August 16, 2012 was a hugely significant and sad day in South Africa's mining history.
I remember all too well how my colleagues and I at Bench Marks Foundation, a church-based NGO in Johannesburg, had been keeping abreast of the unfolding turmoil at the Marikana mine, owned by the British firm Lonmin.
Five days earlier miners had embarked on a strike for better pay and conditions but their employer, the world's third-largest platinum producer, had refused their requests for a more dignified wage – around R12,500 a month (£670) as opposed to the average £250 a month they were earning.
In the days that followed, a number of miners, police officers and security personnel – around 10 in total – were killed in clashes around the mine. August 16, however, was the watershed.
On that day Rt Rev Dr Jo Seoka – the Anglican Bishop of Pretoria and the chairperson of Bench Marks Foundation – went to meet a group of striking miners gathered on a hillside overlooking the mine near Rustenburg, in the Transvaal.
The miners wanted the Bishop to visit the company offices and invite Lonmin's management to come and discuss their grievances with them. They were also desperate for food and water, which they hoped the company would supply.
Lonmin managers, however, spurned the Bishop's overtures, dismissing the workers as a bunch of criminals. As he left the company premises, he noticed that a significant police presence had arrived.
A little later, he received a panicked call on his mobile: "Bishop, Bishop they are shooting at us!" All he could hear after that was the sounds of helicopters and gunfire, and then the phone went dead.
In all, more than 110 workers were gunned down by a special unit from the South African police armed with R5 assault rifles, with 34 of them dying from their wounds.
It was the single most lethal attack by South Africa security forces since the apartheid-era 1960 Sharpeville massacre.
That it happened in an independent South Africa is a scandal. It is a scandal that it took nearly 1,000 days for the results of the Farlam Commission judicial inquiry into what happened to be published (it eventually appeared in June this year). And equally scandalous was the disappointing and superficial nature of the report.
While I welcome many of the report's recommendations – and the prospect of further investigations into the killings – the Farlam Commission has provided no real answers, failing to do proper justice to what many consider a crime, and failing to point the finger of blame squarely at Lonmin, the police or the state.
For all three must share the blame for what happened. The force used by agents of the state was wildly excessive, while Lonmin, by changing the terminology from a wage dispute to a criminal issue, escalated the situation.
At the very least, there is sufficient evidence that the company is guilty of negligence for failing to attend to the rights of their workers, hear their grievances or attempt to negotiate with them. In addition, the Farlam report failed to examine the way in which Lonmin used its links to the National Union of Mine Workers and the political elite to break the strike.
The report also made no real effort to ensure the victims' families are compensated for their irreplaceable losses. Even though the shootings were captured on film, there has yet to be any real justice for the victims' relatives. That's why they have now decided to take matters into their own hands and file civil claims against the minister of police.
What has become obvious is that many serious questions remain for Lonmin, for the wider mining industry and the South African government, and their responsibility to South Africa's poorest communities.
These are questions that Bench Marks Foundation, a partner of the NGO Christian Aid, is seeking to highlight. Owned by the churches in South Africa, the foundation monitors the practices of such multi-national corporations to ensure they respect the rights, environment, health and social wellbeing of the communities where they work.
Two days before the Marikana massacre, it warned the mining industry that an eruption of violence in the mines was possible, because workers and locals were unhappy at the lack of decent housing, unhealthy living conditions and dangerous working environment.
Lonmin, for instance, had pledged to build 5,500 homes for their 30,000 migrant workers by September 2011, under its social and labour plan. At the last count, they had only built three, with large numbers of employees still living in squalid, informal settlements.
The fact is, a huge gap exists between corporate social responsibility policies of multinationals and their actions on the ground, particularly in terms of environmental impact, community engagement and labour issues.
After emerging from decades of oppression and exploitation, the people of South Africa deserve better.
John Capel is executive director for the Bench Marks Foundation, which is supported by Christian Aid.
