Shabangu's testimony on Marikana turns farcical

DURING an awkward day of testimony at the Marikana commission, former mineral resources minister Susan Shabangu managed yesterday to contradict previous testimony by Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, accuse Lonmin of wanting to remove the National Union of Mineworkers "from the face of the earth" and contradict her own statements submitted to the commission.

It was an unconvincing stint in the witness stand that left even hardened lawyers at the commission squirming in discomfort – and several in the gallery giggling.

Questioned by the Legal Resources Centre's Thembeka Ngcukaitobi on her interactions with Ramaphosa in the days leading up to the police killing of 34 miners on August 16 2012, Shabangu said these had no bearing on her characterising the strike initially as a labour dispute, and then as acts of criminality.

This was contrary to e-mail correspondence between Ramaphosa, a former non-executive director at Lonmin, and Lonmin executives including chief commercial officer Albert Jamieson and former chairman Roger Phillimore on August 15.

In one e-mail on August 15 Ramaphosa wrote that Shabangu agrees that what we are going through is not a labour dispute but a criminal act and that she would "correct her characterisation".

Ramaphosa also indicated that Shabangu was going into cabinet and will brief the President [Jacob Zuma] "and get former police minister Nathi Mthethwa "to act in a more pointed way".

Ramaphosa confirmed this when he gave evidence to the commission earlier this month. Yesterday Shabangu said this "is not true. [Ramaphosa] never convinced me" – which, lawyers at the commission said, raised serious questions about the reliability of both their statements.

Advocate Dali Mpofu, for the miners arrested and injured on August 16, probed Shabangu on her 2008 comments as deputy police minister when she gave police "permission ... not [to] worry about the regulations" when dealing with "criminals" and to "kill the bastards".

Asked by Mpofu who had made the statements, Shabangu responded: "Mr Chairman, Mr Mpofu is very pathetic." Mpofu pursued the argument that Shabangu was prepared to accept the characterisation as criminal and was fully aware that it would facilitate the full might of the state, police and army to bear down on the striking miners.

In an excruciating day for Shabangu, she also contradicted herself by denying to evidence leader Kameshnee Pillay that she had been in telephone contact with Ramaphosa on August 14. Pillay presented telephone records before the commission that reflected otherwise.

Shabangu's testimony indicated her ineffectiveness as a minister.

In one of the more farcical moments, Shabangu said the warning in her speech to NUM members in May 2012 that they "were under attack by forces determined to use every trick in the book to remove you from the face of the earth" referred not to the Associated Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) but, rather, was a reference to Lonmin. - Niren Tolsi