Marikana Shootings Farlam Commission Thread

Oh Dali! You are $uch a $ervant, We know that you are doing thi$ for the people and that you totally ju$t have their intere$t$ at heart!

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Marikana Commission: Chronicle of death foretold and planned for by SAPS

While Monday’s news on the Marikana Commission of Inquiry focused on the funding of the injured and arrested mineworkers, important details of how police prepared for their disperse-and-disarm strategy emerged at the Commission itself: before the killing of 34 striking miners, police asked for four mortuary vans and an arsenal of live bullets.
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Link.
 
Legal Aid needs R17m for Marikana

Legal Aid SA will need R17 million to honour this week's court judgment ordering it to provide legal representation for the miners injured and arrested at Marikana, it told MPs on Wednesday.

"The new total of our exposure in Marikana is R17m if we take into account the judgment," Legal Aid SA CEO Vidhu Vedalankar told Parliament's portfolio committee on justice.

On Monday, Judge Tati Makgoka in the High Court in Pretoria set aside Legal Aid SA's refusal to pay for representation for the wounded and arrested mineworkers before the Farlam Commission of Inquiry.

He ordered it to take immediate steps to provide legal funding for their participation before the commission, and to pay their costs.

Vedalankar said Legal Aid SA had spent R2m so far representing the families of the miners who died last year when police opened fire on striking workers at a hill near the platinum mine.

The required amount of R17m would cover the extended representation until the end of the current financial year, she said.

Vedalankar said the organisation would have to scale back on its support to others who needed legal representation because it did not have the additional funding for Marikana in its R1.4 billion budget.

"We don't have that money, so we will have to cut back on some other items."

The entity was briefing the committee on its annual report.


Source : Sapa /ef/cls/jje
Date : 16 Oct 2013 12:57
 
New Marikana footage points finger at police

http://mg.co.za/article/2013-10-21-new-marikana-footage-points-finger-at-police

"Fourth camera angle" Marikana footage appears to further implicate police and raises questions about who ordered the use of deadly force.

The Marikana Support Committee has called for the police officers present when 34 miners were killed at Lonmin's Marikana platinum mine on August 16 last year to be charged with murder following the release of new, apparently damning, footage of the massacre.

Filmmaker Rehad Desai, who is a member of the committee, screened footage he had uncovered during the course of researching his documentary about the events of August last year, at a special press conference in Johannesburg on Monday.

Desai said this new footage, shot from a "fourth camera angle", "put paid" to the South African Police Service's "official narrative that police spontaneously used their firearms in the face of an alleged imminent attack by miners that jeopardised police officers".
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[video=youtube;NCGYMdkrZfk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCGYMdkrZfk[/video]
 
So what if 6 pistols were drawn? At that point, rioters had already hacked and burned people to death. I'd also have had my gun out.

Why aren't all the weapons in the hands of the rioters highlighted too? This is a blatant piece of propaganda.
 
Pity they didn't hire Hulley. Would have saved us taxpayers a fortune at his super dooper cheap rates...
 
Sinbad said:
So what if 6 pistols were drawn? At that point, rioters had already hacked and burned people to death. I'd also have had my gun out.

Why aren't all the weapons in the hands of the rioters highlighted too? This is a blatant piece of propaganda.
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Yep, I agree with you. Watching the video, I see nothing to really change my mind about the actions of the miners.
What is really still suspicious to me is how they came towards the police all hunched and bowed.
You just know they are up to something.
 
Garyvdh said:
What is really still suspicious to me is how they came towards the police all hunched and bowed.
You just know they are up to something.
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They were ducking the bird shot that was being aimed at them.

According to Desai, it appears as if the leaders of the strike, including Mambush Noki, commonly known as the "Man in the Green Blanket", are the first to leave the koppie. Others follow, moving slowly and in an apparently unthreatening manner.

