Channel Four News: Should Ramaphosa face murder charges over Marikana massacre?
SHOTS FROM PLAY
INIGO GILMORE
00.03: While South Africa and the world were preoccupied with the courtroom drama of the Pistorious trial - down the road in Pretoria a very different kind of drama has been playing to rapt audiences. The story of the Marikana massacre has seeped deep into the national consciousness.
FOOTAGE FROM MARIKANA, (On screen text) 16 August 2012
00.24: The horror of the real life drama stunned the world. Miners who had for days been protesting for better wages WERE SUDDENLY confronted by HUNDREDS of armed police. 34 MINERS WERE KILLED. NOT A single officer was injured BUT POLICE INSIST THEY ACTED IN SELF DEFENCE.
00.48: As a marathon inquiry reaches its critical phase, such claims now lie in tatters....
(On screen text George Bizos, Lawyer, Marikana Commission of Inquiry
00.54: "We have identified that some of the people were not shot not only once, there were multiple shots. How can you say that it was self-defence, or it was an accident?"
MARIKANA COMMISSION OF INQUIRY
(On Screen text) at 01.20: lead group of strikers walking slowly in direction of the gap between kraal and shack 01.23: in the frames that follow members of the lead group appear to take steps sway from the POP members to their left 01.25: Northwestern edge of kraal 01.27: Note heads down and covered with blankets 01.33: Heads of the strikers just visible behind kraal
01.16: Lawyers argue that eyewitness testimony and video evidence have dismantled the police case. They say this footage shows miners were trying to leave peacefully, before they were herded towards the police and shot. Now attention has turned to prosecuting those responsible, and lawyers are going right to the top.
01.40: In their sights: Cyril Ramaphosa, the one time anti-apartheid struggle hero and now South Africa's deputy president.
(On screen text Dali Mpofu, Lawyer for the Marikana miners
01.48: "There must be prosecutions, there must be compensation, and more importantly there must be an exposition of who the real culprits are outside of the people who pulled the trigger, as it were..."
02.04: George Bizos shot to prominence when he represented his friend Nelson Mandela when he was on trial in 1960s. He's now a leading lawyer at the Marikana inquiry.
MARIKANA COMMISSION OF INQUIRY
02.19: Bizos's main target is the National Police Commissioner, Riah Phiyega. Her appearances at the commission were widely criticised as arrogant and evasive. She claims she can't remember the critical meeting of top police commanders the night before the massacre-during which they decided to take action.
George Bizos SOT
02.44: BIZOS-The facts speak for themselves. You can't believe anybody that says such a highly improbably thing- that she forgot that she was at the meeting the night before.
03.00: GILMORE- What charges would you recommend she faces?
03.03: BIZOS- What the law provides, that if there's a wrong done, the persons who are in charge are vicariously liable.
03.15: GILMORE- Is that a murder charge against her?
03.17: BIZOS- Yes.
STILLS AND FOOTAGE FROM MASSACRE
03.20: Evidence against the police appears to be damning. 4 mortuary vans were ordered to Marikana hours before the shooting, as well as 4,000 extra rounds of ammunition.
Most of the miners killed were shot in the back or in the head -some in the back of the head. Some victims appear to have been handcuffed. Others had weapons planted on them.
PHYIEGA SPEECH AT POLICE GATHERING
03.49: Despite these horrific details, at a police gathering just two days after the massacre, Commissioner Phyiega praised her team.
UPSOT
04.15: I tracked down commissioner Phyiega to a conference in Cape Town - where I asked her about demands she face prosecution....
04.22: GILMORE- Some of the lawyers are suggesting that charges should even be brought against yourself, murder charges in connection with what happened in Marikana, how do you respond to that?
04.34: (On screen text Riah Phiyega, National Police Commissioner
04.32: PHYIEGA- My response to that is that A, we are on record as the police to say it has been an unprecedented event, and secondly, we've given our all to participate in the commission.
