Little has changed in how the in the SAPS's dealings with crowd management since Marikana, except that officers don't carry R5 automatic rifles at protests now.
These are the views of David Bruce, an independent researcher in policing, crime and criminal justice, who conducted extensive research on policing in the massacre.
Bruce said though “Marikana was not typical of the way in which the SAPS usually deal with protest”, there were limited changes in how public order policing (POP) has been implemented since.
On August 16 2012 34 striking mineworkers were shot dead by police at Marikana, mainly with R5s. This after 10 people, including security guards and law-enforcement officers, were killed in the days leading up to the massacre.
Bruce, who also works as a consultant for the Institute for Security Studies, said using tactical units armed with R5s to manage public order operations in the way they did at Marikana was not how the SAPS managed crowds. However, these units often supported POP units during protests.
“But when they do so, they don't usually carry R5s any longer. So there are limited changes that have taken place in public order policing since then,” Bruce said.
The Marikana commission, set up by then president Jacob Zuma and chaired by retired judge Ian Farlam, found the plan to implement “tactical option” was hastily put together without POP input or evaluation of the situation.
The commission recommended a panel be established to review POP and analyse international best practice, with decisions on operational matters made by an officer with relevant training in command.
Bruce, who served on the panel established by the minister of police in terms of the recommendations, said the SAPS was “overall not very good at adapting and learning new lessons”.
“There were recommendations made to them about how to improve public order policing that were put forward in the Marikana commission and 2018 panel of experts reports, but they have mostly ignored these.”
The panel delivered its 590-page report in May 2018. It suggested the SAPS not deploy tactical units to support POP units in crowd management situations “unless their specialist capabilities are requested by the responsible POP commander”.
The panel also recommended the SAPS training curriculum be expanded to include rural-based or open-space operations as the existing curriculum, anchored on a road network infrastructure and buildings, fell short of operational realities in areas where such infrastructure did not exist.
“The POP training facilities should ensure POP equipment and armoured vehicles that POP members will use during operations is permanently available as part of their training. [This] is not the practice. This approach can serve to expose POP members to operational realities on the ground,” the panel said.
Bruce said though the SAPS was open to buying new equipment, “when it comes to improving things like accountability, no visible progress has been made”.
He reflected on the findings of his Marikana research.
These included a dirty lens on a recording device installed on a water cannon deployed to deal with crowd control at the koppie where the striking mineworkers gathered.
“What shocked me was that it became clear the police knew there was going to be bloodshed, but they went ahead with the operation anyway because they knew they had the firepower and assumed the bloodshed was going to be from strikers who were killed,” he said.
Before the massacre police identified the miners as an aggressive group which was going to shoot at people, said Bruce.
Some of those killed were hundreds of metres from the police, he added.
“What is also shocking is the level of dishonesty that was practised by the SAPS at the Marikana commission. The SAPS put together an account of events [it] knew to be false. [Its] purpose was to mislead the commission [so it did] not get to the truth,” Bruce said.
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