressed to act, Khulubuse Zuma provided a one million rand donation to the ANC for election expenses.
The NUM had led protests through the streets of Johannesburg, but why didn’t Baleni take the case of the Aurora miners directly with the president, whom he meets regularly? He looked down and remarked that it was inappropriate. “We have avoided speaking directly to the president,” he said. “Interactions with the president are very limited.”
This is extraordinary - the NUM is one of the best connected organisations in the country. Its past leadership include the deputy president, Kgalema Motlanthe, and the ANC’s Secretary General Gwede Mantashe. The union has fallen foul of a corporatist culture. Unions are members of the Tripartite Alliance, running the country with the ANC and the South African Communist Party. The Alliance was vital in the fight against apartheid, but today the movement is distanced from the people it seeks to represent.
Describing South Africa’s massive inequalities as "very sick indeed", the leader of the Cosatu unions, Zwelenzima Vavi told his conference in 2010:

“Our belief is that if we were to confiscate all the medical aids, that most of us here have; if our cabinet ministers and MPs were forced to take their children to the public hospitals and be subjected to the same conditions as the poor; if we were to burn their private clinics and hospitals and private schools; if the children of the bosses were to be loaded into unsafe open bakkies (trucks) to the dysfunctional township schools; if the high walls and electronic wired fences were to be removed; if all were forced to live on R322 a month (£25), as 48 per cent of the population has to do, and if their kids were to die without access to antiretrovirals, we would have long ago seen more decisive action on many of these fronts.”

The alienation of ordinary men and women has allowed breakaway unions, like Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU), to poach members from established unions. The NUM has spoken darkly about management backing AMCU to split the shop-floor. This may have a grain of truth, but it does not address the wider issue. Protests against the failure of the government to provide the basic needs of communities are a daily occurrence. As Paul Holden and I have shown in our book Who Rules South Africa, service delivery protests have brought more than two million people onto the streets every year since 2008. That is roughly 5 per cent of the entire population. The protests frequently turn violent and there are frequent losses of life. South Africa is not a country at peace with its people.

Massacre Of 34 Miners In South Africa: The Nigerian Army Threatens To Kill Electricity Workers In Nigeria

Photo credit: REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko

By Femi Falana, SAN

Last Thursday was a sad day in the history of independent South Africa when black policemen opened fire on striking miners, killed 34 of them and injured 78 others. In a provocative statement issued by the Authorities of the South Africa Police Service it was claimed that the brutal attack was carried out in self-defense. But the video footage of the incident has clearly shown that the miners were running away from teargas smoke when the police engaged in the reckless shooting and killed them.
The Police Commissioner who made the callous and insensitive statement should be fired for the desperate move to cover up the heinous crime committed by the murderers in police uniform.
The cold murder of the miners is a tragic reminder of the white police firing at anti apartheid protesters and school children in the 1960s and 1970s. Now it is a police force dominated by blacks that is killing miners and other oppressed people in South Africa who are justifiably demanding for the dividend of the liberation struggle.
Instead of addressing the demands of the miners for improved wages and nationalization of the white controlled mining industry the Jacob Zuma Administration ignored the workers until the Police decided to kill 34 of them. The strike provides a golden opportunity for the African National Congress to arrest the growing inequality between a white minority of bourgeoisie joined by a tiny black elite and the majority of black people wallowing in abject poverty. President Zuma who had based his campaign on black empowerment should be blamed for the xenophobic attacks and police killing of the oppressed Africans in a free South África.
Having regard to the facts and circumstances of the killing of the miners the setting up of a commission of inquiry by President Zuma is totally uncalled for. This was the methodology of the apartheid regime to douse tension, divert attention and shield official killers from prosecution. The commission should be wound up while all the murder suspects should be arrested and charged to court for homicide. Let the Police Authorities go to the court to plead self-defense on behalf of the suspects.
In a similar situation the Federal Government of Nigeria has deployed a detachment of the Nigerian Army to the headquarters of the Power Holding Company in Abuja to deal with the unarmed workers who are demanding for payment of their legitimate entitlements from the authorities before the privatization of the company. Having collected about N300 million which was illegally diverted from the Federal Ministry of Power the Army Authorities are hell bent on flushing out the striking workers to pave way for the planned liquidation of the assets of the PHCN. As all efforts by the Nigeria Labour Congress and other interest groups to persuade the Minister of Power, Professor Barth Nnaji to end the military occupation have failed the armed troops have threatened to "deal ruthlessly" with the workers. It means that the soldiers may open fire on the striking workers any moment from now.
In order to prevent the killing of unarmed electricity workers by the armed goons the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan should order the Chief of Army Staff to end the siege. The Authorities of the Ministry of Power and the Bureau of Public Enterprises should equally be prevailed upon by the Federal Government to enter into meaningful negotiations with the striking workers without any further delay.
Femi Falana