North West - Lawyers for 20 Eastern Cape families of some of the miners killed at the Lonmin platinum mine asked on Wednesday that the judicial inquiry wait for them to be present.
“This commission is about dead people,” advocate Dumisa Ntsebeza told the commission. “I would be very concerned if the relatives of those who died where absolutely absent.”
On Monday, commission chair, retired judge Ian Farlam, rejected an application by Ntsebeza to postpone the inquiry for two weeks so the families could come to Rustenburg. Farlam told Ntsebeza the social development department was arranging to bring the families to the hearing.
At the start of public hearings on Wednesday morning, Farlam said all parties would be given the opportunity to state their versions of the shooting.
Thirty-four miners were killed and 78 wounded when police opened fire on them while trying to disperse protesters near Lonmin's platinum mine in Marikana on August 16.
According to some reports since the event, several miners were shot dead among rocks a distance from where the police clashed with main group of striking workers.
Farlam said witnesses who pointed out areas at an in loco inspection on Monday, at the koppie and “klein koppie” where miners were killed, would also be given an opportunity to present evidence.
Ntsebeza bemoaned the fact that the families of those killed were not at the in loco inspection to see where their relatives died.
“There is an assumption that the footage of what happened is known… Let me tell you Mr chairman when my attorneys visited the families there was not even radio communication.
“They are people who are related to the dead who haven't even seen videos of what happened.”
Ntsebeza said he understood the inquiry needed to get its work done, but there needed to be a level of sensitivity. - Sapa