No striking miners will be fired in the week that South Africaofficially mourns the killings of 44 men at a platinum mine, including 34 strikers shot by police last Thursday, a spokesman for the presidency told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
Managers of Lonmin PLC platinum mine had ordered strikers to report for duty by 7 a.m. Tuesday or get fired, even as some family members still were searching for missing loved ones, not knowing whether they were dead or alive among some 250 arrested protesters or in one of the hospitals treating 78 people wounded in the police shootings that shocked the nation.
Two survivors told the Daily Dispatch that many of the miners drank a brown muti, or traditional medicine, to strengthen them ahead of the confrontation with police.
“They were cut several times on their upper body and a black substance was smeared on the wounds,” Nothi Zimanga said, according to the newspaper in East London, in the country’s Eastern Cape where many miners come from. “They were then told when they confront the police they must not look back and must just charge forward. If you look back then the muti will not work.”
Miner Bulelani Malawana said he was offered the muti for $125 but turned it down, as did Malawana.
“After they got the muti people were so aggressive. They just wanted to fight. They felt so invincible,” Malawana said.
Harold Molaka said an inter-ministerial committee led by Minister in the Presidency Collins Chabane convinced managers of Lonmin PLC platinum mine not to act on the ultimatum during a week of national mourning that began Monday.
The argument made was that “this is a period of mourning and they should be sensitive to that, and the management of Lonmin is part of that nation, and they agreed there would be no ultimatum so that the mourning process can be observed,” Maloka said.
The mine’s executive vice president Mark Munroe told TalkRadio 702 FM early Tuesday that those who did not report for work will be punished, but not necessarily dismissal.