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Striking miners feel wrath of police
Source: Agencies |
September 16, 2012, Sunday
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POLICE in South Africa yesterday fired rubber bullets and tear gas, sending men, women and children scattering as they herded them into their shacks in a crackdown on striking miners at a platinum mine.
The show of force followed a South African government vow to halt illegal protests and disarm strikers who have stopped work at one gold and six platinum mines northwest of Johannesburg. The strikes have destabilized South Africa's critical mining sector.
It was the first police action since officers killed 34 miners on August 16 in state violence that shocked the nation.
About 500 officers raided hostels at Lonmin PLC platinum mine before dawn and confiscated homemade machetes, spears, knives and clubs, said police spokesman Brigadier Thulani Ngubane.
A half dozen men were arrested for illegal possession of arms and drugs in those raids, he said.
Officers first fired tear gas at hundreds of miners who refused to disarm at the hill of granite boulders that has become the strikers' headquarters.
Police then moved into the Wonderkop shantytown where residents set up barricades of burning tires to try to block the officers from their neighborhood. Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at people who disobeyed orders baying over a bull horn for them to stay in their homes, tin shacks without electricity or running water divided by dirt tracks.
An army helicopter flew in to help herd people indoors.
Justice Minister Jeff Radebe called a press conference on Friday to say the government was intervening because the mining industry is central to the economy of Africa's richest nation.
"The South African government has noted and is deeply concerned by the amount of violence, threats and intimidation that is currently taking place in our country," Radebe said.
The show of force followed a South African government vow to halt illegal protests and disarm strikers who have stopped work at one gold and six platinum mines northwest of Johannesburg. The strikes have destabilized South Africa's critical mining sector.
It was the first police action since officers killed 34 miners on August 16 in state violence that shocked the nation.
About 500 officers raided hostels at Lonmin PLC platinum mine before dawn and confiscated homemade machetes, spears, knives and clubs, said police spokesman Brigadier Thulani Ngubane.
A half dozen men were arrested for illegal possession of arms and drugs in those raids, he said.
Officers first fired tear gas at hundreds of miners who refused to disarm at the hill of granite boulders that has become the strikers' headquarters.
Police then moved into the Wonderkop shantytown where residents set up barricades of burning tires to try to block the officers from their neighborhood. Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at people who disobeyed orders baying over a bull horn for them to stay in their homes, tin shacks without electricity or running water divided by dirt tracks.
An army helicopter flew in to help herd people indoors.
Justice Minister Jeff Radebe called a press conference on Friday to say the government was intervening because the mining industry is central to the economy of Africa's richest nation.
"The South African government has noted and is deeply concerned by the amount of violence, threats and intimidation that is currently taking place in our country," Radebe said.
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