More than 1,000 striking South African miners waving sticks and whips demonstrated on Wednesday at Lonmin’s Marikana mine, where police shot dead 34 of their colleagues last month in the bloodiest security incident since the 1994 end of apartheid.
Dozens of police arrived at the scene while a helicopter hovered above the protesting rock-drill operators, whose strike to demand a hefty pay hike is now in its fourth week, crippling London-headquartered Lonmin.
One man at the front of the column waved a placard reading “We want 12,500 or nothing else”, a reference to the group’s demand for a hike in base pay to 12,500 rand (US$1,500) a month, more than double their current salary.
Another protester, who did not wish to be named, said the demonstrators were heading to Lonmin’s nearby Karee mine to “take out the people who are working in the mine shaft”.
Marikana accounts for the vast majority of the platinum output of Lonmin, which itself accounts for 12 per cent of global supply of the precious metal used in jewellery and vehicle catalytic converters.
Both Marikana and Karee, 100 km northwest of Johannesburg, have been closed since thousands of rock drillers went on a wildcat strike and protest nearly four weeks ago that led to the August 16 police crackdown.