Protest Disrupts Memorial for Mine Victims
About 200 black miners, shouting union slogans and tribal chants, Monday disrupted a company-sponsored memorial service for 177 men killed in a mine fire last week.
“We’re not going to pray with whites today. We’ve never been allowed to pray with whites. We’ll have our own rites,” miners shouted.
Holding clubs and steel rods over their heads, they repeatedly ran through the outdoor service, drowning out sermons by white and black preachers. Hundreds of other workers who came for the service poured out of bleachers and chairs to join the dissidents.
After the service, they continued to demonstrate in a field near the No. 2 shaft of the Kinross gold mine until officials from the National Union of Mineworkers restored calm.
The mine fire last Tuesday killed 172 black and five white miners and injured 235, mostly blacks.
In Johannesburg, the anti-apartheid United Democratic Front said that that it joins trade unions in holding the mine owners “fully responsible for this tragic loss of 177 precious lives, lives that have made possible the millions in riches that the mining bosses have today.”
A government team is investigating the fire.
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