{"id":13572,"date":"2012-08-16T14:51:29","date_gmt":"2012-08-16T12:51:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/08\/s-africa-police-order-striking-miners-to-disperse\/"},"modified":"2012-08-16T14:51:29","modified_gmt":"2012-08-16T12:51:29","slug":"s-africa-police-order-striking-miners-to-disperse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/s-africa-police-order-striking-miners-to-disperse\/","title":{"rendered":"S.Africa police order striking miners to disperse"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

JOHANNESBURG<\/span> Aug 16 (Reuters) – South African police
\nordered thousands of illegally striking miners armed with
\nmachetes and sticks to lay down their weapons and leave Lonmin’s
\n Marikana platinum mine on Thursday or face an
\nassault by security forces.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

“Today is unfortunately D-day,” police spokesman Dennis
\nAdriao said. “It is an illegal gathering. We’ve tried to
\nnegotiate and we’ll try again but if that fails, we’ll obviously
\nhave to go to a tactical phase.”<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Ten people, including two policemen, have died in nearly a
\nweek of fighting between rival worker factions at the mine, 100
\nkm (60 miles) northwest of Johannesburg, the latest platinum
\nplant to be hit by fallout from an eight-month union turf war.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

On Wednesday, up to 3,000 police officers, including members
\nof an elite, camouflage-wearing riot control unit backed by
\nhelicopters and horses, confronted several thousand protesting
\nrock-drill operators massed on a rocky outcrop near the mine.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

There were no clashes although police described the
\nsituation as tense.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

The unrest forced Marikana’s London-headquartered owner
\nLonmin to halt production this week at all its South African
\noperations, which account for 12 percent of global platinum
\noutput.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

The Marikana strikers have not made their demands explicit,
\nalthough much of the bad blood stems from a turf war between the
\nNational Union of Mineworkers (NUM), the dominant union for the
\nlast two decades, and the newer Association of Mineworkers and
\nConstruction Union (AMCU), which is on a big recruitment push.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

At least three people were killed in a similar round of
\nfighting in January that led to a six-week closure of the
\nworld’s largest platinum mine, run by Impala Platinum.
\nThat helped push the platinum price up 15 percent.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

South Africa is home to 80 percent of the world’s known
\nplatinum reserves, but rising power and labour costs and a sharp
\ndrop in the price of the precious metal this year has left many
\nmines struggling to keep their heads above water.<\/p>\n

(Reporting by Ed Cropley; Editing by Jon Hemming)<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JOHANNESBURG Aug 16 (Reuters) – South African police ordered thousands of illegally striking miners armed with machetes and sticks to lay down their weapons and leave Lonmin’s Marikana platinum mine on Thursday or face an assault by security forces. “Today is unfortunately D-day,” police spokesman Dennis Adriao said. “It is an illegal gathering. We’ve tried […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-13572","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13572\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}