South African police on Sunday blocked a march by protesting miners after a security crackdown in the restive platinum belt, where officers shot dead 34 strikers exactly a month ago. Workers dispersed calmly after armoured trucks and armed police in riot gear stopped them from marching on a police station in northwestern Rustenburg, a day after officers fired rubber bullets to disperse workers in nearby strike-hit Marikana.
“The police have blocked us. They are dispersing us. Now we are telling our people to go back to where we came from,” said Gaddhafi Mdoda, a workers’ committee member at Anglo American Platinum.
Workers at mines in the area had planned the march to protest against the use of force by police. Several people were injured by rubber bullets Saturday at platinum giant Lonmin’s Marikana operation after government orders to stamp out flaring unrest in the key mining sector.
Absent from the march was the usual protest gear of machetes, spears and sticks, after piles of weapons were seized Saturday in early morning raids on worker hostels by hundreds of officers. Police raided the residences with the support of the army, confiscating piles of weapons and firing tear gas and rubber bullets after Friday’s announcement by the government that it will no longer tolerate the growing mines troubles.
The clampdown is targeting illegal gatherings, weapons, incitement and threats of violence that have characterised the unrest, with police telling the leaders of Sunday’s protest that they needed permission for the march. Chrome mine worker Lunsstone Bonase hit out at the government for blocking the protest.
“The government is against people of South Africa and allows people to be killed. But we are suffering as workers of mines,” he said.
“They are forcing us to go to work as they did under apartheid,” he added. Rising tensions have spilled over from Lonmin since a wage strike started on August 10, and have forced shut-downs at several mines, including those of the world’s top platinum producer Amplats and number four producer Aquarius Platinum.
