The mob was baying for blood. Not just any blood – black blood. And they found it. A young man was caught in the wrong place at the wrong time on Monday as pitched street battles raged in the Grabouw suburb of Pineview.
A rumour spread like wildfire: “the blacks” wanted to burn down the nearby high school, attended mainly by coloured pupils from the community. And the mob was determined to defend this school by force.
The violence escalated after three classrooms were vandalised at Groenberg Secondary, where protesters tried to set alight a textbook storeroom. Coloured residents blamed their black neighbours.
This, overcrowding at a predominantly black school and a coming by-election have all been cited by residents as reasons for the situation coming to a head on Monday.
Armed with golf clubs, sticks, planks, hockey sticks, steel rods – anything – coloured residents roamed the streets hunting for prey.
Then this young man was spotted – not part of any group of protesters, but black.
He was circled and set upon by enraged coloured residents. He was struck several times and, as blood spurted from his scalp, he fell into a ditch.
But while his assailants wanted more blood, other members of the coloured community screamed for the man to be shown mercy.
This latter group wrenched him free and dragged him in the direction of a screaming siren.
A police van came careering into view, and the man’s rescuers lunged forward with the man to deliver him into police care.
Bundled into the police van, the man was raced away to the nearby community clinic.
These were the ugly scenes which played out across the suburb for hours on Monday as the coloured community marshalled their men to “defend” the school from the supposed black threat.
The air was thick with racial slurs, screamed if someone of a darker hue was spotted.
The police, hopelessly outnumbered, did their best to avert clashes, firing tear gas canisters whenever mobs developed and threatened to move into range of conflict.
On Ou Kaapse Weg, a black teenager lay bleeding after one of many stand-offs and bystanders said she had been shot with a rubber bullet.
Around her, branches and rubble were set on fire in the street. Rocks, street signs and public telephone booths lay strewn across Gaffley Street.
There was chaos when police used rubber bullets and gas to bring the crowds under control.
Protests started a week ago over overcrowding at Umyezo Wama Apile Combined School. The Western Cape Education Department decided to close the school until next term.
One black resident said coloured residents were angered after Groenberg Secondary was vandalised.
“Why do they want to take our children’s education away?” a coloured resident wanted to know.
“They (blacks) want to take over everything,” another said.
Another local said: “There’s going to be a bloodbath here.”
Some residents said coloured and black people in Grabouw usually worked together as seasonal workers in apple factories and on fruit farms.
At one stage, there was also a stand-off between black and coloured residents in Bosbou. They started hurling stones and bottles at each other.
Community members and witnesses said the scene all over Grabouw resembled a civil war, as roving rival gangs of coloured and black community members fought pitched battles at several points in the town.
In ensuing confrontations, people had their skulls smashed with rocks and they were beaten by residents armed with numerous weapons, including sticks and spades, while police and civic association leaders tried to negotiate peace.
Coloured residents told the Cape Argus they would defend their school “with their lives”.
They claimed the black residents were trying to burn it down.
The Cape Argus witnessed a coloured mob beating a number of black men who they suspected were trying to infiltrate the school area.
Some said the tension was over a coming by-election in Grabouw.
John Michaels, chairman of the Elgin Grabouw Civic Organisation, said protesters would march to Cape Town if Education MEC Donald Grant didn’t come to Grabouw on Monday.
Three schools – Kathleen Murray PS, Pineview PS and Groenberg Secondary – were closed in order to protect the safety of pupils.
Several Grabouw residents said they had been unable to go to work.
Many businesses in the town also closed their doors. There is no indication of when the clashes will end.
Police spokesman November Filander said they had arrested 15 people who would all appear in the Grabouw Magistrate’s Court today in connection with public violence.
Countdown to chaos
*The department seeks land to build the new schools but struggles to find land.
*Money is set aside in the budget for the new schools.
*Land belonging to national government is identified to build one school.
*A formal request for land transfer from national Department of Public Works to the provincial Department of Public Works and Transport is made.
This month sees the “unexpected late arrival” of 600 unregistered, additional pupils at the Umyezo Wama Apile Combined School.
*WCED seeks a short-term solution and searches for a temporary site for additional mobile units.
*Since January, three sites are noted.
*The first site needs to be investigated because of environmental sensitivities.
*The second site is a sports field that requires permission from various local agencies.
*In February, WCED officials meet officials from the Theewaterskoof Municipality to find alternative land. A third piece of land is identified.
Violent protests erupt at Umyezo Wama Apile Combined over overcrowding.
MEC Donald Grant shuts the school seven days before the end of term, until the new term starts on April 10.
Violent protests close the N2 and the protests turn into a race row in the community.
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