JOHANNESBURG — The company that runs a platinum mine where South African police killed 34 striking workers signed a peace deal Thursday with the main labor unions, but a breakaway union and the strikers themselves refused to sign.
That creates gloomy prospects for an accord that is supposed to open the way for wage negotiations to end a monthlong strike. Suspicion and anger poison the atmosphere. On Wednesday, strikers threatened to kill workers and managers who ignore their strike.
Strikers who have stopped work at the Marikana mine say they are interested only in London-registered Lonmin PLC meeting a demand for a minimum monthly wage of $1,560.
Lonmin spokeswoman Sue Vey said all was quiet Thursday at the Karee mineshaft, where 2,000 strikers and supporters on Wednesday threatened to kill those who do not join the monthlong stoppage at the nearby Marikana mine. The Karee mine, responsible for 68 percent of production at Lonmin, the world’s third-largest platinum producer, is now also not producing platinum.
‘‘The chances of warring parties imminently signing a peace agreement to end the violence at Lonmin’s platinum mines seem slim,’’ the mining website miningmx.com wrote late Wednesday.
On Aug. 16, police who had vowed to end the strike shot and killed 34 miners, wounded another 78, and arrested 270 strikers. Police said they acted in self-defense when they were attacked by miners armed mainly with homemade machetes, clubs, and spears.
But local news reports have quoted survivors saying some miners were shot at close range as they tried to surrender, and that autopsies show others were shot in the back as they attempted to run away from the barrage of police gunfire.
The National Union of Mineworkers, South Africa’s leading trade union which is close to political leaders, said the accord ‘‘signals the good intentions of the participants to end the violence, threats and intimidation that has become a characteristic in the daily life of Marikana.’’