South Africa prepares memorials for dead miners

Marikana, South Africa: South Africa on Wednesday readied for nationwide memorials to honour the 44 people killed during a wildcat strike at the Lonmin platinum mine, most of them shot by police.

Ceremonies were planned for today in Marikana, 100 kilometres from Johannesburg, where police gunned down 34 miners in a clash a week ago, said Collins Chabane, chief of the president’s office.

“We are looking at the memorial service at Marikana... there is a decision that there should be a memorial service,” said Chabane in an interview on public radio.

A memorial would also be held in the city of Mthatha in the rural Eastern Cape province, home to many of the miners.

“We remember that most of the people come from rural areas and therefore Eastern Cape is preparing for one,” said Chabane.

“Ceremonies are going to be held everywhere in the country,” he added.

No mass burials were planned, as families from across South Africa picked up the bodies of their loved ones, many of them migrant labourers, for burials at home.

One of the dead was a Lesotho national.

Flags have been flying at half-mast since Monday as the nation mourns the deaths.

“We don’t want these memorial services to be politicised. We want these memorial services to be free of politics, to be free of rhetoric. Then people can focus on the mourning,” said Chabane.

South African President Jacob Zuma rejected criticism that his handling of the most lethal police action since the end of apartheid has hurt investor confidence in the world’s biggest platinum producer.

In his first television interview on the shooting and killing of 34 mineworkers during an illegal strike at Lonmin Plc’s Marikana mine on Aug. 16, Zuma told Bloomberg TV yesterday that he has taken decisive steps to show that his government is in control. Those include creating a judicial inquiry and a committee of cabinet ministers to investigate the violence, he said. Zuma said he won’t fire his police commissioner.

“Our observation is that nothing has happened to investor confidence,” Zuma, 70, said in an interview at his offices in Cape Town. “I am convinced that the action that was taken so far helped to show South Africa is in control.”

The violence highlighted investor concern about law and order in an economy that relies on mining for almost two-thirds of its exports. The rand fell as much as 1.8 percent against the dollar on the day the number of dead was announced, more than any of the more than 25 emerging-market currencies monitored by Bloomberg.

“The global community has to look at what happened based on facts,” Zuma said. “We are talking about an incident that took two to three minutes and government moved immediately and we are in control of the situation. If I was an international, global observer, why should I get worried? You could get worried if there is continuous fighting and killing.”