The Nyalas and other armoured vehicles are then captured continuously moving and herding the miners away from the direction of the Wonderkop informal settlement, which they appear to be moving towards.

Instead, the movement of armoured vehicles appears to shepherd the miners towards the line of Tactical Response Team police from whose angle footage previously made public through media news channels has been viewed.

From this fourth camera angle, one can see police firing what appears to be birdshot from between the Nyalas at the shepherded miners. Tear gas also appears to have been fired. The under-fire miners are still moving slowly, crouching and attempting to avoid being hit by what appears to be birdshot from the side.
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Redeemed said:
They were ducking the bird shot that was being aimed at them.
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If bird shot was being fired at me, I would either lay flat on the ground with my hands clearly spread-eagled, or I would turn around and run away in the other direction.

The one thing I WOULD NOT DO is advance straight towards the people firing at me.
 
Garyvdh said:
If bird shot was being fired at me, I would either lay flat on the ground with my hands clearly spread-eagled, or I would turn around and run away in the other direction.

The one thing I WOULD NOT DO is advance straight towards the people firing at me.
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Read the article, they were being pursued/herded by armored vehicles towards the machine guns. Don't forget that there are actually miners who crushed by those things. They were herded towards the TRT team but it's not that team that was using bird shot on them, so they were not advancing straight towards the people who shot them as that happened afterward (live rounds from TRT).
 
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Redeemed said:
Read the article, they were being pursued/herded by armored vehicles towards the machine guns. Don't forget that there are actually miners who crushed by those things. They were herded towards the TRT team but it's not that team that was using bird shot on them, so they were not advancing straight towards the people who shot them as that happened afterward (live rounds from TRT).
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Sorry, I still don't buy it.

At not time did they HAVE TO BE THERE. They could have just turned around, laid down their spears and walked home if they wanted to.

I think you are clutching at straws.
 
Farlam laments Marikana 'assasinations'

Retired judge Ian Farlam expressed concern on Wednesday about murders linked to the Marikana Commission of Inquiry.

Farlam sent the commission's condolences following the murder of National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) branch chairman William Setelele. He was gunned down near the Marikana koppie, close to Lonmin's platinum mine in the North West, on Thursday.

"It is a matter of concern because a number of people connected to this commission have been assassinated. It is a matter which I am sure is receiving attention from the authorities," he said.

"My colleagues and I wish to extend our condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of our former witness (Setelele). I hope the perpetrators will be brought to book in due course."

Karel Tip, for the NUM at the commission, also expressed his condolences. Setelele testified at the commission in January and February.

North West police said the Setelele was shot eight times.

"The man was gunned down on Thursday night between 7pm and 8pm. He was on his way to visit his girlfriend when four men came out of the bushes and shot at his car," said Brigadier Thulani Ngubane.

He was hit once when he was driving. When he stopped and got out of the car the men fired another seven bullets at him. He died on the scene.

Another NUM official, Daluvuyo Bongo, was killed in October last year.

At the time, Tip said NUM believed Bongo's murder was a "target killing".

The NUM branch secretary was shot six times at his home at the Wonderkop hostel complex in Marikana on October 5. He was scheduled to testify at the commission's public hearings.

At the time of Bongo's death, NUM said he was set to present key information to the commission.

The inquiry, chaired by Farlam, is investigating the deaths of 44 people during strike-related unrest at Lonmin platinum's operations at Marikana, near Rustenburg, last year.

The police shot dead 34 people, mostly striking mineworkers, wounded 70, and arrested 250 on August 16, 2012. In the preceding week, 10 people including two policemen and two security guards, were killed.

Evidence leader Matthew Chaskalson SC was cross-examining Lt-Col Duncan Scott on Wednesday.

Scott helped draft the police plan which was to be used to try and disperse and disarm the striking mineworkers. The plan was referred to as the "Scott plan".


Source : Sapa /jm/fg/th/jje
Date : 23 Oct 2013 10:38
 
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