JOHANNESBURG: South African police opened fire on a crowd of striking workers at a platinum mine yesterday, leaving an unknown number of people injured and possibly dead. Motionless bodies lay on the ground in pools of blood.
Police moved in on striking workers who gathered near the Lonmin PLC mine yesterday afternoon after urging them to give up their weapons and go home to their hostels and shacks. Some did leave, though others carrying weapons began war chants and soon started marching toward the township near the mine, said Molaole Montsho, a journalist with the South African Press Association who was at the scene.
The police opened up with a water cannon first, then used stun grenades and tear gas to try and break up the crowd, Montsho said.
Suddenly, a group of miners rushed through the scrub and underbrush at a line of police officers. Images broadcast by a private television broadcaster showed officers immediately opening fire, with miners falling to the ground. Dozens of shots were fired by police armed with automatic rifles and pistols.
The gunfire from weapons apparently on full automatic ended with police officers shouting: “Cease fire!” By that time, bodies were lying in the dust, some pouring blood. Another image showed some miners, their eyes wide, looking in the distance at heavily armed police officers in riot gear.
It was an astonishing development in a country that has been a model of stability since racist white rule ended with South Africa's first all-race elections in 1994. The shooting recalled images of white police firing at anti-apartheid protesters in the 1960s and 1970s, but in this case it was mostly black police firing at black mine workers.
S. Africa police fire at striking mine workers
