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Johannesburg - Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema has called on President Jacob Zuma to release the Marikana report with immediate effect, so workers can know who was responsible for the killings, reported City Press.
Malema was addressing a May Day rally in Motherwell, Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape.
He told about 7 000 EFF supporters at the NU 1 Cricket Stadium who had packed a large marquee that the Marikana report needed to be released so workers could finally know the truth.
“We take this important day of the workers to call upon Jacob Zuma to release the Marikana report. The only thing Zuma can do to honour this Workers Day is to release the report. We want to know who gave an instruction for our brothers to be killed in Marikana,” Malema said.
The outspoken leader said the EFF knew for a fact that Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa had been behind the Marikana killings.
Flanked by EFF chairperson, Dali Mpofu, an advocate who represented injured miners at the Farlam Commission of inquiry into the massacre; Malema said if the report does not conclude that Ramaphosa was the one who ordered the killing, they would not accept it.
“We want a report that says Cyril Ramaphosa must be arrested and stand before court for the murder of the workers in Marikana.
“Ramaphosa must be prosecuted for the murder of the people in defence of white capital. We will never rest until there is justice for the workers of Marikana,” Malema said to loud applause.
Malema used the rally to lambast the ruling party, saying workers needed to do some soul searching and ask themselves why they were voting for a party that killed workers.
“They killed workers in Marikana. Cosatu says it loves workers and represents them and still says to workers, they must elect the same people who killed miners. No self-respecting worker will encourage other workers to vote for the murderous ANC,” he said.
Malema compared the ANC government to that of apartheid rule.
“ANC falls in the same category with apartheid. What the ANC did with the workers in Marikana is what apartheid did to our people in Sharpville. They are the same. Use this day as workers to ask yourself why you voted for a government which killed fellow workers,” he said.
He said the EFF would never forgive the ANC until the ruling party came out and accepted that its government killed people in Marikana and apologises for that.
