South African police cracks down on striking miners

Police officers round up a group of men as they patrol the area near the Lonmin platinum mine near Rustenburg, South Africa on Saturday.

Police firing tear gas and wielding batons sent men, women and children running back 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.

It was the first police action since officers

>killed more than 30 miners on August 16, 2012 in state violence that shocked the nation.

Police said about 500 officers raided hostels at Lonmin platinum mine before dawn and confiscated homemade machetes, spears, knives and clubs.

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

Then they moved into the Wonderkop shantytown.