Targeted, claim DA students

In Explosive affidavits, six University of Fort Hare students aligned to the Democratic Alliance, have alleged victimisation on the university’s Alice campus. They further claim police ignored their attempts to solicit help.

Police, however, deny any knowledge of the students’ alleged attempts to lodge complaints or the existence of the affidavits.

Police spokeswoman Colonel Sibongile Soci said police were not aware of any complaints made by Democratic Alliance Students Organisation (Daso) students.

However, copies of the affidavits show an SAPS Alice stamp, the date May 28, and the signature of a commissioner of oaths.

The affidavits allege, among other things that:

• University registrar Professor Mike Somniso sought to intimidate at least two students by threatening to deal with them “one by one”;
• A student overheard a conversation about poisoning Busisiwe Mashiqa, who became SRC president after the DA-aligned student movement won control of the SRC in an election in May;
• At least two Daso students were assaulted at the university parliament in May.

The university parliament sat after a seismic election in which Daso won control of the historically ANC-aligned SRC.

Reference to the students’ affidavits can be tracked back to June 5 when the DA provincial leader Athol Trollip wrote to the office of Eastern Cape premier Phumulo Masualle, and copied the letter to the Eastern Cape police commissioner General Celiwe Binta and the university’s vice-chancellor Dr Mvuyo Tom.

In the letter, Trollip raised clear concerns about the safety of Daso members on the campus, noting incidents of “intimidation and assault compounded by ANC councilors who were not students”.

Soci, however, said the Alice police were not aware of any complaints by Daso members. “Visible policing commander at Alice police station is not aware of any complaint by Daso students who were allegedly not assisted by Alice SAPS.”

Soci declined comment on Trollip’s letter, saying it was not policy to discuss correspondence between Binta and a community member.

Contacted by the Dispatch, Masualle condemned the incidents.

UFH’s spokeswoman Zintle Filtane on Friday said the university had not seen a letter from Trollip.

On Friday, Tom undertook to investigate allegations of victimisation after a recording surfaced in which the registrar can be heard telling Filtane: “No DA event will go on normal here”.

The recording was made in May after chaos erupted at the UFH student parliament. In the mayhem, the DA’s shadow minister for higher education Yusuf Cassim alleges he was injured.

Yesterday, Cassim called for the immediate suspension of Somniso and a full, transparent and independent investigation into the matter.

The affidavits are from:

• Mawethu Kosani (final-year BA student) claiming police ignored Daso students when they tried to open cases of assault;
• Daso member Siphelele Smith (Masters in Agriculture) said following an attack on May 27 on his friend Yonela Nuba (a second-year BSc Computer Science and Geology student and the university’s Daso chair) the registrar had at an oath-taking “called me aside and said the reasons we were being attacked was because we were giving the university bad publicity the media. If we ever did it again, he would fire us one by one.”
• Daso member, Sakhumzi Bobi (a second-year education student) claimed that on May 15 he overheard three people, known to Dispatch, discussing how to poison Mashiqa.
• Thandikaya Matokazi (a second-year social sciences student) stated that Somniso told the students he was going to use his force as a manager of the university as “Daso embarrasses the university”.

Despite persistent efforts, the Dispatch has not been able to reach Somniso, nor Sasco leaders Bulali Rawana and Lwandile Mgedezi for comment. — bonganif@dispatch.co.za