"Who owns the story of South Africa’s Marikana massacre?", 22 March 2017

...The police, state, and Lonmin mine officials all shirked responsibility and publicly portrayed the miners as violent thugs on the attack. Their narrative prevailed and, unsurprisingly, insulated officials from accountability...But this “official” account wasn’t the whole story. And so this national tragedy highlights a social and legal imperative: We must fight to memorialize the people’s truth and disseminate that history as widely as possible...A short film, Bringing the Truth Home, documents efforts by the miners’ own communities and of the Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa (SERI) to do just that...For the past four years, these bereaved women have mobilized to demand the truth, accountability, and compensation for their deep loss...Now empowered with truth, the communities do not waver in their pursuit of accountability—legal, monetary, and social. For the families to be able to heal, they need public apologies, economic compensation, and prosecutions of those responsible...In telling their own story—so contrary to the “official” narrative—and sharing it widely, the affected families and communities regained ownership over the Marikana massacre.