MARIKANA, South Africa, (Reuters) – South African police opened fire on striking miners armed with machetes and sticks at Lonmin’s Marikana platinum mine today, killing at least a dozen men in scenes that evoked comparisons with apartheid-era brutality.
In the incident, filmed by Reuters television, officers opened up with automatic weapons on a group of men who emerged from behind a vehicle and started loping towards police lines.
The volley of bullets threw up clouds of dust, which cleared to reveal bodies lying on the ground.
President Jacob Zuma said he was “shocked and dismayed” at what appeared to be one of the bloodiest police operations since the end of white-minority rule in 1994 in Africa’s biggest economy.
“I have instructed law enforcement agencies to do everything possible to bring the situation under control and to bring the perpetrators of violence to book,” he said in a statement.
Police have refused to confirm any death toll from the operation to disperse 3,000 protesting drill operators who had massed on a rocky outcrop near the mine, 100 km (60 miles) northwest of Johannesburg.
A Reuters photo showed a dozen corpses lying on patch of sandy ground, while a spokeswoman from the opposition Democratic Alliance said the overall toll could be as high as 38. The SAPA news agency said one of its reporters had counted 18 bodies.
World platinum prices leapt as much as $30 an ounce – more than 2 percent – to a six-day high as the extent of the violence became apparent in the country with 80 percent of known reserves.
Leaders of the radical Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU), which was representing most of the strikers, accused police of a massacre.
“There was no need whatsoever for these people to be killed like that,” General Secretary Jeffrey Mphahlele told Reuters.
Some commentators likened the scenes to apartheid-era footage of ranks of police opening fire on crowds of protesters in black townships.
“I cannot think of a confrontation between protesters and police since 1994 that has taken place along these lines,” said Nic Borain, an independent political analyst.
