(MENAFN- The Journal Of Turkish Weekly) South African President Jacob Zuma on Tuesday promised to release an official report of inquiry into the killing of 34 mineworkers in 2012 near the Lonmin platinum mine in Marikana in Northwest Province.
"It would be inappropriate for me to just release the report without applying my mind sufficiently," Zuma told members of the National Assembly.
"The report will be released before the end of next month," he promised.
In August of 2012, police shot and killed 34 mineworkers in Marikana during a protest over wages near the Lonmin platinum mine.
Over 70 other striking miners were injured during the incident, which some observers compared to the dark days of apartheid, when police used to apply excessive force to quell demonstrations.
After the shootings, the president appointed a judicial commission of inquiry that heard accounts from witnesses, policemen and unions over a 300-day period.
The commission finally wound up a few months ago and handed its report over to the president, who has since been reluctant to make it public.
"I established the commission because I felt our country needed to know what happened in Marikana," Zuma said.
He added that he understood the anxiety of those who had been affected.
Opposition members of parliament had urged Zuma to immediately release the report so that affected families might achieve closure.
"The president must immediately release the report," Mmusi Maimane, leader of the opposition Democratic Alliance, said in parliament on Tuesday.
He said affected families needed to move on, stressing that delays in the report's release were hurting them, as they wanted to know the truth of what happened on that fateful day.
Lawyers representing survivors and relatives of those killed during the Marikana shooting had threatened to take Zuma to court to compel him to release the long-awaited report to the public.
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