Hundreds block roads in S.African platinum belt as strike breaks

* Stick-wielding protests barricade roads, torch stalls

* Police say they are prepared for any eventuality

* Amplats says majority of strikers want to work

* Lonmin prepares for May 14 return to work deadline (Adds march near Lonmin mine)

By Zandi Shabalala

MARIKANA, South Africa, May 13 (Reuters) - Hundreds of stick-wielding miners barricaded roads and torched roadside vegetable stalls near Lonmin's South African platinum mine on Tuesday, in an attempt to block fellow strikers from breaking rank and going back to work.

Lonmin and other producers have appealed directly to striking miners to return to work, skirting the militant AMCU union which has threatened that "something else" could happen if companies continue to address workers directly.

About 1,000 members blocked the main road leading to the mine shafts with rocks and burning tyres. They torched fruit and vegetable stalls as they marched near Lonmin's Marikana mine.

One protester, who declined to give his name, said the march was aimed at keeping striking workers united in their pursuit for higher wages.

"We will go back but we need money first...we don't want to be split into two, that's all" an AMCU member outside the Lonmin mine said.

South Africa sent more police to the platinum belt on Tuesday to protect miners who have decided to ditch a 16-week strike that has halted 40 percent of normal global output and dented already sluggish growth in Africa's most advanced economy.

Thulani Ngubane, police spokesman in the platinum mining town of Rustenburg northwest of Johannesburg, said police had set up park-and-ride facilities around the platinum mines to handle the arrivals.

It is unclear how many workers will be coming back but the three big platinum firms say a majority of the 70,000 strikers they have contacted directly want to end the strike.

"We are prepared for any eventuality," Ngubane said, although he acknowledged it would be difficult to provide security for the miners in the shanty towns that ring the main mines. Four miners have been killed in the area over the last three days.

Four police armoured vehicles were stationed outside Lonmin's Marikana platinum mine, where police killed 34 striking miners in 2012.

Shop stewards of the striking Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) told Reuters police had also broken up an illegal march by union members at Marikana.

RETURNING TO WORK

AMCU members have been on strike at Anglo American Platinum , Impala Platinum and Lonmin since January pressing for higher wages, but talks have gone nowhere.

Lonmin has said it expects more miners to start returning to work on Wednesday after it made its wage offer directly to employees, sidestepping AMCU.

Implats said it was using mobile phone text messages to conduct a vote on its offer, which was expected to be concluded later on Tuesday. Amplats also said a majority of its workers wanted to return to work.

"The main reason they are not coming to work is because they are being intimidated," Amplats spokeswoman Mpumi Sithole said.

The firm had provided bus vouchers to its employees in the Eastern Cape province, where many miners have their homes, to return to Rustenburg and most of them had gone back, she added.

The producers say the strike has so far cost them 17 billion rand ($1.64 billion) in lost revenues and employees have lost nearly 8 billion rand of earnings.

AMCU's leaders maintain that most of their striking members are not happy with the latest offer of a raise in pay of up to 10 percent.

WAGE DEAL "OUT OF QUESTION"

The companies say that would raise the overall minimum pay package to 12,500 rand ($1,200) a month by July 2017, including cash allowances for things like housing, but AMCU says this is not enough.

"We have remained so far apart. A deal with AMCU at this point in time seems completely out of the question," Amplats chief executive Chris Griffith told private radio station Talk Radio 702. Griffith added that most Amplats miners wanted to return to work.

AMCU had initially demanded an immediate increase to 12,500 rand in the basic wage, excluding allowances, but softened that in March to staggered increases that would amount to 12,500 rand within three or four years - still a third more than what the companies are offering in basic salaries.

The strike highlights the discontent among black miners who feel they are still not reaping the benefits of the country's mineral wealth two decades after apartheid ended.

($1 = 10.3782 South African Rand) (Additional reporting by Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo, Ed Cropley in Johannesburg and Ed Stoddard in Mthatha; Writing by Olivia Kumwedna-Mtambo; Editing by Ed Cropley, Giles Elgood and Peter Graff)