UFS students vow to continue fight

4 March 2016

Bloemfontein - The University of Free State's students of the #UnsilenceUFS movement on Friday vowed to fight the university system until they were heard. 

Dressed in black, students walked to the Shimla Park stadium where a group of protesters, who wanted to highlight the plight of outsourced workers, disrupted a Varsity Cup rugby match last week Monday. 

Spectators had run onto the field and attacked them, causing chaos and the forced closure of the university for the duration of last week.

The following morning, EFF protesters vandalised and pulled down a statue of Charles Robberts (CR) Swart on campus.

Swart was the last governor general of the Union of South Africa, a position he held until 1961 when the country became a sovereign republic. He then served as president of the Republic of South Africa from 1961 to 1967.

"Last week, we came here [Shimla Park] and sang and all of a sudden a group of spectators came down here and beat us bad. We tried to fight back, but we were still beaten," said Liza Mfana of the student movement. 

Another student, Seoketsi Hooketsi said they wanted to show their plight and commemorate places which were vandalised during the protest. 

"We don't want to be violent anymore, but we have been silenced for far too long as black students so we want to show the university that we are visble," she said. 

On Monday morning, security was doubled at the university as classes resumed after a week of protests.

SRC president Lindokuhle Ntuli said students would not disrupt any classes as they found no pleasure in causing the institution any harm.

This article first appeared on News24 – see here.