Rising tensions at a South African platinum mine exploded Thursday in grisly violence as police opened fire on striking miners.
Blood-stained bodies lay strewn about a field in a police response reminiscent of the ugly days of apartheid.
Police have not released a
death toll, but a South African Press Association reporter counted 18
corpses. It's feared more could be dead.
Witnesses described the scene as chaotic, making it seemingly impossible to determine who started firing on whom first.
The South African Police
Service, though, issued a statement late Thursday indicating its members
trying to "disarm and disperse a heavily armed group of illegal
gatherers at Lonmin mine" when they were fired upon.
"The South African Police
Service was viciously attacked by the group, using a variety of
weapons, including firearms," the agency said. "The police, in order to
protect their own lives and in self defense, were forced to engage the
group with force."
Taurai Maduna was one of several journalists at the mine in Marikana who was told the weeklong strike was going to end Thursday.
"We waited and waited," he told CNN. "Police started moving into the crowd."
He said the police
brought in barbed wire to fence in the miners, who were believed to be
armed with guns, machetes and sticks, CNN affiliate E-TV reported.
Police fired tear gas
and then used a water cannon to disperse the strikers congregating atop a
hill. The mine workers retaliated by firing at police, and a storm of
gunfire lasted about three minutes, E-TV said.
"There was a lot of commotion," Maduna said. "There was tear gas everywhere. I haven't seen anything like this."
The situation remained
tense Thursday night after what was the deadliest day in almost a week
of violence at the Markinana mines.
With the situation
"still unfolding" at that time, "senior officials from the Independent
Police Investigative Directorate" were managing the scene, according to
the South African Police Service. The commissioner of the national
police agency, Gen. Riah Phiyega, was among those at the site.
Production at the
world's third-largest platinum producer came to a halt as workers,
mostly rock drillers, embarked on a wildcat wage strike last Friday over
a wage dispute. The miners who earn between $300 and $500 a month are
demanding up to $1,500 a month in salary.
The violence was believed sparked by a rivalry between unions that wield a lot of power and influence in South Africa.
A statement from Lonmin
said 10 people had died before Thursday's incident -- eight mine workers
and two policemen, who were reported to have been hacked to death.
Roger Phillimore, the
chairman of Lonmin, said his company regretted the loss of life "in what
is clearly a public order rather than labor relations associated
matter."
"We are treating the developments around police operations this afternoon with the utmost seriousness," he said.
The company had issued
an ultimatum to the striking workers: Return to work by Friday or face
dismissal. That was before Thursday's bloodshed.
"The violence that has
occurred cannot be condoned and has no place in the way that labor
relations and inter-union relations should be conducted," said Mildred
Oliphant, the minister of labor. "The loss of life has been particularly
tragic and unnecessary."
Earlier this year, at
least three people were killed during a six-week strike at the world's
second-largest platinum mine, Impala Platinum.
That violence also was
blamed on union rivalry, though the two implicated unions, accused of
trying to outdo each other in negotiating wages, deny instigating the
clashes.
Frans Baleni, head of the dominant National Union for Mineworkers, said Monday that members were under siege.
"Our members have been attacked, and that cannot be said to be clashes or rivalry, it is pure criminality," he said.
The newer Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union also denied any blame.
In response to the
latest violence, a statement posted on South African President Jacob
Zuma's website on Thursday night said Zuma "is alarmed and deeply
saddened at the manner in which (the) dispute ... has degenerated,"
calling the deaths "tragic" and "senseless."
The president urged
union and business leaders to use "dialogue without any breaches of law
or violence" to resolve the "situation before it deteriorates any
further," adding that government authorities have a role as well.
"I have instructed law
enforcement agencies to do everything possible to bring the situation
under control and to bring the perpetrators of violence to (justice),"
Zuma said.
