SOUTH AFRICAN POLICE KILL SEVERAL STRIKING MINE WORKERS!

Corpses of killed mine workers and the South African police

MARIKANA, South Africa reminded the world the bloodshed associated with south africa during the apartheid era, as South African police opened fire on Thursday against thousands of striking miners armed with machetes and sticks at Lonmin's Marikana platinum mine, leaving several bloodied corpses lying on the ground.
A Reuters cameraman said he saw at least seven bodies after the shooting, which occurred when police laying out barricades of barbed wire were outflanked by some of an estimated 3,000 miners massed on a rocky outcrop near the mine, 100 km (60 miles) northwest of Johannesburg.

South African Mine workers brandishing matchette and other weapons
before the police moved in

Police officers said talks with leaders of the radical Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) had broken down, leaving no option but to disperse them by force.
"Today is unfortunately D-day," spokesman Dennis Adriao said.
Ten people, including two policemen, have died in nearly a week of fighting between rival worker factions at the mine, the latest platinum plant to be hit by fallout from an eight-month union turf war in the world's main producer of the precious metal.
On Wednesday, up to 3,000 police officers, including members of an elite, camouflage-wearing riot control unit backed by helicopters and horses, confronted the striking rock-drill operators, but there were no clashes.
Before the police advance, Joseph Mathunjwa, president of AMCU, which has been on a big recruitment push in South Africa's platinum mines, shouting through a loudhailer, to cheers from the crowd said,
there would be bloodshed if police moved in. In his words:

"We're going nowhere," 
"If need be, we're prepared to die here."

This experience is a sharp reminder of the days of apartheid.