MATTHEW CARNEY, REPORTER: More than anyone, Nelson Mandela has made modern day South Africa.

00:20

 

But his legacy of peace and equality has been damaged forever in the mining belt of Marikana, north-east of Johannesburg.

00:29

 

"Is there a problem to film here?"

MAN:  "No, there's no problem. Murder here, murder there."

00:37

 

MATTHEW CARNEY: The world's largest platinum mines operate here. It's wealth that's meant to benefit all South Africans.

00:42

 

What happened here has betrayed Mandela's famous words he spoke at his trial before he was jailed for life in 1964 for opposing the Apartheid government.

00:51

GFX over/Mandela

NELSON MANDELA (archival): I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons will live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal for which I hope to live for and to see realised. But my Lord, if it needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.

01:05

 

MATTHEW CARNEY: On the 16th August last year about 3000 miners gathered at this spot in Marikana to demand a decent wage from the British platinum mining company Lonmin.

01:43

Helicopter/Striking miners Super:
16 August 2012

They waited most of the day for a response.

01:54

Xolani addresses miners

MATTHEW CARNEY: Xolani Nzuza was one of the organisers of the strike.

02:00

Police confront striking miners

XOLANI NZUZA, MINERS' CO-ORDINATOR (subtitled): At around 4pm, we saw the police beginning to set up razor wire and the mine buses arriving with more police.

02:12

 

MATTHEW CARNEY: Orders were given by the government to end the strike, so rapid response police teams were sent in.

02:32

 

Tensions were running high. A week of protests had already resulted in six miners and two policemen being killed.

02:40

Police fire tear gas

MATTHEW CARNEY: Tear gas was fired into the crowd of miners and a group fled towards police lines. Police say the miners had firearms and were ready to attack. In front of television cameras, the mainly black police opened fire.

03:02

Police open fire on miners

POLICE: Cease fire, cease fire!

03:28

Police cease fire and examine miners

MATTHEW CARNEY: In all, 34 miners were killed that day and 78 wounded. It is the most violent clash between police and workers since the end of apartheid.

XOLANI NZUZA: I saw that apartheid was back.

03:41

Xolani

Back then it was the whites killing the blacks and now it was blacks killing blacks. We saw that this was black apartheid, blacks not wanting other blacks to prosper.

03:56

Mzoxolo walking

MATTHEW CARNEY: Remarkably Mzoxolo Magidiwana survived the initial burst of gunfire. He was hit in the hip and left for dead.

04:13

Mzoxolo lying on the ground after shooting amongst dead and injured miners

MATTHEW CARNEY: This is him on the ground.

MZOXOLO MAGIDIWANA: It was so painful to be shot by the police. It was so difficult for me because

04:22

Mzoxolo

I thought I was dying as I saw others die.

04:31

Carney and Mzoxolo look at photo

MATTHEW CARNEY (pointing at photo): Is that you there, are you on the ground, is that you on the ground there?

04:34

 

MZOXOLO MAGIDIWANA: Yes you shoot me.

MATTHEW CARNEY: So you got shot, you fell?

04:37

 

MATTHEW CARNEY: After checking, the police found that Mzoxolo was still alive.

04:41

Mzoxolo lying on the ground after shooting amongst dead and injured miners

In a claim that's been disputed, Mzoxolo says he was turned over and shot six more times by a black policeman.

MZOXOLO MAGIDIWANA: He asked me why

04:45

Carney and Mzoxolo. Super:
MZOXOLO MAGIDIWANA

I was still alive when everybody else is dead. Immediately after saying that he shot me. All these scars here [touches his stomach area], he is the one who shot me.

04:58

Mzoxolo pointing to parts on his body where he was shot

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

05:13

 

My future is fucked up now. It's not right.

05:25

Riot shots

 

05:33

 

 

MATTHEW CARNEY: But most of the killings happened out of sight of the cameras near this small rocky outcrop 100 metres away. Many of the survivors of the first shootings came here to seek refuge.

05:38

Policeman's mobile phone footage of massacre

MATTHEW CARNEY: A policeman's mobile phone video has emerged that suggests 22 were killed here, many of them shot in the back, most unarmed.

05:51

 

POLICE ON MOBILE FOOTAGE: The mother-fucker, I shot him at least 10 times.

