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Economic Freedom Fighters note the media statements of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and Zuma African National Congress (ZANC) that they will boycott the official commemoration activities and prayer meeting organised by workers to remember the workers that were killed through a premeditated, cold blooded and barbaric massacre by the South African Government in Marikana on the 16th of August 2012. EFF is not at all shocked that these organisations will not participate in the commemoration because they are guilty of the murder and massacre of those workers. It is the ZANC government, which NUM is a strong ally and extension of, that premeditated the massacre of innocent workers who were demanding better salaries.

It just could not make sense that Murderers would murder innocent workers, arrest those that are remaining, institute a fake Commission of Inquiry to distort and misinterpret what happened, deny workers fair legal representation, and then come back a year later to pretend like they are mourning the death of those they killed. By publicly announcing their boycott of the Commemoration and Memorial activities, these reactionary and oppressive organisations, which are part of the Murderous regime, are being cowards. They are cowards because they are scared of the might and power of workers in Marikana, who in any way were going to reject them and will reject them in all platforms they have.

Led by the Commander in Chief Julius Malema, EFF will join the religious community and workers in Marikana to commemorate and salute the Fighters who died in the struggle to acquire better wages. We will do so because these are workers who died when demanding as better and humane share and benefit from the country's mineral resources. Cowards will stay away, while Fighters for economic freedom march ahead with the demands for a better salaries and better working conditions in all the Mines in South Africa. EFF's association with the struggles and demands of the workers is not a secret and will never be a secret because we have fought side by side with workers in Marikana and many other Mines in South Africa. No surrender! No retreat!