/ 6 September 2007

Great Trek memorial saga goes to court

Standerton residents, AfriForum and the mayor of the Lekwa municipality, Queen Radebe-Khumalo, will face off in the Pretoria High Court in November over a damaged Great Trek memorial.

The Standerton Action Committee and AfriForum have asked the Pretoria High Court that Radebe-Khumalo be ordered to rebuild a Great Trek memorial that she earlier this year ordered to be destroyed.

They are also asking the court that she, in her personal capacity, and the municipality be held responsible for the costs of the rebuilding.

Radebe-Khumalo and the municipality are opposing the application that is to be heard on November 6.

The memorial, built to mark the 150th anniversary of the Great Trek, was destroyed on the orders of Radebe-Khumalo in April this year.

Erected in front of the municipality building in Standerton, the memorial consisted of a large concrete slab with the tracks of an ox-wagon set in it and it commemorates the time 13 ox-wagons travelled through South Africa as part of Great Trek celebrations in 1988.

At the time of its destruction, Radebe-Khumalo reportedly said the memorial ”means nothing to us”.

”It’s just a piece of cement with tracks. I do not even know where it comes from.” — Sapa