The great crime of Marikana and the deadly mistakes made by police

One act was central to converting what had already been a week of killing and confrontation at Marikana in 2012 into a massacre. That was the instruction for the police to launch the operation against the strikers on the afternoon of 16 August. This led directly to the police killing 34 people and seriously injuring many others. 

In the days before, there had been many other acts of violence. Three strikers had been killed by police. Seven other people, including two police, were murdered allegedly by people associated with the strike.

The Marikana Commission report provides a list of matters to be referred to the North West Director of Public Prosecutions for investigation “to determine whether there are bases for prosecution.” One of these is “the possible liability of senior officers in the South African Police Services” for the shootings that took place on 16 August. 

The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) has initiated prosecutions for some of the killings that took place before that day. But 10 years after the incident, the NPA still has not indicated whether it will prosecute anyone regarding the 34 deaths. 

Several South African Police Service (SAPS) ‘tactical units’ — among them the National Intervention Unit and the Tactical Response Team — were deployed at Marikana. They were armed with R5s, a high-velocity rifle developed by the country’s arms industry for use in the border wars of the 1970s and 1980s. Of the 34 miners killed at Marikana on 16 August, 33 were shot by R5 rifles.

There were over 600 SAPS members, including roughly 300 from the tactical units. They were facing a group of around 3,000 strikers, more than 300 of them armed with spears and other weapons. This was not a conventional public order operation intended to disperse the crowd. Instead, the plan envisaged that police would break up the large gathering into smaller groups, which they would then encircle and disarm. 

The police believed that they would be met with violent resistance if they tried to disarm the strikers. 

Public Order Police (POP) units equipped with rubber bullets, teargas and stun grenades were involved in the operation. But police doubted they could defend themselves effectively if attacked by the strikers. The deployment of the tactical units with their R5s was intended to ensure that the police could get the upper hand if the public order officials were attacked. 

There was no immediate need for the operation to be launched that Thursday afternoon. Knowing there was a possibility of major bloodshed, the police went ahead. Their plans and preparations gave no serious attention to minimising the risk of police relying on the weapons carried by the tactical units.