04.45: GILMORE- One thing that came up in the commission was that there was evidence that some miners were shot in cold blood and that some evidence was planted on dead miners, yet you said in the wake of the massacre that it was the best of South African policing. Do you stand by those comments now?
05.01: PHYIEGA- I have told you that we made our submission to the commission, we are waiting for the commission to come out with their findings.
(On screen text SINGING AND DANCING SCENES FROM National miner's strike, 1987
05.10: As a popular former head of the National union of Mineworkers Cyril Ramaphosa was considered Mandela's spiritual heir -
STILL GETTY. VME: 2101410210023418621
05.22: He was at Mandela's side on his release from jail. Now lawyers want Ramaphosa charged.
STILL GETTY - Getty number: 158463205
05.30: At the time of the massacre Ramaphosa no longer represnted the miners, but was on the side of the mine owners. He was on the board of Lonmin, the company that owns the Marikana site.
Documents obtained by C4 News / Inigo Gilmore
05.43 The commission has seen emails sent by Ramaphosa which shows he used his connections to lobby government ministers to take action against the miners.
In one he described the strike as a criminal act; explains the president will be briefed - and the police minister encouraged act in a "more pointed way".
MARIKANA COMMISSION OF INQUIRY
06.07: Lawyers say Ramaphosa's intervention set in motion a chain of commands, resulting in the catastrophic police action.
OUTSIDE SHOTS OF SEOKA SPEECH
06.20: As Bishop of Pretoria Jo Seoka has long been a vocal campaigner for justice in South Africa. He was in Marikana as a mediator on the day of the massacre and was shocked by Ramaphosa's attitude when he spoke to his old comrade in the immediate aftermath.
(On screen text JO SEOKA, BISHOP OF PRETORIA
06.37: SEOKA- I did feel let down because I have known him and worked with him for many years when I was a priest in Soweto. So it's not like we were strangers, I had respect for him and he respected me as well. But on that particular day he took my call, but he never really came back to me to say what he had done. Given the content of the emails, and the stories that Cyril was busy talking to the ministers concerned and the police, he is liable, he also should be charged for murder...
07.14: GILMORE: So Ramaphosa should be charged for murder?
07.16: SEOKA: For murder, yeah, and for influencing the police to take violent action against the workers
MARIKANA COMMISSION OF INQUIRY- taken from youtube
07.29: Ramaphosa has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing but the outrage over his perceived responsibility has spilled over at the commission.
07.40: It's even reached Parliament where opposition MP's have repeatedly attacked him.
MARIKANA COMMISSION OF INQUIRY - taken from youtube
08.00: The lead lawyer for the miners says the massacre was a crime against humanity and is pushing for Ramaphosa to be tried outside South Africa....
Dali Mpofu
08.11: DALI- Our clients feelings are that some of them might not face proper justice in South Africa, so one or two of them might be recommended for prosecution in the International Criminal Court.
SOT
08.25: The very notion that Nelson Mandela's successors could even be linked to such accusations is seen as a betrayal of everything he struggled for. Marikana occurred 16 months before he died, but his close friends were urged never to discuss the traumatic events with him.
SOT Bizos
08. 43: BIZOS- We talked about things but we avoided things that we thought would make hime feel sad.
08.52: GILMORE- What do you think Mr. Mandela would have made of it?
08.55: BIZOS- He would have been devastated about it.
SOT Bishop
08.59: What have become of our petitions? Of our struggle-heroes? Evidently money had become more important than people's lives. Positions were more important than protecting our human rights. We are not safe. The government is not there to protect us. We're more vulnerable than we were before. In the Apartheid, at least we knew who the enemy was. Today we don't know, because it's one of ours.
MASSACRE FOOTAGE
09.33: For Bishop Seoka and many others, justice for the dead will only be delivered if those involved in the killings are finally prosecuted. Such justice was elusive during the days of apartheid tyranny. This is the biggest test yet of whether those days have truly been left behind.
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