Hon Speaker and members - THE WIDOWS and ORPHANS OF MARIKANA ARE ENDLESSLY WIPPING

The faithful few minutes of gunfire that reverberated through the length and breadth of our country snuffed out the lives of poor workers as if they were of no consequence.

The brutal murder in Marikana is yet another grim reminder of the profound illness that afflicts our country. Each one of the people who lost their lives in Marikana during those days, was a unique human being. The son of some mother and father; the father to some child; a husband to some woman; a person linked to a home, to a community of relatives and friends who had loved him, cherished and nurtured him for many years in the hope of a continued and shared future.

The deceitful attempt to attribute responsibility for the massacre only to those in the top administrative echelons of the police service, betrays a deep-seated contempt for the people of this country. It also demonstrated how lacking our leadership is in a commitment to democracy.

All South Africans, irrespective of their socio economic standing in society, have the right to hope, the right to life itself. No power must be allowed in our land to destroy the thirst for human dignity.

As South Africa continued to celebrate the Women’s months, many women in Marikana will be marking the third year as widows due to the lethal force of the Democratic State police.

Less is being said about these poor souls who can only rely on pending civil claims against the police in order for them to feel that they can get justice or compensation.

Indeed, as long as man continues to be ruthless destroyer of the lower living beings, he will never know peace.

Many children who were supposed to be celebrating with their mothers, this month of, can only be reminded of the brutality that robbed them their fathers. These children can no longer enjoy life of a full family with a mother and a father due to the most ever experienced police brutality in post-apartheid South Africa.

These poor women and children whose hope for a daily bread was taken away, have nowhere to look at for such hope.

No one, beside those who lost their lives and their widows and orphans, have paid and are paying the price from that massacre.

It is for this reason amongst others that the UDM has written to the President of the Republic to propose:

Firstly, that an all-inclusive Government initiated Committee whose mandate will be to search for a sustainable way forward that will include, but not limited to compensation to the widows, children and the families that were dependent on the murdered workers.

This proposal is intended to ensure that those families continue to go to bed each day with food in their stomach, that children can go to school, wearing uniform, having had the morning meal and guaranteed that they will get the afternoon meal at home.

These widows and families must be compensated for the death of their bread winners in the hands of the police. In this regard, a compensation fund should be established.

Secondly, that Marikana massacre should be marked and commemorated annually as a National Marikana Day of remembrance.

This will also remind companies that they cannot continue treating people as mere commodities whilst they rake in profits and miners and communities being swept aside.

I thank you.