South African Rebels Set British War Memorial Ablaze
Rebecca Perring, Express, April 3, 2015
A monument to British soldiers who died in the Boer Wars between 1899 and 1902 has been set on fire by members of a radical South African group.
Describing it as a “colonial statue” the protestors abandoned a burning tyre over the statue of the soldier in the centre of the southern town of Uitenhage.
A police warrant officer Basil Seekoei said: “We haven’t arrested anyone yet. We’re still busy with the investigation first.”
Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), a South African revolutionary socialist political party, quickly claimed responsibility for the sickening incident on Thursday.
A young member of EFF, Luxolo Jacobs, posted images of the statue ablaze on Twitter, alongside a message to the founder of the party Julius Malema.
He wrote: “The statue of the Anglo-Boer War fell in Uitenhage. When the Leadership speaks fighters respond.”
Police said the memorial is “not badly damaged” but the stonework was merely blackened.
This comes after Mr Malema called for the statues of South Africa’s former white rulers to be taken down.
EFF Regional Deputy chairman Bo Madwara told a local television station: “We said that economic liberation must be accompanied by the falling of these colonial statues and we would want to see them replaced by liberation hero statues.”
