We can’t really tell you – even though our reporter, other journalists and dozens of others saw what happened at Stellenbosch University on Monday. They saw Security Forces act against a march of students and workers on the campus. However, the incident was not mentioned in the routine police unrest report.
Asked to comment, Colonel JM Labuschagne of the Police Directorate of Public Relations in Pretoria said he had personally spoken to the officer in charge of the operation and had specifically asked him whether dogs and sjamboks had been used. The officer denied that they had been, Labuschagne said. In terms of the Emergency, if police say they did not use dogs or sjamboks, then they didn’t – even though our reporter who was on the scene and wrote an eyewitness account may have thought differently.
Gaye Davis reports that the singing marchers jogged across Stellenbosch University campus through the rain, armed only with a banner reading ”Forward with the Workers’ Struggle”. Comprised of about 500 university workers, students, clerics and residents of Stellenbosch’s townships, the group was heading for De Braak – Stellenbosch’s ”village common”. As they made their way towards the town’s business centre, the marchers were kept ranked in rows of six abreast by marshalls who halted them at crossings so that traffic policemen could halt approaching cars. But within minutes tranquil Stellenbosch was the scene of pandemonium. The catalysts were the (details cut in terms of Emergency regulations) who halted the march as it was making its way across the last street before reaching the common.
Seconds later, the marchers were screaming and fleeing from the (details cut). There was no warning. Those who tumbled and fell before the gaze of onlookers were (details cut) as police (details cut). Within minutes, all that remained at the scene was a pair of red shoes. Later on Tuesday night, as the university’s administration dithered over whether to issue a statement on the incident, the 34 people arrested were released from police cells, most of them on R50 bail.
This article originally appeared in the Weekly Mail.
