Gauteng, South Africa -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/01/2015 -- The SACBC justice and peace commission has called upon the government to go beyond the recommendations by the Marikana commission and take radical measures to address the structural realities that set a scene for the violent strike and the massacre.
"The structural conditions that set a scene for the violent strike and the massacre still remain in the mining industry: the widening wage gap between the workers and the executives, the poor working and living conditions of mine workers, the corporate manipulation of the rivalries between trade unions, the lack of an effective mechanism to ensure that the workers are free to exercise their right not to participate in a strike, the ineffectiveness of social and labour plans as a mechanism to uplift the lives of mine workers and mine affected communities, a rising sense of disenfranchisement in the country as a toothless mining charter allows a few who are politically connected to benefit from mineral wealth at the expense of the mine workers and the mine-affected communities. If these structural issues are not adequately addressed, we shall soon have another Marikana. As a country, if we continue to pursue a brand of mining economy that puts profit before people, we shall have another Marikana. " Bishop Gabuza, the chairperson of the SACBC Justice and Peace Commission, warned.
SACBC Justice and Peace Commission has also reached out in prayer and solidarity with the families of those who lost their loved ones during and after the Marikana massacre. "Our hearts are with the families who lost their loved ones and are struggling to find healing and closure as they try to make sense of the findings of the Marikana report. We have noted their disappointment over the absence of executive accountability for the deaths of their loved ones." Said Bishop Gabuza, the chairperson of the commission.
SACBC justice and peace commission has committed itself to work, alongside civil society organisations, to ensure that the recommendations of the Marikana commission are effectively implemented and the families who lost their loved ones receive healing and closure. "Our principal interest as Church is the healing of our brothers and sisters at Marikana. There is also a need for the healing of the whole country: the healing from the historic wounds that we sustained before 1994 during the apartheid and the healing from the wounds sustained now through the painful realities of poverty and economic apartheid." Said Bishop Gabuza.
Contact:
Bishop Abel Gabuza, the chairperson of the Justice and Peace Commission for the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference.
Tel. 053 831 1861 or 053 831 1862. Email: smuyebe@sacbc.org.za
About The Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference
The Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference (which is comprised of the Catholic Bishops of Botswana, South Africa and Swaziland) is an organisation, approved by the Holy See, of diocesan Bishops and others equivalent in Canon Law, serving in the ecclesiastical Provinces of Cape Town, Durban, Pretoria, Johannesburg and Bloemfontein, in and through which members exercise their pastoral office jointly through the pooling of wise counsel and experiences in matters concerning their common interest in order to promote that greater good which the Church offers humankind especially through formation and programmes of the apostolate which are fittingly adapted to the circumstances of the age.
http://www.sacbc.org.za
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