text: The apartheid government had declared a moratorium on foreign debt repayments in the mid-1980s when it declared a state of emergency in the face of escalating civil unrest. With the formal end of apartheid in 1994, the newly elected ANC government was saddled with an onerous foreign debt amounting to 86,700,000,000 rands ($14,000,000,000 at then current exchange rates) accrued by the former apartheid regime. The cash-strapped government was obliged to repay this debt, or else face a credit downgrading by foreign financial institutions. The debt was finally settled in September 2001.
  A further financial burden was imposed on the new post-apartheid government through its obligation to provide antiretroviral (ARV) treatment to impoverished victims of the HIV-AIDS epidemic sweeping the country. South Africa had the highest prevalence of HIV-AIDS compared to any other country in the world, with 5,600,000 people afflicted by the disease and 270,000 HIV-related deaths were recorded in 2011. By that time, more than 2,000,000 children were orphaned due to the epidemic. The provision of ARV treatment resulted in 100,000 fewer AIDS-related deaths in 2011, than in 2005.
  Migrant labour remained a fundamental aspect of the South African mining industry, which employed half a million, mostly black miners. Labour unrest in the industry resulted in a massacre which took place in mid-August 2012, during which; anti-riot police shot dead 34 striking miners and wounded many more in what is now known as the Marikana massacre. The migrant labour system was identified as a primary cause of the unrest. Multinational mining corporations including Anglo-American Corporation, Lonmin, and Anglo Platinum, were accused of failing to address the enduring legacies of apartheid.