S.African police disperse march by striking platinum miners

RUSTENBURG, South Africa (AFP) - South African police on Sunday blocked and dispersed a march by hundreds of protesting miners against a security crackdown in the country's restive platinum belt.

AFP reporters on the scene said workers dispersed peacefully after a row of armoured police trucks stopped them from marching on the police station in the north-west town of Rustenburg, a day after officers fired rubber bullets to disperse workers in nearby Marikana.

"The police have blocked us. They are dispersing us. Now we are telling our people to go back to where we came from" in order to avoid any conflict, Mr Gaddhafi Mdoda, a workers' committee member at Anglo American Platinum, told AFP.

Workers were not carrying their usual protest gear of machetes, spears and sticks a day after police moved into platinum giant Lonmin's strike-hit Marikana mine to raid worker residences and seize weapons.