Miners told a Reuters reporter they were gathering to wait for their leaders to come and address them. The share price of Lonmin slid almost 7 percent and the rand currency hit 3-week lows, as investors worried about a repeat of 2012's turmoil, which hammered platinum and gold production and triggered credit downgrades for Africa's largest economy. "Peace and returning to normal production in our mining industry is absolutely critical to our economy so I'm hoping that everybody sits down together and solves their problem," South Africa's Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said on Tuesday in Cape Town, reacting to the latest Lonmin stoppage. It puts pressure on President Jacob Zuma's ANC, which was criticized last year for its handling of the situation and faces accusations that it is neglecting the nation's poor masses 19 years after the end of apartheid.