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JOHANNESBURG. — South Africa will tomorrow mark a year to the shocking massacre at the Marikana mine faced with a fragile economy, a tainted government and a disquiet labour force. Scenes of the police raining bullets on hundreds of strikers at Lonmin’s mine Marikana in the world’s richest platinum region northwest of Johannesburg, brought back chilling memories of apartheid brutality. What started as a wildcat strike degenerated into a bloodbath, initially leaving a trail of 12 bodies, including two policemen, in just a few days.

Thousands of hostile miners took to a rocky outcrop and kept a vigil, where six days into the work stoppage, police opened fire when they claimed they were overwhelmed. They shot dead 34 workers in a few minutes.

The killing placed the Marikana tragedy on the same historic level as the 1976 Soweto and 1960 Sharpeville massacres, when black protesters rose against the white-minority government.

Only this time black policemen shot dead black workers. President Jacob Zuma quickly appointed a judicial inquiry into the killings, which was initially given four months to complete its probe. But two extensions later, it is yet to give any findings and no-one has been prosecuted.

One year on tensions simmer among workers and their unions at the mines. — AFP.