Johannesburg - The Azanian People's Organisation Youth will join a ceremony commemorating the August 16 Marikana shootings, it said on Wednesday.
Friday marks the first anniversary of the shootings at the Lonmin platinum mine, outside Rustenburg in the North West, where 34 people, almost all striking miners, were killed in a clash with police.
Ten people, including two policemen and two security guards, were killed in strike-related unrest the preceding week.
Azapo Youth leader Amukelani Ngobeni said the organisation believed the incident signalled a time for change.
“Just like the killings of Andries Tatane, Emido (Mido) Macia, and (many) other victims of our anti-black police brutality, the killings of black workers in Marikana by the (African National Congress's) police is more than sufficient evidence for our people to rise up and work together, intensify our struggle for the removal of this ruthless and careless ANC government,” said Ngobeni.
Tatane died after being shot with rubber bullets during a service delivery protest in Ficksburg in 2011.
Macia, a Mozambican national, died in February in police cells in Daveyton. Before that, he was filmed tied to the back of a police van and dragged along the street.
Ngobeni called on the country to support Azapo Youth's call to have August 16 declared “national anti-police brutality day”.
Sapa