South Africa Continues a Crackdown on Miners MARIKANA, South Africa (AP) - Police officers firing rubber bullets and tear gas sent men, women and children scattering on Saturday as they herded them into their shacks in a crackdown on strikers at a platinum mine. The show of force followed a vow by the South African government to halt illegal protests and disarm strikers who have stopped work at one gold and six platinum mines northwest of Johannesburg, destabilizing the country's critical mining sector. It was the first police action against miners in South Africa since officers killed 34 miners on Aug. 16, shocking the nation. About 500 officers raided hostels at the Lonmin platinum mine in Marikana before dawn on Saturday and confiscated homemade machetes, spears, knives and clubs, said a police spokesman, Brig. Thulani Ngubane. A half dozen men were arrested on charges of illegal possession of arms and drugs in those raids, he said, and another six were arrested later Saturday morning. Officers first fired tear gas at hundreds of miners who refused to disarm at a hill of granite boulders that has become the strikers" headquarters. The police then moved into the Wonderkop shantytown, where residents set up barricades of burning tires to try to block the officers from their neighborhood. The police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at people who disobeyed orders, using a bullhorn to tell 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 said Friday at a news conference that the government was intervening because the mining industry was central to the economy of South Africa, 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. The Lonmin mining company 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 work force 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 killings last month, 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 union of being co-opted by management and being too involved in business and politics to pay attention to the basic needs of its members.