Recently elected ANC Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa defended his role in the events leading up to the Marikana massacre in August 2012. In an interview aired on CNN on Tuesday January 8 he told Christiane Amanpour that emails he sent calling for "concomitant action" against the "criminal acts" of striking miners were not responsible for the subsequent killing of 34 people by police.
Ramaphosa - whom Amanpour described as "the undisputed champion of the anti-apartheid movement" - was asked to explain the emails first publicised at the Farlam Commission in October last year by the lawyer Dali Mpofu. Amanpour noted that "Emails that are published which purport to carry your messages to the board and to the police are fairly damning. You talk about concomitant action against these protesters. You call them criminal. Explain that for me, Mr. Ramaphosa. Explain what you did, what those emails made -- meant and how you're going to get out of this bind."
In the transcript of the interview published by CNN Ramaphosa replied:
Well, it's not really getting out of it. I have offered to go and testify to the commission that is -- that was set up by President Zuma to investigate this. Basically, all it boils down to is that prior to the killing of the 34 people by police, guns, 10 people had died. And some of them had died in the most brutal way. And they had died in what I still see as a criminal way, because the way they were killed, policemen, security officials and, indeed, other workers working on the mine was so terrible it just begins to defy any feeling that anyone would have. And I was appealing to the authorities to take action, to make sure that we prevent further death. And soon after I had made that call, clearly the police decided that all this has got to come to an end and obviously another situation unfolded. And the two situations are not linked. They are delinked, because I was calling for peace, I was calling for the saving of lives. And then the following day it happened in a most horrendous way. A long part of my life was spent serving mine workers. And there is just no way I could ever have said that mine workers should be killed. There is just no way. It is -- it just defies any logic in me. I've served mine workers loyally and I sought to improve their lives, the condition of their employment and that is on the record. And this situation that we were dealing with was a situation where I was trying to prevent further loss of life. And that is going to be the testimony that I will put to the commission when the times comes.
The full interview can be viewed below:
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