{"id":13623,"date":"2012-08-18T02:55:46","date_gmt":"2012-08-18T00:55:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/08\/s-africas-hill-of-horror-self-defence-or-massacre\/"},"modified":"2012-08-18T02:55:46","modified_gmt":"2012-08-18T00:55:46","slug":"s-africas-hill-of-horror-self-defence-or-massacre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/s-africas-hill-of-horror-self-defence-or-massacre\/","title":{"rendered":"S.Africa&#8217;s &quot;Hill of Horror&quot;: self-defence or massacre?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Police say officers had no choice but to open fire<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Some strikers had participated in witchcraft ritual-police<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Confusion at moment of shooting, no order to fire heard<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Firearms, other traditional weapons recovered from scene<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By Pascal Fletcher<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Aug 17 (Reuters) &#8211; In a loping,<br \/>\ncrouching run, striking South African miners advance towards a<br \/>\nline of police in helmets and flak-jackets who are pointing<br \/>\nautomatic rifles at them. The police open fire.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>In less than a minute, the men, some of whom police say<br \/>\nconducted witchcraft rituals they believed would protect them<br \/>\nfrom bullets, crumple and fall in a hail of gunfire that kicks<br \/>\nup clouds of yellow dust.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Television footage starkly captures the moment of the police<br \/>\nshootings at a dusty platinum mine northwest of Johannesburg on<br \/>\nThursday that killed at least 34 protesting workers and tore a<br \/>\ngash in the soul of post-apartheid South Africa.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The sight of protesters falling dead before guns fired by<br \/>\ngovernment security forces strikes a jarringly painful chord in<br \/>\na nation ruled by Africa&#8217;s oldest liberation movement, the<br \/>\nAfrican National Congress.<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>* Police say officers had no choice but to open fire * Some strikers had participated in witchcraft ritual-police * Confusion at moment of shooting, no order to fire heard * Firearms, other traditional weapons recovered from scene By Pascal Fletcher JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Aug 17 (Reuters) &#8211; In a loping, crouching run, striking South [&hellip;]<\/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-13623","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\/13623","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=13623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13623\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}