South Africa Frees Miners After Murder Charges Shelved
https://nigeriaafrica1.blogspot.com/2012/09/south-africa-frees-miners-after-murder.html
South Africa released on Monday the first of 270 miners detained more than two weeks ago after police shot dead 34 of their colleagues in a bid to break up a wildcat strike at Lonmin's Marikana platinum mine.
The men were charged last week under an obscure apartheid-era security law with murdering their fellow miners, although state prosecutors withdrew the charges at the weekend following a public outcry.
The August 16 shootings were the deadliest security incident since the end of white-minority rule in 1994.
The Marikana shooting, which local media dubbed a massacre, shocked South Africa and marred the image of Africa's biggest economy as the full extent of a breakdown in labour relations in the mining sector became apparent. World platinum prices have risen nearly 10 percent since the shooting.
