Africa: Politique, killings, and Power

In South Africa the opposition demanded that the political leaders of the Marikana massacre are prosecuted in 2012, following the publication of a report which exempts from liability and involves only the police.

The current South African deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa is particularly under attack. He was then a member of the board of Lonmin, the company operating the mine Marikana and had contacted his ministers friends to request the intervention of the police against the strikers.

Thirty-four miners were shot dead by the police on 16 August 2012 on the platinum mine site near Rustenburg (north). The report supported the police and request the opening of a criminal investigation, but does not suggest any sanction or action against political.

Marikana Support Campaign," an advocacy NGO families, also believes that "the exemption of Cyril Ramaphosa, Nathi Mthwetha and Susan Shabangu (Minister of Mining) and any executive is perhaps the most shocking conclusion report.

True to their radical rhetoric, the EFF for their part do not hesitate to compare this report to the reaction of the apartheid authorities after the most notorious massacres perpetrated by the police of the regime, Sharpeville (1960), Soweto (1976) or Vaal (1984), where no one had been punished after the death of black demonstrators killed by the white regime.

Not a single member of the executive has assumed responsibility for the tragedy. It is an insult to the families and friends of those who lost their lives, "says the DA, which calls for the immediate resignation of Ms. Phiyega.