Pretoria - North West deputy police commissioner William
Mpembe was questioned at the Farlam Commission of Inquiry on Tuesday about
police plans to manage the Marikana unrest.
Evidence leader Mbuyiseli Madlanga sought answers on the
progression of the six-phase plan to deal with striking Lonmin mineworkers.
Madlanga asked: "Are you telling us that the stages,
as the police planned them, were not supposed to take place sequentially from
one up to six? Is that what you are telling us?"
Mpembe said the police plan was updated on 13 August,
three days before 34 miners were shot dead.
"I have said it earlier in my testimony, the
spontaneous operation that I attended and the plan, which followed was guided
in the way I am speaking now. I chaired the meeting on the 14th at which the
[updated] plan was adopted."
One of the three commissioners, Pingla Hemraj, asked
Mpembe about allegations that a plan to cordon off the hill where the
protesters had gathered and search them was suggested at the 14 August meeting.
Stage six was the final phase of the operation and
included cordoning off the hill and searching the protesters and their hostels.
In stage three, the protesters were meant to be broken up
into smaller groups, encircled, and disarmed.
Implementation of
stages
Commission chair, retired Judge Ian Farlam, asked Mpembe
to clarify the implementation of the stages and their sequence.
Farlam asked: "Was the cordoning and searching
[stage six] going to happen before stage three? I am trying to understand the
sequence of the events.
"When were the first attempts made to implement that
stage [six]? Was stage six to be implemented before or after stage three?"
Mpembe said the stages were not implemented in numerical
order.
Farlam said he did not understand why the stage would be
numbered six if it was to be implemented before earlier stages.
Police shot dead 34 striking Lonmin platinum mine workers
and wounded 78 at Marikana on 16 August while trying to disperse them.
The commission is probing the events surrounding the
shooting, and the deaths of 10 people in strike-related violence the previous
week.
