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Marikana. — About 1 000 stick-wielding protesters torched roadside vegetable stalls as they marched near Lonmin’s Marikana mine in South Africa yesterday, according to a Reuters reporter at the scene.Thousands of striking miners in the platinum belt are expected to return to work this week, in defiance of orders from their union leaders amid worries that those who return could be attacked.

South Africa sent more police to the strike-hit platinum belt on Tuesday to protect miners returning to work this week as producers pushed ahead with plans to end the sector’s longest and most costly bout of industrial action.

The four-month strike has halted 40 percent of normal global platinum production and dented already sluggish growth in Africa’s most advanced economy.

Thulani Ngubane, police spokesman in the platinum mining town of Rustenburg northwest of Johannesburg, said police had set up park-and-ride facilities around the platinum mines to handle the arrivals.

It is unclear how many workers will be coming back but the three big platinum firms say a majority of the 70 000 strikers they have contacted directly want to end the strike.

“We are prepared for any eventuality,” Ngubane said, although he acknowledged it would be difficult to provide security for the miners in the shanty towns that ring the main mines. Four miners have been killed in the area over the last three days.

Four police armoured vehicles were stationed outside Lonmin’s Marikana platinum mine, where police killed 34 striking miners in 2012.
Shop stewards of the striking Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union told Reuters police had also broken up an illegal march by union members at Marikana. — Reuters