Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

Mine protests turn violent in South Africa ... At least one person has been killed and forty others arrested after striking mine workers clashed with police.

IMAGE Unrest at South African mines have spread since the Lonmin strike in Marikana in August 2012. [Reuters]

At least one person has been killed in South Africa after a protest by mineworkers striking for better pay turned violent, police said.

Police said on Thursday the man was burned to death at the informal settlement in Photsaneng near Rustenburg and a minibus taxi was torched.

'About 400 mineworkers gathered at the informal settlement around 6am, and a man was shot and wounded. He was airlifted to hospital,' Police Captain Dennis Adriao told SAPA news agency.

'Forty people have been arrested for public violence,' Adriao said.

Meanwhile, police fired rubber bullets at striking Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) miners near Rustenburg.

Gaddafi Mdoda, a strike leader, said that a brief confrontation occurred between police and some of the 12,000 striking miners who were fired by Amplats last week.

Police apparently were responding to the miners' attempt to stop operations at Amplats' Bathopele mine, according to the SAPA, which reported that two taxis transporting people to work and other places were set on fire.

South Africa has been under the grip of labor unrest since August, when platinum miners in Marikana staged a series of strikes demanding higher pay.

In a violent confrontation not seen since the end of apartheid in 1994, police shot and killed 34 striking miners and wounded scores more.

Analysts say the Marikana strike, which ended with a hefty pay raise for the striking workers, inspired a wave of copy-cat strikes that have since spread to gold and iron ore mines as well as the trucking industry.

Most of the strikes remain unresolved.

Source: Agencies