Marikana lesson: Police commanders should be topnotch

Did we learn anything from the Marikana killings? How long will it be before our police service again uses deadly force against protesting civilians – and ends up with a body count which shocks the nation?

Those are questions we should be asking, 10 years after more than 30 miners died in a hail of police gunfire. And we should be getting answers – both from the cops and from their political masters, the ANC.

The reality is that no answers – adequate ones at least – have been forthcoming. Nor does it look likely they will be. This is not a mere academic debate, either.

In the 10 years since Marikana, protests, which often turn violent, have become a daily occurrence. And in July last year, the mother of all protests in KZN and elsewhere – what President Cyril Ramaphosa characterised as an “insurrection” – gave us a frightening glimpse of what a complete collapse of law and order would look like.

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The possibility of that happening again cannot be ignored. That insurrection went so far and fast because there was no public order policing response. Most of our security cluster was missing in action until much too late.

There needs to be strict policy on crowd control, based on global best practices and a graded set of responses depending on the threats to the lives and property of members of the public. These are nowhere near in place, going by the brutal and chaotic suppression of civilians in the Covid lockdowns from March 2020.

Police personnel deployed on public order tasks need to be the best, brightest and most well-trained in the service. Their commanders should also be topnotch and not ANC cadre deployees.

It is not fair to let badly trained, poorly led, scared officers be the ones who end up with blood on their consciences.