|
Union leader calls for calm
04/07/2006 15:30 - (SA)
Johannesburg - Deputy president of the National Mineworkers Union, Crosby Moni, has visited the Driefontein mine following the murder of a senior member of the union as he was going home.
Elias Mulaudzi, who was the NUM's branch chairperson at Carletonville's Driefontein gold mine and the town's councillor, was murdered on his way home from work.
The 46-year-old was walking home after work when a man armed with a .38 Rossi revolver stopped him, shot him in the head and, after he had fallen, shot him in the chest, said inspector Solomon Sibiya of West Rand police.
He said Mulaudzi's alleged killer was apprehended by the NUM official's "guys", who handed him to police.
Sibiya said: "It seems as if the man was a hired hitman."
The 26-year-old man is expected to appear in Carletonville
magistrate's court on Wednesday.
NUM general-secretary Frans Baleni said on Tuesday: "This is a great loss to us all... We pass our condolences to the entire Mulaudzi family, the union mourns with them," .
He said Mulaudzi's death followed that of two other NUM leaders killed in and around the Driefontein mine.
On Tuesday, Baleni appealed for calm.
"It is important that all our members, and workers in general, at the mine remain calm in the face of this tragedy," he said.
"Serious concerns were raised about the fact that another union leader in the same mine was once more killed by an unknown Zulu-speaking person who was not even employed at the mine.
"The union is concerned that these sentiments could invoke tribal and factional emotions that may be deep-seated in the area. We hope that the Goldfields management will play their part in this regard too," Baleni said.
Selby Mayise, the regional chairperson, was killed "by workers" in the late 1990s while Stokie Monyemoratwa, Mayise's deputy, was shot dead by unknown assailants in 2002.
"The killings of these union leaders, appearing to be isolated criminal incidents, seem to have a connection with the past factional violence of Driefontein mine.
"Although in the 1990s it bore an overt and public feature, it now seems to have taken a low intensity and covert character," said Baleni.
Details of Mulaudzi's funeral would be revealed later, the union said.
|
News
