‘We’ll bring shackland to campus’

UCT militants warn administration

MILITANT UCT students accusing university authorities of being “indifferent, heavy handed and arrogant”, have threatened to “bring shackland onto this campus” next week if their grievances aren’t addressed immediately.

In the latest round of running battles at UCT, part of a growing crisis at tertiary institutions nationwide, the students cautioned UCT was sitting on an explosive situation and things could get much worse.

“We have now reached that point in our struggle where we have to apply a simple principle, which is when injustice becomes a law, resistance becomes a duty,” said Athabile Nonxuba, head of the UCT chapter of the Pan African Students Movement of Azania.

Nonxuba’s warning came as UCT students secured an 11th-hour temporary reprieve in an urgent meeting between the student representative council and university management yesterday. The university agreed the registration deadline would be extended for students owing less than R10 000 and provision would be made to enable finalyear students to secure financial assistance.

Students are intensifying their campaign, they say, to “decolonise” the institution. Some have gone so far as to accuse vice- chancellor Max Price and other officials of “deliberately precipitating a crisis on campus with unilateral actions and exclusionary policies which led to direct action and resulted in violence and brutality on campus”.

The university descended into chaos on Tuesday after campus security and police moved in to remove a shack that had been erected on an access road located close to the M3.

Nonxuba, one of the student activists at the forefront of the action and who was injured during the protests, said it had been erected to remind UCT of “its disturbing racist history and to expose the institution for its discriminatory housing allocation practices”.

Nonxuba said the shack reflected the students’ desperation. It was a “last resort” action when the university failed to respond to their complaints.

“We tried desperately to pursue an intellectual struggle to raise our grievances with the university management and the executive, but all our efforts were met with arrogance, an unwillingness to comprehend our demands and finally brutality and force.”

Nonxuba is among 16 respondents against whom UCT obtained an urgent interdict in the Western Cape High Court on Wednesday evening. Others include: Chumani Maxele, who triggered the #RhodesMustFall movement when he dumped faeces on the statue of Cecil John Rhodes; Kirsten Whitfield, daughter of former Weekend Argus editor Chris Whitfield; and Itumeleng Nkululeko Molefe, son of Eskom chairman Brian Molefe, who reportedly paid bail for the arrested students.

In response to Weekend Argus questions on allegations UCT was guilty of financial exclusion of deserving students, university spokeswoman Pat Lucas said their financial assistance policy was that every student accepted on academic grounds, who qualified for financial assistance, would be helped.

There was also extra government funding via the National Student Financial Aid Scheme.

On allegations that the institution favoured foreign students over local, deserving students, Lucas said only 125 (1.8 percent) residence beds at UCT were allocated to international students. Most were accommodated privately.

Lucas also addressed complaints by students relating to unfairness of its appeals process. “The university follows due process in the handling of appeals on admissions, academic status and financial responsibility. You are welcome to send us details of anyone with specific complaints in this regard and we will investigate their case.”

Students this week also called for Price’s arrest after accusing him and other officials of assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm at the Rondebosch police station. The university said it had not

FEBRUARY 20 2016