The South African cops of the Tripartite Alliance government perpetrated this slaughter, one of the worst in South African history. The blood of working people is on the hands of the government -- the African National Congress (ANC), the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the COSATU trade union federation. And yet, outrageously, the miners were blamed for this massacre! Some 260 workers were arrested the same day as the massacre and are now rotting in jail; they were denied bail and are facing charges ranging from public violence to murder and attempted murder. In response to the massacre, other miners have been raising demands similar to those that sparked the Marikana strike. (See statement from Spartacist South Africa, “The Lonmin Massacre: ANC/SACP/COSATU Tripartite Alliance Government's Hands Covered in Blood of Striking Black Mineworkers”,  http://www.spartacist.org/english/ssa/suppl/lonmin-sa.html)

We will not forget that, during the apartheid era, savagely exploited black South African miners stood in internationalist solidarity and dug deep to donate money to the heroic British miners strike of 1984-85. Lonmin Platinum was formerly the British-registered London and Rhodesian Mining Company (Lonrho), whose brutal exploitation of black African labour dates back to apartheid days. So notorious was Lonrho and its top boss, Tiny Rowland, for bribing African nationalist regimes that none other than Tory prime minister Edward Heath dubbed it “the unacceptable face of capitalism”. Quite a statement coming from the chief of British imperialism, which deems it “acceptable” to loot Africa for centuries, including raking in vast profits from South African mines today.

Join us on Friday 31 August in demanding: Drop all charges against the Lonmin striking miners! Victory to the striking South African miners!