The events at Marikana reverberated around the world. It is one thing to be living in South Africa and understand that some things make the world headlines, but it is another thing to actually be overseas and to flip from one channel to another and see that videos of your police opening fire on strikers are on the news all the time. It really does present a shocking image of a developing nation that is out of control at times and of an extremely violent and aggressive society.

It is not the kind of headlines and images that would make anybody want to invest in South Africa because no matter who is to blame, it is a sign of a very poorly functioning society. On the one hand there are workers living in terrible conditions who are making, perhaps under the guidance of Unions, the most ridiculous demands for salary increases and on the other hand you have a situation that must have been mishandled by the police. I am not saying that somebody cannot open fire when their life is under threat, but when you have volatile situation like that, better preparation would include far more police on the scene and if necessary, the use of barbed wire, water canons and all the other tactics that South Africa has so much expertise in from the apartheid years in particular.

You cannot send a small little force of police to go and guard against thousands of strikers, many of whom appear in the video footage to have been extremely aggressive and brandishing weapons. The very fact that 34 people died and apparently 400 rounds of ammunition had to be fired tells you that the situation was totally out of control and that there has to have been, to a greater or lesser extent, an overreaction by the police on the ground and whether that overreaction is their fault, or the fault of others who sent them there in too small numbers and badly prepared, is something that the investigation needs to reveal.