Expelled politician Julius Malema blames senior members of South Africa's governing African National Congress for police killing 34 striking miners earlier this week.
Mr Malema said that police had no right to fire live ammunition at the men.
The youth leader, who was expelled from the ANC earlier this year, visited the Marikana mine today.
He was welcomed as a hero by around 5,000 strikers.
Mr Malema is the first politician to address them at the site and said he had come because the government has turned its back on them.
Strikers complained that President Jacob Zuma had not come to them when he flew to the area yesterday and visited hospitalised miners who were wounded in Thursday's shootings.
Mr Malema accused Zuma of having "presided over the massacre of our people".
He said: "The reason the workers were killed is because there is a highly connected political figure in that mine" he added.
Mr Malema claimed that senior ANC members had ignored the escalating situation over miners' demands for higher salaries because they had shares in the Lonmin platinum mine.
