"Lonmin marks five years since the Marikana massacre while the agenda for redress remains incomplete", 21 Aug 2017

...While the mining company at the heart of the tragedy of August 2012 is moving on, the views, concerns and lives of the widows themselves, have seen some limited improvement. Many of their concerns have, however, not yet been fully addressed by either the company or the state...The concerns of the widows were submitted in a collectively-developed written statement that was read onto the record of the Farlam Commission...In their succinct submission, the widows appear to get to the truth of what occurred when they state:

• Lonmin as a company which ignored the appeals of their employees for a dialogue;
• The state / government officials who failed in their duty to manage a peaceful and fair resolution of the labour dispute;
• Collusion between the state and Lonmin which resulted in the labelling of the strike as a criminal endeavour, rather than a legitimate labour dispute...

Lonmin has to date initiated several measures intended to address the situation of the widows:

• It has set up an educational trust with a founding contribution of R10 million and it is providing for the education and accommodation of 157 children of the deceased mine workers;
• It has offered employment to one alternative family member at Lonmin's Rustenburg site to help families damaged by the loss of income resulting from the death of the breadwinner

Today five years after the fateful Marikana massacre, the state-corporate nexus and the impacts and consequences of this nexus, appear as strong as ever and the widows remain excluded from the state's promised measures of repair...