06:00

Carney and Xolani walking up ridge where bodies were found

MATTHEW CARNEY: So where were you? Up here? Or...

But the strikers' ordeal was not over.

06:05

 

In the days after the massacre 220 were arrested and charged with the murder of the two policemen. Xolani says he was tortured to extract a confession.

06:11

Xolani. Super:
XOLANI NZUZA

XOLANI NZUZA: They would put the plastic like this [motions to face]. They'd fill the plastic bag with water and then put it over your head and tie it on the neck. They fastened it so that water couldn't leak, and when breathing, water would get into your nose.

06:23

Carney and Mzoxolo looking at photos

MATTHEW CARNEY: Mzoxolo, too, says he was intimidated and threatened while he was in hospital trying to recover.

06:43

Mzoxolo

MZOXOLO MAGIDIWANA: The other people who were shot had been released. I wondered why I was still in custody. The police claimed I've killed the policemen and that I was caught with a gun. I cried, and said they're doing this because I'm alive.

06:51

 

MATTHEW CARNEY: The Marikana massacre shocked the nation, and the world.

07:37

Archival. Sharpeville massacre

It evoked powerful memories of Apartheid massacres like Sharpeville in 1960 where white South African police opened fire on black protestors killing 69.

07:41

Archival. Soweto riots

And the Soweto riots of 1976 where 500 were killed.

07:53

ANC Building signage

The African National Congress or ANC fought for decades to free South Africa and since 1994 they've been in government. But now it seems they were turning their guns on their own people.

08:01

Xolani

XOLANI NZUZA: We no longer trust the ANC. We believe the government was involved in these killings. Even when they came to talk to us after the massacre about how this thing happened, we still don't trust the ANC.

08:16


 

ANC building

MATTHEW CARNEY: The ruling ANC government has been forced to set up a Commission of Inquiry into the massacre.

08:42

Sexwale. Super:
TOKYO SEXWALE
Former Minister for Human Settlements

TOKYO SEXWALE, FORMER MINISTER OF HUMAN SETTLEMENTS: As a democratic country security forces have got to be under control; that's why there is an investigation and we called upon everybody, put the cameras in, all news people, show us all the angles what happened here, count the bullets on the ground, who died? And there's an inquest, there's an inquiry. It's run by independent judges, it's there. So, so, I think it's a turning point, a warning, that you're going the wrong way. It's a tragedy that should not have happened.

08:49

 

MATTHEW CARNEY: Whatever the Commission of Inquiry concludes, Marikana has highlighted the failure of the ANC's model of development. The country's massive mining wealth has not lifted the poor black majority out of poverty.

09:23

Wonderkop area village

Many of the miners and their families that work at Lonmin live here near Wonderkop. It's a sprawling shanty town of homemade tin shacks where thousands survive with no running water or sewerage and limited electricity.

09:39


 

Zameka crying

Zameka Nungu's husband was killed in the massacre. She's been left with six children to support.

09:58

Zameka. Super:
ZAMEKA NUNGU

ZAMEKA NUNGU (subtitled): If only one could open and see inside my heart, how I am hurting. It's so painful. I do not believe my husband is gone. It's like he is somewhere else. I feel like I am dreaming. It's like I'm in another world. I can't believe that he is gone.

10:06

Nonkululeko

MATTHEW CARNEY: Her friend Nonkululeko Ngxande also lost her husband on that day, leaving her with two young children. Without their husbands these women have little income and little hope of a future.

10:32

Super:
NONKULULEKO NGXANDE

NONKULULEKO NGXANDE (subtitled): It is very painful. I need him a lot, all the time. I do not believe that he is gone, especially when I am suffering like this. Everything was based around him.

10:48

Nonkululeko and Zameka sit together

MATTHEW CARNEY: They came from the Eastern Cape, one of the poorest provinces of South Africa, with a dream of a better life.

11:14

Zameka holds photo of husband

ZAMEKA NUNGU (subtitled): We wished that our children will be educated and complete their schooling and get good jobs.

11:22

Zameka

My husband always said he doesn't want his children to work in the mines because mines are oppressive.

11:32

 

MATTHEW CARNEY: These are the very people the liberation struggle was meant to help.

