Business Day
*There was criminality at Marikana, Nzimande says* *Natasha Marrian, Business Day, Johannesburg, 26 October 2012 *SOUTH African Communist Party (SACP) chief Blade Nzimande on Thursday offered a veiled defence of African National Congress (ANC) veteran and Shanduka executive chairman Cyril Ramaphosa, amid criticism over e-mails he sent on the eve of the Marikana massacre.
Mr Ramaphosa has been nominated by some ANC branches to deputise for President Jacob Zuma at the ANC electoral conference in Mangaung, propelling him into the political spotlight again.
Mr Nzimande would not be drawn on the e-mails --- which Mr Ramaphosa apparently sent to Lonmin --- describing the labour unrest as "dastardly criminal acts" and calling for "concomitant action".
Mr Nzimande, in an address at an SACP commissars conference in Midrand, said Mr Ramaphosa was speaking out on the "principle".
He said the e-mails themselves were the subject of an inquiry and it would be inappropriate to delve into them. The e-mails were raised on Tuesday by advocate Dali Mpofu at the Farlam inquiry into the labour unrest at Lonmin. The inquiry heard that the correspondence was sent the day before the standoff between police and workers at Marikana --- a factor that Mr Ramaphosa's detractors have sought to use to link him to the subsequent shooting. Mr Mpofu said Mr Ramaphosa had called for action to deal with the "criminals".
But Mr Nzimande said there was nothing untoward about describing the unrest as criminal.
"It was indeed criminality," he said. " What is a plot about that ?"I'm talking about the principle ; anyone who says there was criminality, they are right, it's true." He said all the lives lost in the Marikana tragedy were "important".
"Surely, anybody who says that the lives of those killed on August 16 are more important than the lives of those killed before are wrong," he said, referring to the 10 people killed in the early days of the Lonmin labour unrest. These included two policemen and two security guards. He said the "unfortunate" police shooting at Marikana was being used "against the movement".
At another event, ANC treasurer-general Mathews Phosa said Marikana had exposed the weaknesses in black economic empowerment (BEE). "Marikana taught us that our social cohesion is fragile ; that our black economic empowerment model is dysfunctional, and that we need to be creative when old-order models of negotiation are discarded by the disenfranchised," he said in a speech for delivery at Monash University, Johannesburg.
"If the miners at Marikana, and elsewhere, had a meaningful stake in the assets that they create, my view is that we would have had different and more positive outcomes."
He said BEE had not yet made real inroads in poverty and unemployment: "What it did do is create an upper class of wealthy black investors who initially funded their wealth with debt through the acquisition of shareholding in successful white or international businesses."
Mr Nzimande also criticised lawyers, who "specialised in discrediting the movement" rather than "doing genuine legal work".
Mr Mpofu is representing the 272 miners who were charged with murder after the shooting. He was also part of Julius Malema's legal team in his disciplinary case.
Mr Ramaphosa has declined to comment on the e-mails.*From: http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/2012/10/26/there-was-criminality-at-marikana-nzimande-says*
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