Leader of the Construction Workers and Mining Union Joseph Mathunjwa has attributed the ANC’s decline in the May 2029 general elections to the pain felt by families of the Marikana massacre.
Mathunjwa spoke during the 12th commemoration of the tragedy at Wonderkop outside Rustenburg where once again the government stayed away.
Mathunjwa mocked the ANC for losing its parliamentary majority ending up in a coalition government that includes rightwing elements such as the Democratic Alliance and the Freedom Front + which the AMCU leader describes as “nonsense”.
“Remember what I said when I was here. I said the god that we serve does not sleep or slumber. the god that we serve does not sleep or slumber. I said God will pay our vengeance. the god will be the god will be the only one who will pay our vengeance. The same concomitant action that killed our workers comrade Dali Mpofu has now killed the African National Congress. Let me repeat, the same concomitant action that killed workers here in Marikana in 2012, 16 of August has now killed the African National Congress,” said Mathunjwa before leading the crowd in prayer.
Prayer has been in the forefront of Mathunjwa’s style of leadership including surrounding himself with religious fundamentalists such as the radical former Secretary General of the South African Council of Churches Reverend Joe Seoka and Bishop Paul Verryn of the Methodist Church of Southern Africa.
Mathunjwa himself was himself, before forming AMCU, a lay preacher attached to the Salvation Army, a charismatic christian church known for preaching prosperity gospel.
Seoka was notably absent from this year’s commemoration Verryn used his sermon and prayer to take a swipe at President Cyril Ramaphosa who is accused of pressuring police into shooting and killing the striking workers. Then Chairman of Lonmin Mine, owned by London based Lonmin, Ramaphosa wrote an email to then Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa urging him to act harshly to force an end to the strike. It was in the very email that Ramaphosa is quoted as calling for “concomitant action” against the workers who had camped at the mountain koppie refusing to come down until their demand of R12500 entry level salary was met.
The striking workers were at the time accused of targeting and killing leaders of the rival Union of Mineworkers as well as mine security following the hacking to death of several people in days leading to the massacre.
Verryn likened Ramaphosa to the biblical Peter who, according the bible in the gospels of John, Mathew and Moses, betrayed Jesus Christ when he was asked if he knew him after ‘the lord’ had been captured and about to be crucified.
“We are here were there has been denial and betrayal of people that we have loved, who lived in this place, who worked in this place and so this is a place in which we need to recognise that we are really on sacred grounds because this is a place where people have died and we’ve come here to remember that. They didn’t just die. They died for very specific reasons and their death was caused by betrayal and denial, by us turning our backs to our responsibilities to one another and so we come here to remember and remind ourselves that just like Peter when the time of trial came he turned his back on the Lord. we come here, all of us, in some way responsible for the injustice that there is in this nation,” said Verryn who has stood by AMCU since the days of the strike in 2012.
Verryn also suggested Ramaphosa needed to apologise to victims of the massacre.
“We are sorry. it doesn’t matter who doesn’t want to say sorry, we are sorry that this could happen when we were supposed to be free, we are sorry, we will take responsibility for the absolute waste of human life in this place”, said Verryn in his sermon.
Mathunjwa too did not spare Ramaphosa questioning his reluctance to visit Marikana.
“In Marikana, that was 16 August 2012 when 34 mineworkers were killed by the democratic elected government led by the African National Congress. In 2021, in Durban another black people were massacred by Indian nationals during, they call it looting where many blacks were killed by the Indian, pretending, disguising as if they were protecting their property and the DA they said those they were heroes where black people were killed and the state president, the sitting state president but even today he haven’t touched here at Marikana,” said Mathunjwa in reference to the Phoenix killing of innocent black people by armed Indian locals claiming to be protecting property.
No one has been held accountable for the Marikana massacre.