SA yet to emerge from the darkness of Marikana

Phumzile Sokanyile was one of the five lives claimed during the violent clash between police and striking mineworkers in Marikana on 13 August 2012.

Eight years later, five police officers have finally been charged with his murder and are standing trial in the North West High Court in Mmabatho.

But in the interim, both his mother and his wife have gone to their graves. Neither will ever see justice for Sikonyile.

“It’s so sad,” Khuselwa Dyantyi – a candidate attorney at the Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa (SERI) – said yesterday. “Justice is taking so long that people are dying”.

SERI has over the course of the last eight years been working closely with the families of the mineworkers who were killed on 13 August – as well as those who were killed in the now infamous Marikana massacre, which took place three days later and saw another 34 mineworkers gunned down – to try and secure justice for them.

The institute represented the families at the Farlam Commission of Inquiry into the Marikana massacre and the events leading up to it as well as in their civil claims against the state.

Dyanti was at court yesterday, at their request.

Speaking on the sidelines, she said the families had been “waiting for this day”. But she also highlighted that to date no-one had been held to account for the deaths that took place on 16 August.

“By the time we get to know whether or not the state will prosecute those responsible for what happened on the 16th, how many of their loved ones will be left?” she asked.

On the anniversary of the Marikana massacre this year, SERI issued a statement blaming the state’s failure to prosecute those responsible on a lack of political will.

“Last year, President Cyril Ramaphosa described Marikana as ‘the darkest moment in the life of our young democracy’.

However, with the families of the miners and other victims of police violence waiting for those responsible to be held accountable, South Africa has never emerged from that dark moment,” the institute said at the time.

“The cost of violent policing and lack of accountability continues to be paid by the families in their continued suffering. Government and the police have demonstrably failed to heed any of the lessons from Marikana. They have failed to implement any measures to restrain the use of force by the police and to see to it that officers who work outside of the confines of the law and international best principles are held accountable”.

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