University of Cape Town Removes Rhodes Monument After Protests

The university’s council voted on Wednesday to take the monument down from the campus and store it safely.

The council said it had immediately applied to the heritage authority to have the Rhodes statue taken down.

It also said that it would temporarily remove the monument, over concerns for its safety, while the authority considered the application.

The vote followed weeks of protests by students across the campus demanding that the memorial to Rhodes be removed.

Campaigning for the removal of the statue of the 19th Century figure, unveiled in 1934 the students smeared it with excrement last month.

Do not target 'our' heritage

Other monuments to colonial-era leaders have also been recently vandalised.

However, the campaign triggered a backlash.

On Wednesday, crowds of white South Africans rallied at statues of Paul Kruger in the capital Pretoria, and Jan van Riebeeck in Cape Town, saying they were part of their heritage and should not be targeted.

Kruger, a contemporary of Rhodes, was an Afrikaner leader known for his opposition to the British in South Africa.

Van Riebeeck was a Dutch coloniser who arrived in South Africa on April 5th, 1652.

A placard held by a white protestor read in part: "Hands off our heritage. This is genocide."

Rhodes was an Oxford-educated politician and mining businessman who played a key role in the expansion of British rule in South Africa.

By Musalia Wycliffe

Source: BBC News