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Johannesburg - Platinum producer Lonmin [JSE:LON] on Wednesday declined to say how many of its employees had returned to work in the platinum belt in the North West, maintaining it was "a process".
"We are not going to be providing a blow-by-blow insight of the number of people returning because that's what incites violence," spokesperson Sue Vey told Sapa.
"It is a process. People are returning to work but there has been intimidation."
She could not provide details of the intimidation she was referring to.
Impala Platinum [JSE:IMP] corporate relations manager Alice Lourens and Anglo American Platinum [JSE:AMS] spokesperson Mpumi Sithole could not be reached for comment.
Earlier, North West police said the SA Police Service began escorting buses to mines as some striking miners returned to work.
"We are escorting buses that are transporting workers to work, those who want to go back to work, and protecting people," Brigadier Thulani Ngubane said.
"Everything is in place. Police are out and about doing their work."
About 1 000 stick-wielding strikers gathered outside Lonmin's Marikana platinum mine on Wednesday, preventing workers from breaking the longest and costliest bout of industrial action in the sector's history.
Some of the strikers, clad in the green shirts
of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu), told
Reuters they planned to block anyone from reaching the shafts in a
dramatic show of force.
London-listed Lonmin had been aiming for a
"mass return" of workers, many of whom have signalled a willingness to
end a crippling 16-week strike over pay that has also hit rivals Amplats and Implats.
The strike has halted 40% of normal global output and dented South Africa's already sluggish growth.
Amcu's charismatic president Joseph Mathunjwa was to address the Lonmin strikers at around 08:00 GMT at a rally, with mass meetings also scheduled later in the day at Implats and Amplats operations.
Buses were bringing Amcu members to a stadium in Marikana near the site where police shot dead 34 striking Lonmin miners in August 2012 during a violent, wildcat strike.
The current Amcu strike is legal but has become increasingly violent as an end game looms.
The rival National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) said its members were unable to return to work because of Amcu intimidation. Four people have been murdered around the platinum mines in the last four days, with no arrests.
"The miners cannot get to work because the intimidation is very high," Sydwell Dokolwana, NUM's regional secretary on the platinum belt, told Reuters.
The companies have been taking their latest wage offer directly to Amcu's members after wage talks with the union collapsed three weeks ago.Platinum's spot price, which has been largely unmoved by the strike, was up 1.2% to $1 465 an ounce, its highest level in four weeks, according to Reuters' data.
