Today the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) marks another year since the brutal and premeditated massacre of 34 mineworkers in Marikana on 16 August 2012. This was a crime against the working class executed under the command of the state to protect white monopoly capital.
The workers of Marikana were not criminals. They were fathers, brothers, and sons, demanding a living wage in the face of exploitation, degradation, and hunger. Instead of dialogue and dignity, they were met with the barrels of guns in full view of the world.
The blood of Marikana mineworkers was spilled at the instruction of Cyril Ramaphosa, who placed the interests of his shares in Lonmin above the lives of Black mineworkers. Today, that same man prances around the country leading a so-called “national dialogue” as if he is ignorant of the daily struggles of the people — unemployment, hunger, and the cost of living crisis — and as if his own hands are not stained with blood.
The recent unemployment statistics paint a bleak picture: millions without work, millions without hope, and millions trapped in poverty while the political elite grow richer. Black workers, in particular, have been betrayed by a government that once claimed to be on their side. They face stagnating wages, unsafe workplaces, and rising living costs. The workers of Marikana died demanding a living wage; today, workers across South Africa still toil for peanuts, still live in shacks without water or sanitation, and still face dismissal and repression for daring to demand better.
The betrayal is across sectors as Black workers are constantly under siege. Farmworkers still endure assault, evictions, and modern-day slavery on the very land their ancestors were dispossessed of. Nurses and doctors work in collapsing hospitals without basic resources. Teachers are underpaid and overburdened in schools where children are still learning in mud structures. This violence against workers whether physical, economic, or systemic, has been normalised in South Africa.
It is not surprising then that the ANC has refused to bring justice to the families of the Marikana victims. There have been no prosecutions, no reparations, and no structural change to the mining sector that continues to enrich a few at the expense of the many. The workers of Marikana died in vain because their demands remain unmet, their killers remain unpunished, and the system that murdered them remains firmly in place.
The EFF, as a result, recommits to the struggle for economic freedom in our lifetime, a struggle that was formed in honour of the Marikana martyrs to dismantle the capitalist exploitation they fought against. We will not rest until the families of Marikana receive justice, until the mining industry is nationalised for the benefit of the people, until the state protects every worker from violence and exploitation, and until no worker is forced to die for a living wage.
The EFF has organized marches against gender-based violence and femicide.
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