Marikana - the end of South Africa's post-apartheid settlement?

It also highlights the failure of post-apartheid South Africa to improve the lives of a majority of its citizens.The incident has opened up wounds and exposed the bitter ironies and contradictions of the country almost 20 years after the end of apartheid. Graphic TV coverage filmed just behind the police line went round the world and recalled memories of massacres from the apartheid era - Sharpeville, Shell House, Boipatong and Bisho.

Trouble at the mine had been brewing for some time. A report by the church-backed Bench Marks Foundation last year revealed that local communities at the Marikana Mine were "frustrated and angry with the mining company... levels of fatal incidents were unacceptable... residential conditions under which Lonmin employees live are appalling". The report said that last year the company sacked 9,000 workers.