Joshua Amupadhi
The University of the Orange Free State (UOFS) has at last admitted there may be racial tensions on its campus and has agreed to investigate the causes of campus violence last week — which university authorities earlier dismissed as the result of drunkenness.
UOFS Dean of Students Professor Teuns Verschoor said both black and white students had criticised the university’s earlier stand, claiming authorities were trying to play down growing racial tensions which came to a head last weekend when about 170 students armed with bottles, knives and stones clashed for the second time in less than two months. One student, Stanley Harmse, is reported be in hospital with a fractured skull.
The South African Student Congress (Sasco) on Monday walked out of negotiations because the “wrong problem” — drinking alcohol on campus — was being addressed.
Verschoor said the university has now instituted an investigation into the causes of the clashes.
Sasco branch chair Pule Mohloli has threatened mass action from next week if an independent commission of inquiry to look into racial problems is not set up by the university and the provincial government.
Mohloli said the racial tension has been brewing for a long time partly because whites and blacks were mostly separated in the hostels. He blamed the weekend violence on white students at Olienhout hostel who at the beginning of the year assaulted blacks and hoisted Nazi flags. The students were subsequently moved to the predominantly white HF Verwoerd hostel.
The supervisor at HF Verwoerd hostel, Marnius Oosthuysen, had a completely different explanation for the tension. He said the problem was exacerbated by putting black and white students in the same residences.
“This is a racial conflict, not alcohol … If you have two dogs fighting the only way to stop them is by separation,” he said.
But Verschoor said that the university did not have a policy of separation in the hostels. He said first-year students could request to stay in the hostel of their choice, although their choice was not guaranteed.