‘If you get clever here, you’re dead’
WHEN the strike on the platinum belt ends, it will conclude an internecine war that has claimed 28 lives.
With most miners part of a migrant workforce, some of those killed have still not been identified.
Targeted killings, assaults and the petrol-bombing of homes and vehicles have been the hallmarks of a protracted war across the platinum belt.
National Union of Mineworkers general secretary Frans Baleni says at least 28 people have been killed in strike-related murders in less than two years.
Inside a burnt-out corrugated-iron shack, tragic traces of the Ndlovu family remain: broken crockery, molten chair frames and ash. Outside, the burnt-out hulk of a bakkie separates the shack from the brick and mortar house Appearance Ndlovu was building for his family.
Neighbours say they do not know what happened on the night striking miners marched on the home. All insist that the family escaped without serious injury.
Nearby, 59-year-old Daniel Muyanga was hacked to death before his shack was set alight on the weekend of May 10. That same weekend, a 60year-old miner from Saffi shaft was killed while walking to his hostel. He was stabbed in the back, chest and ribs.
At the Bob mine hostel, no one is able to remember the killing or the victim. The police have still not been able to identify the deceased.
Along the main dirt road leading to the township of Wonderkop, 63-year-old Felisimo Matsimbe sits under his lean-to with his back to “the engine”, an Empisal sewing machine modified so that it is hand-powered. The steady trickle of customers with pants that need altering has turned into a drip, an occasional R20 changing hands on a good day.
“I worked the mines for 30 years. When I got too old, my son took my place. There’s no work, no life. Maybe it’s time to go home,” said Matsimbe, who hails from Inhambane province in Mozambique.
Across the grey dust street a man shuffles by, clutching a half-loaf of bread and two red cakes, each the size of his palm. “This is all there is for today,” he said.
He would not comment on the strike or the hardship after 21 weeks without wages.
“If you get clever here, you’re dead.”
Further up the road, beside another charred shack, the only sign of life is a toy frog missing an eye and with the stuffing seeping out of the torn seams. On its chest is the word “happy”.
“They burnt it, the strikers. Eish! Everybody is suffering,” said neighbour and local mechanic Patrick Kalushi, sipping his sorghum beer.
Like many, he moved here in 1986 because of the prospect of work. It has been weeks since he has worked on a car. “We can’t even eat. How can people drive a car?”
The effects of the strike are being felt well beyond the shafts that dot the landscape. The Rustenburg Business Forum says dozens of establishments have closed, crime has shot up and many communities are desperate for food aid.
At the Waterkloof mall, the popular franchise Cape Town Fish Market is empty. The manager serves the only customer in the restaurant. The sushi chef is surrounded by bowls of nigiri, fashion sandwiches and fried tempura. “It’s been like this since the strike. Everybody is suffering,” said the chef.
At the door, waiters glance hopefully at the few would-be customers wandering through the mall’s corridors. By late evening, all the carefully crafted sushi will be thrown away.