Cops blocked path - Marikana witness
2013-03-05 14:35
Rustenburg - A miner wounded at Marikana on 16 August 2012
insisted at the Farlam Commission on Tuesday that his group could not disperse
because police blocked their path to the Nkaneng informal settlement.
Advocate Vuyani Ngalwana, representing the police,
repeatedly asked Mzoxolo Magidiwana why his group did not disperse away from
the police line, like many of the other protesters.
Magidiwana acknowledged that police aerial photographs
showed no police blocking the main road to Nkaneng. He also acknowledged that
the picture showed others walking unimpeded on that road.
Path blocked
Asked why his group did not use on the same path, Magidiwana
said: "The question you are asking is self-explanatory: we wanted to walk
that way but found it blocked."
Ngalwana said: "I thought we agreed, no one was blocking
that path."
After Ngalwana repeated the question a number of times, even
in Xhosa, he said: "I take it you are refusing to answer my
question."
Magidiwana replied: "What do you want me to say?"
Looking again at the aerial photograph, Ngalwana asked why
his group did not disperse like others visible in the picture.
"We were singing.... We did nothing to anyone, so we
walked, not ran. We only wanted money... after that, the road was blocked, the
only way we could run was blocked."
Magidiwana accused Ngalwana of lying when he said other
protesters dispersed into the veld, and Magidiwana raised his voice in apparent
frustration.
Commission chairperson Ian Farlam warned him to behave
himself.
"Otherwise we will be here, not to say until Doomsday,
but much longer than expected."
The commission has already been granted an extension until
the end of May.
'Fenced in'
Ngalwana asked why Magidiwana, in his written statement, had
claimed that police were "fencing us in".
"You are not suggesting police were surrounding you
with barbed wire, are you?"
After a long pause, Magidiwana said: "We were
surrounded, because even behind us, at the back, there were police
officers."
After the tea-break, he clarified: "I never said we
were encircled by barbed wire".
Ngalwana contended that there were numerous routes
Magidiwana's group could have chosen to get to Nkaneng, and that these led away
from the police line.
After extensive discussion on Monday about which path Magidiwana's
group took during the first approach to the police line, this point had still
not been fully established by noon on Tuesday.
Shot, beaten
Magidiwana previously told the commission that the police
repeatedly shot and beat him on 16 August. He was arrested for possession of a
firearm, but could not be detained because of the severity of his injuries.
He has denied police claims that he carried a firearm and
that he shot at a police Nyala vehicle.
The commission is holding hearings in Rustenburg, North
West, as part of its inquiry into the deaths of 44 people during an unprotected
strike at Lonmin's platinum mine in Marikana last year.
On 16 August, 34 striking mineworkers were shot dead and 78
were injured when the police opened fire while trying to disperse a group which
had gathered on a hill near the mine.
Ten people, including two police officers and two security
guards, were killed near the mine in the preceding week.
- SAPA
