Two miners have been shot at the Lonmin mine at Marikana, South Africa, the latest in a series of violent incidents in the country’s platinum mining sector. One was later pronounced dead.
Marikana, near Johannesburg, made international headlines in August last year after wildcat strikes broke out and resulted in the deaths of 44 people, with at least 78 additionally injured, the most lethal use of force by South African security forces against civilians since 1960. Particularly controversial was the evidence that most victims had been shot in the back, and many at some distance from police lines.
This week’s incident, the details of which are still unclear, triggered an immediate drop in Lonmin’s shares by about 6%, while the rand slightly fell against the dollar. Last year’s Lonmin strikes influenced a series of other protests in the region, and investors are now understandably wary of a similar escalation.
The disparity between the huge profits of South Africa’s mining industry and the low wages and poor living conditions of its workers has been much criticised in the past, and is widely held responsible for the severe tensions amongst its employees, tensions which the current turf war between rival mining unions has only served to amplify. The National Union of Miners has claimed its members were the victims of this week’s attack, although they are yet to name the party responsible.
