"About 400 mineworkers gathered at the informal settlement around 6am, and a man was shot and wounded. He was airlifted to hospital," said Captain Dennis Adriao.

Another man was burnt to death at the informal settlement and a minibus taxi was torched.

"Forty people have been arrested for public violence," he said.

Another group of striking Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) workers gathered at the Bathopele Mine.

"The police and mine security dispersed that group," Adriao said.

North West Taxi Council spokesman Bernard Afrika said taxi operations to Photsaneng, Bleskop, and surrounding areas had been suspended for safety reasons.

"We have suspended operations until the police restore order and it is safe to operate. The primary task of a taxi is to transport people," he said.

Afrika said two minibus taxis were transporting people to work and other places when they were burnt.

"Not all the people in the taxis were going to the mines, some were children going to school and others were women going to clinics and other places. We cannot confirm whether they were going to the mine."

Passengers and drivers ran away when the taxis were stopped and later set alight.

"Striking mineworkers do not want people to go to work. They burnt taxis suspecting of transporting people to work. This is the second incident, during the Marikana strike, [that]... taxis were also set alight," he said.

Spokesman for the sacked workers Gaddafhi Mdoda, condemned the violence.

"We do not know who is behind this. The violence is getting out of hand."

He said criminal elements within communities near to the mines might have used the strike as a springboard to commit crime.

"We cannot afford to have more enemies, we already have enemies -- the government, mine management, and the National Union of Mineworkers -- we cannot afford to have our brothers and sisters as enemies," he said.

Workers went to Bathopele Mine to stop it from operating.

"We want to shut this mine down, it is the only mine operating," he said.

Bathopele was the only mine operating normally following the illegal strike on September 12. Other components of Amplats operating normally were the concentrators, smelters, and refineries.

Workers at Amplats went on an illegal strike on September 12, demanding a monthly salary of R16,000 and allowances.

The company fired 12,000 workers after they failed to appear in disciplinary hearings.

Despite the dismissal, workers have vowed not to appeal and still regard themselves as Amplats workers.

On Wednesday, they marched to the NUM offices in Rustenburg to de-register their membership with the union.

Comments

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Fri May 24 16:45:26 SAST 2013 ::

Oct 11, 2012

sabza007

Police need to be harsh with these terrorists, why should we feel sorry for them if they can burn other people, shoot other people and destroy property of others !!!! Fu@&$@ Them.
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Oct 11, 2012

RobinH

Democracy the SA way. Agree with me or I k i l l you. Gunsensus politics.
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Oct 11, 2012

!!!Sinudeity!!!

Line the f***ers up and shoot to k1ll.
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Oct 11, 2012

Sfefenyana

Shame South African people,dnt kill each other.I condemed the incident en let the lawbrakers go to jail
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Oct 11, 2012

Papage

Now this is Bull, why attack everyone, we dont all work for mines for God sake. Zuma must deploy soldiers to arrest these thugs, how do you burn a person alive? there is no way your crying will knock at the doors of heaven, you will forever be poor, because everything you want/do, use force, people must start behaving like people to solve problems, not fight and kill others for what, killing them will give you salary increase?

I said it before that the now work force is that Siyanyova generation of 1985, they are just a wrong brew of people.
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Oct 11, 2012

DA-DBN-GUY

Juju doesnt need to start sprouting nationalisation chants anymore, these "people" are doing a bang up job of scaring foreign investors away. So much for SA being a democracy
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Oct 11, 2012

MommaC

Declare a state of emergency in the area. Bring the army in and clear out everyone who is not a registered mine employee. Take the whole place apart and get rid of every weapon and box of bloody matches in the place. If they want to act like criminals, treat them like criminals.
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Oct 11, 2012

DA-DBN-GUY

MommaC

I bet you are bound to find a few illegal immigrants and wanted fugitives while you at it
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Oct 11, 2012

Mosquer

Only under zuma's leadership
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Oct 11, 2012

MommaC

DA-DBN-GUY

I'm getting to the point where I'll happily go all 'Marikana' on them myself.

When this all began, the rumours were that the ones who were causing the sh!t weren't even miners or from the area. I put it down to the usual propensity for conspiracy theories but now I'm not so sure. It is looking more and more like it is orchestrated
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