Afrikaners chain themselves to statues around country

VARIOUS Afrikaner organisations have entered the fray to express their dismay over the defacing and removal of national heritage sites by chaining themselves to statues around the country.

Yesterday, the organisations protested nationally under the banner of Red October, an organisation described on its website as “a movement dedicated to raising awareness about the inhumane slaughter and oppression of the white ethnic minority in South Africa”.

One

member

chained himself to a statue of Jan van Riebeeck in Adderley Street in the CBD yesterday.

Protesters from the Front National, Boere Krisis Aksie and Action Forum gathered at the site yesterday before Red October leader Johan Willemse chained himself to the statue.

“The EFF and Julius Malema are misguided fools. As Oom Mandela moet staan, dan moet Oom Jan staan (If Uncle Mandela must stand, then Uncle Jan must stand),” he said.

This comes after the defacing of a statue of Paul Kruger on Church Square in Pretoria on Sunday, after the EFF vowed to tear down all statues of white minority leaders.

Last week, the EFF claimed responsibility for vandalising a war memorial statue in Uitenhage by setting it alight, then for damaging another statue in Port Elizabeth on Tuesday, when a horse memorial was dismantled.

Daniel Lotter, the head of Front National, said they had gathered in solidarity to condemn the actions of the EFF and the Rhodes Must Fall Movement at UCT.

“All these monuments symbolise our history, the history of the entire South Africa, which includes all these groups… It’s not a political thing, it’s a national thing.

“What the students are doing is illegal and we blame Jacob Zuma for this after he said all the ills of this country started when Jan van Riebeeck set foot on this continent.”

Lotter said the protesters would hand over a petition to Parliament against the removal of statues, addressed to President Zuma.

The petition states that the call for the removal of the Kruger statue and other sites “is a direct, racist and revengeful attack on the culture and history of the Afrikaner people”. It also demands that no vandalism against heritage resources be tolerated, and that legal action be taken against individuals and groups who vandalise or remove them.

EFF provincial secretary Nelikhaya Xego said: “The issue with these statues is not racist, and EFF stands in solidarity with the UCT students and anyone else who is calling for these statues to be removed…

“For us, they are a reflection of white domination. As long as statues of colonialists and apartheid leaders stand, there will never be true reconciliation and transformation.”