Sibanye-Stillwater

Marikana, Bangladesh, Bahrain & Lula – 2018

Marikana, Bangladesh, Bahrain & Lula: Monday August 13th 2018 was a day of protests around London concerned with overseas events, though also about the freedom to protest here. There is a very long history of political movements across the world, particularly from the British Empire protesting here, often when protests were not permitted in their home countries, now mainly carried on by those from them who have settled here.

Justice For Marikana – 6th Anniversary Protest

City of London

Marikana, Bangladesh, Bahrain & Lula - 2018

The mining industry in southern Africa was largely developed by British companies and much is still owned and financed by companies based in the City of London, which also provides financial services including insurance.

The London and Rhodesian Mining and Land Company Limited was set up in London in 1909, and later became Lonhro and later Lonmin, still listed on the London Stock Exchange on 16th August 2012 when 34 striking miners were shot dead by South African police at its Marikana platinum mine.

The miners were striking for better wages and living and working conditions and were trying to disperse and hide when they were shot; another 10 had been killed previously since the strike began. Among those who encouraged the police violence against strikers was Lonmin board member Cyril Ramaphosa, a former mining union leader who since 2018 has been president of South Africa.

I photographed a tour of City of London investors, insurers and shareholders who profited from the violence against people and nature in Marikana. It stopped outside each of the offices for speeches giving details of their involvement and about the colonial roots of the huge wealth of the City of London. There were brief protests outside Majedie, Schroders, Investec, Legal & General and BASF, the major customers for Marikana’s platinum.

There had been no compensation for the victims’ families or for the injured mineworkers. The protest by the Marikana Solidarity Collective supported the demands of women’s organisation Sikhala Sonke and victims’ representatives that Lonmin must fulfil a social covenant with the community instead, including reparations, releasing the imprisoned mineworkers, prosecuting the physical and intellectual authors of the massacre, and taking responsibility for the environmental destruction in Marikana.

The international outcry over the massacre eventually led to Lonmin being acquired in 2019 by multinational mining and metal processing group Sibanye-Stillwater.

More pictures on My London Diary at Justice For Marikana – 6th Anniversary.

Release Bangladeshi opposition leader Khaleda Zia

Downing St

Protesters from the Bangladeshi Nationalist Party UK called for the release of their party leader, Begum Khaleda Zia, jailed in February for five years for embezzlement of international funds donated to Zia Orphanage Trust.

The BNP claim the charges are politically motivated, though there appeared to be many charges and a great deal of evidence against the woman who became Bangladesh’s first female head of government from 1991-6 after the BNP won the country’s first democratic election in 20 years, and served as prime minister later in 2001-6. Her sentence was later increased to 10 years.

In 2020 she was released from prison on medical grounds and was later acquitted on some charges and in 2025 allowed to go to London for medical treatment. She died in Dhaka as the end of December 2025.

Some Bangladeshi friends tell me there was little to chose between the her and her political rival Sheikh Hasina Wazed and their parties, and that both are corrupt and neither represented the interests of the people of their country.

More pictures at Release Bangladeshi opposition leader.

Against attack on Bahrain Embassy hunger striker

Bahrain Embassy, Belgrave Square

Islamic human rights group Inminds came to protest outside the Bahrain Embassy on Monday after hunger striker Ali Mushaima who was protesting outside there had been attacked early on Sunday morning by staff inside the embassy. A bucket of an unknown liquid was thrown on him from the ambassador’s balcony.

Mushaima’s hunger strike, which had begun on August 1st, was calling for his 70-year old father in prison in Bahrain to be given urgently needed medical care, family visits (stopped 18 months ago), and access to books.

Hassan Mushaima and other human rights defenders and opposition leaders were abducted in March 2017, brutally tortured and given life sentences in mock trials for calling for democracy in Bahrain.

*The cast included Theresa May, with the Butcher of Bahrain Hamad Khalifa and Little Stooge Fawaz Khalifa*

Inminds called for his release along with that of around 5,000 other Bahraini prisoners of conscience languishing in the Al-Khalifa regimes jails, as well as an end to UK complicity in the Al Khalifa dictatorship and Saudi crimes against the Bahraini people.

*Britain sells arms which are used to shoot Bahraini people*

The attack had been reported to police who had failed to investigate it fully, but did come to harass the protesters, telling them they could not protest on the pavement outside the embassy.

*The International Criminal Court arrived and the members of the criminal regime were brought to justice.*

Inminds refused to move and continued their protest with some street theatre in which Theresa May sold arms to the Bahraini dictator which he used to shoot protesters, who were then chained up. Unlike in real life the International Criminal Court came to their rescue, released them and condemned the Bahraini regime for their crimes against humanity.

More at Attack on Bahrain Embassy hunger striker.

Free Lula – Brazilians for Democracy & Justice

Brazilian Embassy, Cockspur St

Finally I joined protesters outside the Brazilian Embassy calling for the release of Lula – Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva – a former trade union leader who was President of Brazil for two terms from 2003-11- to enable him to stand for election again in October.

Lula had announced in late 2017 that he would stand in the 2018 presidential election against right-wing incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro and opinion polls showed him clearly in the lead. But in April 2018 he was finally imprisoned on charges of having taken bribes to help an engineering firm gain contracts from the state oil company.

