South African police officers killed more than 30 miners who charged
them at a Lonmin PLC platinum mine, authorities said Friday, as a
national newspaper warned that a time bomb ticking over poor South
Africans has exploded.
A policeman collects weapons that were supposedly used by protesting miners after they were shot outside a South African mine in Rustenburg, 100 km (62 miles) northwest of Johannesburg, August 16, 2012. South African police opened fire on Thursday against thousands of striking miners armed with machetes and sticks at Lonmin's Marikana platinum mine, leaving several bloodied corpses lying on the ground.
Thursday’s shootings are one of the worst in South Africa since the end
of the apartheid era, and came as a rift deepens between the country’s
governing African National Congress and an impoverished electorate
confronting massive unemployment and growing poverty and inequality.
Protesters sing as they hold weapons outside a South African mine in Rustenburg, 100 km (62 miles) northwest of Johannesburg, August 16, 2012.
The brutal scenes took place at the Marikana platinum mine, which is owned by British miner Lonmin.
South African protesters lie
motionless on the ground as heavily armed police officers check them at
the Lonmin Platinum Mine near Rustenburg, South Africa
Footage shot at the scene clearly shows officers firing live ammunition from automatic weapons and handguns
Protesting miners can be seen
cowering within the gun sights of an police officer. Witnesses say as
many as 18 could have been killed in the shootings
Pictures showed bodies lying on the ground in pools of blood.
Scores of police, armed with automatic rifles and pistols, fired on the protesters, leaving many more injured.
Footage broadcast on South African
television showed police letting off a volley of gunfire at the mine, 60
miles northwest of Johannesburg.
Striking miners sing, chant, march and dance with crudely made weapons and machetes at the Lonmin mine near Rustenburg, South Africa, Wednesday Aug. 15, 2012.
There were suspicions that some of the miners may have been armed with guns also.
The shootings recalled images of white
police firing at anti-apartheid protesters in the 1960s and 1970s, but
in this case it was mostly black police firing at black mine workers.
Lonmin, the world’s third biggest
platinum miner, had threatened to sack 3,000 rock drill operators if
they failed to end a wildcat pay strike at its flagship Marikana mine,
where 96 per cent of all the company’s platinum production comes from.
The company, which is registered on
the London Stock Exchange and has its UK headquarters in central London,
says it has so far lost six days of production, which represents
‘300,000 tonnes of ore, or 15,000 platinum equivalent ounces’.
The unrest at the mine began last
Friday as some 3,000 workers walked off the job over pay in what
management described as an illegal strike.
Police form an armed cordon around
strikers. It is unclear whether these miners are injured or lying down
for officers to conduct searches
Miners can be
seen between police vehicles throwing rocks at officers. Victims on both
sides have been killed in recent days
In the heat of the incident, dust
flies and police take cover. Water cannon and tear gas had been fired at
miners before police opened fire
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