1976 RELOADED

Violent protests erupted in East London yesterday, bringing the CBD to a standstill as students blockaded city streets.

The protest began yesterday morning as University of Fort Hare (UFH) students went from residence to residence urging their peers to join them.

At some residences security guards were kicked out and entrances locked using chains.

At one stage early in the day police threw stun grenades but after engaging with student leaders the men in blue accompanied the large crowd to the university’s East London campus.

UFH East London campus SRC head Malakiwe Mbambo said the fees were too high for an increase.

“The management is proposing 10% increment for all courses and 15% for agriculture. They want us to pay R5000 for registration. These figures are ridiculous because of the corruption here,” Mbambo said.

The students later marched up Oxford Street, disrupting traffic.

On their way back to the main campus, they staged a sit-in at the traffic circle at the bottom of Oxford Street for about two hours.

Police fired stun grenades when students began burning dustbins, tyres and paper in front of the Church Street campus. The students then fled to the Fleet and Station streets intersection where they again blocked the road and burnt dustbins in the street.

Peak-hour traffic was diverted along several routes and reports of gridlocks around the city came flooding into the Dispatch offices.

Police intervened again and fired more stun grenades to disperse the students, who soon gathered again.

By late yesterday evening the students were still on the streets.

Police spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Mtati Tana said a “number” of students were arrested.

“We are still processing them and cannot confirm the exact figure just yet,” he said.

While hundreds of students were trying to storm parliament in Cape Town yesterday, thousands of Fort Hare students stormed the student centre at the Alice campus, looting groceries meant for their daily meals, Fort Hare Vice-Chancellor Mvuyo Tom confirmed.

There were also reports that after cleaning out the dining hall, the mob moved to the information technology centre looting computers and IT equipment.

But Tom could not be reached late last night to confirm this.

The VC said he was not in Alice when he received a call informing him that the protest had turned violent.

“At this stage we can’t say how much this damage has cost.

“But I want to warn those who brought in criminal elements into a peaceful protest that we are not going to tolerate that,” he said.

SRC president Busisiwe Mashiqa said the students had looted the canteen out of anger.

“The incident occurred after lunchtime when students waiting for management to address them got fed up and entered the canteen.

“The incident occurred at the time when there was no management around campus. When they saw that management was not coming they went to the canteen.

“I can really say they acted out of anger. The VC did not say much when he addressed us on Tuesday – all he said was ‘I have noted your concern’. We are demanding a far better response than that,” Mashiqa said.

Fort Hare students join a nationwide strike in which tertiary students are demanding a zero percent increase in next year’s fees. This followed a protest by Wits University students in Gauteng who took to the streets championing the slogan “Fees must fall”.

Tom said they had decided as management to allow the protest to continue even though the students did not ask for permission because “it was a national protest and so we decided to accommodate them”.

“As you may have witnessed on day one of the protest, we did not call in the police because we viewed this as a national programme of students who wanted to bring up a very important matter. But when there are incidents like this we have no choice but to call in police to monitor the situation.”