WATCH: Marikana tragedy commemorated

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Marikana - Thousands of Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) members braved the windy, dusty weather on Wednesday, to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the Marikana tragedy. Dressed in green union regalia, mineworkers and union members gathered at the foot of the infamous koppie (hill) in the Nkaneng informal settlement to remember 34 of their colleagues who died when the police shot them on August 16 in 2012. Amcu president Joseph Mathunjwa said the Marikana massacre was different from the Sharpeville and Langa massacres because it happened under a constitutional democracy. "It is shameful that the same people who claimed to have liberated us and who condemned police violence against protesters, were the same people who led the police to kill striking mineworkers," Mathunjwa said. He said Lonmin workers were used as cannon fodder to reassure foreign investors that their interests were safe.

Lonmin CEO Ben Magara says Lonmin paid for the education of 153 children of deceased mineworkers. PHOTO: ANA Reporter

"The demands of Lonmin workers were unsettling the status quo, it threatens to shift the collective bargaining landscape and turn it on its head."

Tough talking Mathunjwa called for a change in the electoral system to allow the electorate to elect the president directly. He added that the multi-party negotiation gave the black majority a constitution but, left the economy in the hands of white people.

He said by 2019 he could lead a Labour Party, and make sure there were only two parties -- the labour party and the democrats.

Amcu president Joseph Mathunjwa wants a change in the electoral system. PHOTO: Molaole Montsho.

"Mines are busy retrenching and the Nedlac [National Economic Development and Labour Council] refuses to give us permission to march. If they continue to decline our application we will march illegally and should just one miner be fired for being at that march, there will be trouble."

He said from next year mineworkers would earn over R12,500.

"We were able to dismantle apartheid salaries in this country. Those dead workers were real pioneers of radical economic transformation,” Mathunjwa said.

Lonmin CEO, Ben Magara, urged workers to work together with the mine to fix the conditions at the mine and in Africa.

"I have travelled with Mr Mathunjwa to visit all the orphans, 153 of them, that our 44 colleagues left us. All these kids are still in school paid for by Lonmin. The first graduate Michael Yawa has a BSc in agriculture paid for by Lonmin...I am saying, Africa we can fix this together but if we are divided we will not fix it," Magara said.

Advocate Dali Mpofu, who represented mineworkers in an inquiry, said the government was torturing families of the deceased and injured persons by going to the media and saying that they were settling their claims for compensation.

"The truth is this, since last year [2016] you know that they said they are talking to us and call us to a meeting because they know the elections are coming after the election dololo settlement until today. Again when it come closer to 2019 election they will come and say we are settling the issue of Marikana. I think the time has come for [President Jacob] Zuma and his people to stop playing with our people..."

Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema has called for August 16, to be declared a public holiday.

Forty-four people were killed during a violent wage strike at Lonmin platinum mine in Marikana near Rustenburg in the North West province in August 2012.

About 28,000 Lonmin mineworkers went on a wildcat strike demanding to be paid a minimum basic salary of R12,500 per month.

The workers rejected the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and elected to be represented by a workers' committee. They spent days on top of a koppie at Nkaneng informal settlement, refusing to come down and demanded that the employer go to negotiate with them at the koppie.

On August 16, 2012, 34 mineworkers were gunned down by the police. Ten people, including two policemen and two Lonmin security guards, were killed a week earlier.