Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse miners rallying at the Marikana Lonmin mine after raids on their hostels to seize arms, witnesses said. Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse miners rallying at the Marikana Lonmin mine after raids on their hostels to seize arms, witnesses said. (Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters)

Police firing rubber bullets and tear gas sent men, women and children scattering as they herded them into their shacks in a crackdown on striking miners at a platinum mine.

Saturday's show of force follows a South African government vow to halt illegal protests and disarm strikers who have stopped work at one gold and six platinum mines northwest of Johannesburg. The strikes have destabilized South Africa's critical mining sector.

It was the first police action since officers killed 34 miners Aug. 16 in state violence that shocked the nation.

About 500 officers raided hostels at Lonmin PLC platinum mine before dawn and confiscated homemade machetes, spears, knives and clubs, said police spokesman Brig. Thulani Ngubane.

A half dozen men were arrested for illegal possession of arms and drugs in those raids, he said. Another six were arrested Saturday morning.

'The South African government...is deeply concerned by the amount of violence, threats and intimidation that is currently taking place in our country—Justice Minister Jeff Radebe

Officers first fired tear gas at hundreds of miners who refused to disarm at the hill of granite boulders that has become the strikers' headquarters.

Police then moved into the Wonderkop shantytown where residents set up barricades of burning tires to try to block the officers from their neighbourhood. Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at people who disobeyed orders baying over a bull horn for them to stay in their homes, tin shacks without electricity or running water divided by dirt tracks.

An army helicopter flew in to help herd people indoors.

Justice Minister Jeff Radebe called a news conference Friday to say the government was intervening because the mining industry is central to the economy of Africa's richest nation.

"The South African government has noted and is deeply concerned by the amount of violence, threats and intimidation that is currently taking place in our country," he said.

13,000 workers involved in Lonmin strike

Lonmin said it believed that just 3,000 of its 28,000 employees and 10,000 contract miners were involved in the strike. It said the rest of the workforce was staying away because of threats from strikers who have said they will kill anyone who works.

Ten people were killed in the run-up to the police killings, including two police officers hacked to death by strikers, two mine security guards burned alive in their vehicles and six shop stewards of the dominant National Union of Mineworkers. Strikers accuse the NUM of being coopted by mine management and being too involved in business and politics to pay attention to basic shop-floor needs of its members.

The trouble that began Aug. 10 at Lonmin PLC, the world's third largest platinum mine, is rooted in rivalry between the NUM and a breakaway union.

Strikers have rejected a Lonmin offer to boost the entry-level monthly salary by about $112.50 to about $688 with commensurate increases for higher paid workers. At government-brokered talks Friday the company increased the offer to an additional $225 for the rock drill operators who began the strike. But that still falls far short of the strikers' demands for a minimum monthly wage of $1,560.

The strikers have said they would rather see Lonmin shut down the mine than accept a lower offer.

Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said Friday the strikes are "extremely damaging" to the economy.

"It undermines confidence in the South African economy and, if we undermine confidence, we undermine investment," he said.

Strikes are illegal in South Africa unless approved by the government labour conciliation board, which only allows stoppages once workers prove they have tried and failed to negotiate with an employer and after the conciliation board itself also tries to resolve the issue.