NONKULULEKO NGXANDE (subtitled): We loved the government

11:45

Nonkululeko

but now the ANC doesn't help. It kills its own people, those who support it to rule this country. It has killed. It has killed our own. We don't care about it anymore.

11:56

Widows sing

WIDOWS SINGING (subtitled): Even when we are killed. Even when we suffer in this country. It's alright, we will pray.

12:22

 

MATTHEW CARNEY: Now they just have each other, and broken dreams. They don't know how they will survive. Soon they'll return to their homeland in the Eastern Cape a thousand kilometres to the south.

12:53

 

MATTHEW CARNEY: Not much has changed here since Apartheid, underpaid black labour still powers the mines and it's mainly the whites who own the industry and take the profits.

13:11

 

 

The only difference is that a tiny black elite have joined the white elite on boards of companies. In the late 1990's the ANC government struck a deal with business, they would keep labour cheap and stable in return for some black ownership.

13:23

 

Many see this arrangement has been at the expense of poor black South Africans, while a, few like Tokyo Sexwale, have benefited.

13:41

Sexwale

TOKYO SEXWALE: The approach there was black economic empowerment to let black people advance. I'm one of them, by the way. I went into business for quite some time in mining, in the financial services and so on. Is it the only solution? Certainly not. It is just one way. It is just a way of getting people into the ownership of companies. But that's not what we're trying to do, to get everybody to become a businessman.

MATTHEW CARNEY: But it seems to have only benefited for a few at this stage?

13:50

[shot continuous]

TOKYO SEXWALE: Naturally. I'll accept that, I'll accept that, because the approach is you can't turn everybody into a shareholder in the country.

14:16

 

Sexwale. Super:
TOKYO SEXWALE
Former Minister for Human Settlements

TOKYO SEXWALE: A government which is confronted with a lot of difficulties and challenges around education, health, poverty and so on. These issues have got to be addressed, and I think we're getting there. But our problems, we must admit, with our, not policy problems, the policies are in place, but implementation and making sure that people are held accountable to what they're supposed to be doing.

14:24

Inside Commission Inquiry

COMMISSION MEMBER: In the absence of interim funding, the application for a postponement will be heard and decided on Monday.

MATTHEW CARNEY: And the biggest accountability test for the ANC government is the Commission of Inquiry into the Marikana mine massacre.

COMMISSION JUDGE: The order we make is that

14:48

Commission judge

the sitting of the commission will be adjourned.

15:06

Commission adjourns

MATTHEW CARNEY: So far the Commission, which has been sitting for 10 months has been dogged by delays and false starts.

15:10

Teboho. Super:
TEBOHO MOSIKILI
Lawyer for miners' families

TEBOHO MOSIKILI, LAWYER FOR MINERS' FAMILIES: It will be a huge disgrace, it will be a huge loss. If the Commission for example was to stop its work, I don't know what would happen.

15:18

Return to massacre footage

MATTHEW CARNEY: The Commission has heard compelling evidence against the police actions.

15:29

Stills. Dead miners

These pictures show how the police planted false evidence to try and justify the killings, by placing weapons beside the dead for the official police photos, when photos taken earlier by the media show no weapons present.

15:34

Zameka and Nonkululeko

The widows and their lawyers are seriously concerned that the miners are going to have their legal funding cut by the government. And if that happens they'll boycott the Commission.

15:52

Nonkululeko

NONKULULEKO NGXANDE (subtitled): We came to hear what happened to our husbands. It troubles us that workers who witnessed the massacre have no lawyers. If they are not able to be represented, we feel pained because they were there at the time our husbands were killed. It means there is no truth in this commission.

16:03

Widows enter commission

MATTHEW CARNEY: It's also proving to be dangerous to be a witness at the Marikana Commission. Six miners have been murdered, just before they were to take the stand.

TEBOHO MOSIKILI: You know, crucial potential witnesses kept on dying. Unfortunately we cannot,

16:34

Teboho

as the other people pin it on any of the parties, but it is disturbing. It is disturbing to an extent that one of their own advocates was also stabbed and it was somehow suspected that it was linked to the commission itself.

16:53

Stills. Dead miners/ Massacred footage

MATTHEW CARNEY: There's little faith in the commission. Currently in South Africa about 9000 police officers face criminal charges such as rape, corruption and assault. But less than 100 have ever been convicted.

17:08

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