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Lonmin to share lessons from Marikana deaths

Pretoria - Lonmin was asked by the Farlam Commission of Inquiry on Monday to submit a report on what lessons were learnt from the events surrounding the 2012 Marikana massacre.

"Tomorrow you can give me, in writing, the things you've learnt," the commission's chairperson, retired judge Ian Farlam, told Barnard Mokwena, who was Lonmin's executive president of human capital and external affairs at the time of the unrest in 2012.

He earlier told the commission: "We are in [the] process of putting together what we have learnt. What has to been done differently. When [the] time is right, we will share that."

But Farlam criticised Lonmin for still not having composed this document, two years after the tragedy.

Farlam also instructed Mokwena to write a list of things he regretted saying during a meeting between Lonmin management and the police.

The meeting was recorded without anyone's knowledge or permission.

"Is it common practice to do recordings that are clandestine?" police lawyer Ishmael Semenya SC asked Mokwena.

He replied: "When I heard they were recording I was shocked."

He said he was made aware of the recording only a year later. He said he was shocked at the making of the recording, and at what he was recorded as saying.

Farlam instructed him to go through the transcript of the recording, write a list of the things he regretted saying, and present it to the commission on Tuesday.

He also asked whether the person who had made the recording was reprimanded.

"No," said Mokwena.

"Well, that shows the depth of your discontent of what he did," Farlam said.

The commission is investigating the deaths of 44 people during unrest near Lonmin's Marikana mine.

Police opened fire on a group of mostly striking mineworkers, killing 34 of them on August 16 2012. Around 70 people were injured and more than 200 were arrested. Police claimed they were trying to disperse and disarm them.

Ten people, including two policemen and two Lonmin security guards, were killed in the preceding week.

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