South Africa mines hit by wildcat strikes after Marikana police shootings

ANC's former youth leader Julius Malema alerts soldiers and urges strikers to shut mines as unrest spreads after deaths

Three of South Africa's biggest mines came to a standstill on Wednesday as wildcat strikes spurred by a police massacre and firebrand politician threatened to paralyse the industry.
A walkout at the Lonmin platinum mine in Marikana, where 34 workers were gunned down by police last month, showed no sign of relenting, with the company reporting attendance down to 1.8% at all its shafts.
The unrest continued to spread elsewhere as security guards fired teargas at strikers at Gold Fields' KDC west gold mine, near Carletonville, where 85% of the workforce downed tools. The company said the workers had been intimidating and threatening contractors.
The world's top platinum producer was also hit. A column of 1,500 marchers, chanting and waving sticks, confronted riot police backed by armoured vehicles in a tense stand-off at Anglo American Platinum's Bathopele shaft. The company said it had to redirect its staff from the premises for their own safety.
The mining sector, which accounts for a fifth of South African gross domestic product, has been in turmoil since the strike at Marikana last month which led to the deaths of 44 people, including police and security guards.
On Tuesday, near the area where miners were striking, another, unidentified, body was found with deep cuts in the back of the neck.
The flames have been fanned by Julius Malema, a former youth leader who was expelled from the governing African National Congress for ill discipline this year.
ANC officials and unions have accused him of exploiting the situation at the mines so as to revive his career, but Malema's ferocious anti-elite rhetoric has struck a chord with angry miners who feel betrayed by the government. Malema has toured mines making soapbox speeches and urging a national strike.
In an interview on South Africa's Talk Radio 702 on Wednesday, Malema said: "We are calling for mine change in South Africa. We want the mines nationalised. We want the workers paid a living wage … and somebody has to listen.
"Maybe this call has been ridiculed … by the authorities and mining bosses. Now we want to show them that we mean business. We are going to be engaging in very peaceful yet radical and militant action that will hit straight into the pockets of white monopoly capital."

Malema, who is facing an official investigation into corruption, widened his campaign on Wednesday by addressing disgruntled members of the South African army, prompting the country's military bases to be placed on high alert for the first time since the advent of democracy in 1994.
Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, the defence minister, accused him of trying to "mobilise against the state".
Speaking to about 60 soldiers in civilian clothes at a recreation centre south of Johannesburg, Malema said he would never conspire to overthrow the government through undemocratic means, but told his audience to mobilise in a disciplined way to save their jobs.
He condemned the president, Jacob Zuma, for treating them as a low priority and he drew attention to the president's polygamous lifestyle.
He said: "I don't know what is a priority to him, maybe getting married every year. He specialises on that one. Maybe that is what is going right for him.
"Here, children don't have books, people in hospitals don't have the necessary machines, they don't have roads or clean water.

 

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/12/south-africa-mines-wildcat-strikes?newsfeed=true