Johannesburg - Too little has been done in response to the killings of 44 people in Marikana, the Anglican Church of Southern Africa said on Thursday.
“Despite the hard work, dedication, and perseverance of many, we are a long way short of where we would like to be,” Cape Town Archbishop Thabo Makgoba said in a statement.
“We could also have worked harder to promote a national climate in which others too would have been encouraged to do more and act with greater urgency, and not only in Marikana.”
He called for employers to provide decent living wages and working conditions, before creating social responsibility programmes that tended to address symptoms not causes.
People's lives and needs should be placed before politics and power, he said.
Friday marks the first anniversary of the shootings at Lonmin's platinum mine in Marikana, North West. Thirty-four miners were killed on August 16 when police fired at them while trying to disperse them from a hill where they had gathered. Ten people, including two policemen and two security guards, were killed in unrest during the preceding week.
“Let us persevere in prayer, for those affected by the tragic events of last year, the bereaved, the injured, all who have been traumatised,” Makgoba said.
Sapa