A militant South African union said on Sunday that one of its organisers had been shot dead in the platinum belt city of Rustenburg, a potential flashpoint at a time when tensions are running high with job cuts and wage talks looming.
The Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU), which poached tens of thousands of disgruntled workers last year from the dominant National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), said the unnamed organiser had been killed on Saturday.
"It is obvious his killing is related to his involvement with AMCU in the area," Jimmy Gama, AMCU's national treasurer, told Reuters. "We are sending our officials there to find out more facts."
A police statement said that a 46-year-old man who was "alleged to be the regional organiser of AMCU" had been killed in a Rustenburg tavern on Saturday when an assailant shot him four times with a 9mm pistol. An AMCU source in Rustenburg told Reuters the organiser had been an activist with the union at platinum producer Lonmin . Police shot dead 34 striking miners last year at Lonmin's Marikana mine, the most violent single incident stemming from the AMCU-NUM turf war.
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