National
ANC members clean statue damaged by EFF─── 05:32 Tue, 07 Apr 2015
Johannesburg - The history of South Africa can't be removed and every culture's history has to be protected for the next generation, Eastern Cape ANC MPL Christian Martin said, Netwerk24 reports.
While members of the ANC cleaned the statue that was burnt by EFF members last week, Martin said that history tells you where you come from and what happened.
"Therefore we decided to clean the statue. The ANC has to take the lead as the ruling party to ensure that every culture's history is protected.
"Mistakes from the past have to change your life to prevent it from happening again. No one's history should be broken down to benefit another's."
He repeated his call to people who want to damage apartheid and colonial statues to make a contribution to history, rather than destroying it.
This comes after an elderly man was arrested on Monday evening for allegedly damaging a statue where Cape Road meets Russell Road in Port Elizabeth, Eastern Cape police said.
Brigadier Ronald Koll, station commander at the Humewood police station, said the man was arrested for allegedly targeting the statue and damaging it.
"It is a crime to do so and that's why we opened a malicious damage to property case," he said.
"In this specific incident there was [believed to be] a car moving around and people jumped out to damage the statue. It is believed that the purpose of those in the car was to damage statues."
The statue was allegedly damaged on Sunday, Koll said.
HeraldLive reported on Monday that the statue was built in memory of animals that died during the Boer War, also known as the Anglo-Boer War.
The man was expected to appear in the New Law Courts in Port Elizabeth on Tuesday.
The statue is the second in the province to be damaged in the last week, after the War Memorial statue in Uitenhage's Market Square was set alight on Thursday.
EFF deputy chairperson for the Nelson Mandela Bay region, Bo Madwara, later confirmed that the local chapter was behind the setting alight of the Uitenhage statue.
Madwara said the Uitenhage war memorial was just the tip of the iceberg.
“The EFF has a programme in Nelson Mandela Bay that will seek to destroy all colonial statues that have been identified,” he said.
Another statue, that of Paul Kruger in Pretoria's Church Square, was defaced with blobs of lime green paint on Sunday, with the Economic Freedom Fighters claiming responsibility.
Spokesperson Mbuyiseni Ndlozi said the party's members in Tshwane were responsible for defacing the statue of Kruger.
"Yes, the EFF in Tshwane has taken responsibility for it," said Ndlozi.
"The EFF in Tshwane has long launched a campaign where it has demonstrated, calling on the city to remove the statue with immediate effect and substitute it with a different statue or monument."
Moafrika Mabongwana, EFF deputy chairperson in Tshwane, confirmed that the party's Tshwane members were responsible. He told reporters earlier on Monday that the EFF was not responsible, but later changed tack.
"We went back and spoke to the members and found out that they were actually involved," said Mabongwana.
"I was not aware at the time that they were involved when I spoke to the other media. We congratulate them for the action they have taken."
Spokesperson for Tshwane mayor Kgosientso Ramokgopa, Blessing Manale, said security guards had been posted around the Kruger statue.
"We want to pursue criminal prosecution. We are considering cordoning the statue off and we will have it cleaned up tomorrow," Manale said.
"The mayor is on holiday. He returns Tuesday and will head to the scene to see for himself."
In Cape Town this weekend, a small statue resembling President Jacob Zuma was erected on Lion's Head, but later cut in half.
City Press reported that the statue, which depicts a short, fat, naked man, had a large pink sex toy in its hand, evoked the controversy around artist Brett Murray’s painting, The Spear.
The debate was sparked by protests that began at the University of Cape Town on March 9 about the presence of a statue of Cecil John Rhodes on campus. After weeks of protests, the senate voted in favour of the removal of the statue.