Despite his imprisonment he was kept as the Worker’s Party candidate although being in prison made him ineligible to take part in the election. Brazil ignored the protests and a suggestion from the UN Human Rights Committee that he be allowed to stand and Lula withdrew shortly before the vote in which Bolsonaro won another term.

All convictions against Lula were annulled in 2021 and in October 2022 he was elected for a third term as president.

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Marikana Massacre Remembered – 2017

Marikana Massacre Remembered – Two events in London on Wednesday 16th August 2017 marked the 5th anniversary of the massacre when 34 striking miners were shot dead by South African police at Lonmin’s Marikana platinum mine.

As well as those killed in what “was the most lethal use of force by South African security forces against civilians since the Soweto uprising of 16 June 1976” at least 78 miners were injured and around 250 were arrested.

A press statement three days ago from SERI, the Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa gives more details of the event and the failure of the government to compensate many of those involved and the continued denial of criminal responsibility.

This states that “of the 315 claimants, about 129 people have received nothing, including all eleven family members of the murdered Thobile Mpumza” and accuses the police of attempting to tamper the evidence in the criminal cases. Although there are six officers on trial for an event in which three miners and two police officers were killed three days before the massacre, “No one has been charged for the events of 16 August.”

The mine was in 2012 owned by the UK based Lonmin plc, formery Lonrho plc, which became notorious under the leadership of CEO Tiny Rowlands from 1962 until 1993. It was a company at the heart of the British establishment. Duncan Sands, the son-in-law of Winston Churchill and a minister in several Tory governments, became is chair in 1972, and Sir Angus Ogilvy, the husband of Princess Alexandra was a director until he had to resign after the company’s involvement in breaking the sanctions against Rhodesia was revealed – described by then Prime Minister Edward Heath in 1973 as “an unpleasant and unacceptable face of capitalism.”

Lonmin was acquired by multinational mining and metals process group with its headquarters in Johannesburg in 2019 Sibanye-Stillwater, making the group the worlds largest producer of platinum and rhodium among its other precious metals and other interests. It is one of the four largest private employers in South Africa.

In August 2017, Lonmin was still in charge, and protesters met outside its London offices in Mayfair for a lunchtime protest.

They held up large photographs of the dead and called for a public apology by Lonmin and the ANC government, particularly Cyril Ramaphosa, in 2012 on the board of Lonmin and now President of South Africa, of as well as the payment of reparations to the dependent of those killed and those injured and arrested, both on the 16th August and at the police killing and injuring of women a month later. Ramaphosa had urged the police to take firm action against the strikers before the masscre.

Among those taking part were Primrose Nokulunga Sonti and Thumeka Magwangqana from the Marikana women’s organisation Sikhala Sonke (We Cry Together) who had come to the UK asking to meet with Lonmin representatives – but were ignored. They tried to take a letter into the offices for Lonmin but were refused entry, eventually giving the letter to the receptionist who promised to deliver it.

In the early evening there was the annual vigil outside the South African High Commission in Trafalgar Square on the anniversary of the massacre, organised by the Pan-Afrikan Society Community Forum (PACSF) and Marikana Miners Solidarity Campaign.

People again held the pictures of the murdered miners which also had their names and a brief description. Some had come with yellow flowers and these were handed out to those who had come to take part in the vigil.

Among those who spoke at the event were the two women from Sikhala Sonke who gave a powerful presentation about the effects of the massacre. I had to leave as this ended and before the pictures were taped to the locked gates of the High Commission and people came to lay flowers.

More on My London Diary at Justice for Marikana vigil and Marikana Massacre Protest at Lonmin HQ.

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The lessons of Marikana

Seven years ago, on August 16th 2012, South African police opened fire on striking miners at the Marikana platinum mine, killing 34 of them.

The mine was owned by London-based mining company Lonmin (better known by its earlier name of Lonrho) one of whose directors at the time was Cyril Ramaphosa, now President of South Africa. It seems certain that the police action was deliberately planned and had the backing of powerful people in the South African government.

No one has been prosecuted for the murders and the campaigners called for justice and for compensation for the workers families. Lonmin have attempted to evade their responsibilities and the company was sold in May 2019 to South African mining corporation Sibanye-Stillwater for $226 million. This is a company with a terrible safety record – 20 mineworkers were killed in its mines in the first six months of 2018 – and the Lonmin shareholders and London asset management companies, Investec and Majedie are major investors in Sibanye-Stillwater.

Legally the new owners have inherited the liabilities of Lonmin and are responsible for compensation for their crimes at Marikana.

The protest took place outside the South Africa Embassy in Trafalgar Square where for 1408 days and nights the City of London Anti-Apartheid Group staged their non-stop picket for the release of Nelson Mandela, beginning in 1986. That picket was firmly opposed by both the South African government and the Metropolitan Police who harassed it in various ways, attempting to ban it and making 171 arrests.

Today’s commemoration was again opposed by an embassy employee, who came out and told the protesters they had to move, but they took no notice, and after the embassy had closed for the day they decorated its gates and walls with the pictures of the murdered miners and yellow flowers. The police ignored the event.

A number of those taking part had also taken part in that earlier non-stop picket. Although Mandela was released and we have a new South Africa, much of the exploitation that was present in the old continues, though at times with some new masters. But the colonial domination and extraction of African wealth by London-based companies (and those from other wealthy nations) continues – and the Marikana massacre demonstrates that little has changed.

Justice for Marikana – 7 years on

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