Demilitarisation of the police is a welcome recommendation in the long-awaited report released last month by the Farlam Commission into the events that led to the deaths of 44 people in August 2012 in Marikana, in the North West province, says nonprofit organisation the Bench Marks Foundation director John Capel.

The Bench Marks Foundation released its own report, Policy Gap 6, on the situation in the North West in July 2012, days before the Marikana massacre.

It later released another report called Policy Gap 7: Lonmin, Coping with Unsustainability, in 2013, which looked at the com- pany’s reporting on itself over a period of ten years in its Corporate Social Development reports.

“We have highlighted the increasing militarisation of the police, especially in mining communities, for a very long time. It is truly unfortunate that it has taken a horrendous event such as the Marikana massacre to bring this to the fore,” he says. He points out that the Bench Marks Foundation hopes that the investigation will also be made into the private security companies that are hired by mining companies, as he says that much of what happened during August 2012 can be attributed to events occurred during other strikes in the area throughout the year, where workers were killed by mine security.

Capel says that the report showed platinum miner Lonmin’s continuous use of rubber bullets through its security company.

He adds that these rubber bullets were shot at the protestors during the 2012 Marikana strike, often in contradiction to the instructions of the police.

“The report shows that the violence escalated after Lonmin’s aggressive actions. Prior to this, strikers only bore sticks and shields, but after this incident, they armed themselves with sharp objects,” he says.
Capel notes that the Bench Marks Foundation is disappointed in the limits of the Farlam Commission’s terms of reference, adding that this has resulted in little investigation into the history of the area and of the period preceding the event, which would have given more answers to the true happenings and events that gave rise to the massacre.
“Facts, such as the strikers only arming themselves after the violence by Lonmin, seem to not have influenced the outcomes of the Farlam proceedings, yet it shows that Lonmin’s actions escalated the strike into a huge confrontation leading to the events that transpired on August 16, 2012.”