Trump rejects renaming of US bases

– US military bases honouring Civil War Confederate leaders will not be renamed, President Donald Trump said on Wednesday, pushing back on pressure to rid public places of monuments glorifying the once pro-slavery South.

“These Monumental and very Powerful Bases have become part of a Great American Heritage, and a history of Winning, Victory, and Freedom,” Trump said in a tweet.

“My Administration will not even consider renaming these Magnificent and Fabled Military Installations. Our history as the

Greatest Nation in the World will not be tampered with,” he wrote.

The importance given by Trump to keeping installations like Fort Bragg in North Carolina – America’s largest military base – as they are was underlined by press secretary Kayleigh McEnany.

Demands to rename such installations have gathered momentum in the wake of mass protests across the United States against police brutality and racism against African-Americans that were sparked by the death of George Floyd in police custody.

Ten bases honouring generals from the secessionist South, which lost the Civil War and its struggle to preserve slavery, are in the spotlight. Other sites include Fort Hood in Texas and Fort Benning in Georgia.

Anger from antiracism protesters has also focused on statues of southern Civil War heroes, the Confederate flag and statues of explorer Christopher Columbus, who opened the Americas to European settlement.

A statue of the navigator was beheaded in Boston, police said on Wednesday. Another was toppled in Virginia. – AFP