PICS: Fires, tear gas, rubber bullets at UKZN

Published Sep 7, 2016

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Bernadette Wolhuter, Kerushun Pillay and Sharika Regchand

Durban - The Howard College Law Library was set on fire at the University of KwaZulu-Natal on Tuesday as campus vandalism continued and uninvolved students found themselves caught up in tear gas and rubber bullets fired by police.

“It was a matter of escaping, not leaving”, said one student as he described the “very disturbing” ordeal he and four friends went through trying to get to safety after police and protesters clashed around noon.

It came as KwaZulu-Natal MEC for Transport, Community Safety and Liaison Mxolisi Kaunda called on law enforcement to take firm action in dealing with criminal behaviour at tertiary institutions.

Speaking about his terrifying experience, the student said he and his friends hid behind low bushes in an attempt to evade tear gas and rubber bullets.

#UKZN Howard College | Princess Alice Avenue and a bus stop burnt, police cleaning up - shots fired @ crowd near res pic.twitter.com/VNdsBPhboP

—  SihleMlambo ✍️ (@SihleSays) September 6, 2016

“I saw a girl on the floor, unable to breathe. Many others were running away.

“I saw cops loading up ammunition from big vans. They were also wearing bulletproof vests,” he said. “All of a sudden they started telling us to go away. We were terrified.”

After a while they ran inside a building and stayed there until the protests died down around 2pm.

He was hit on his arms and neck, probably by fragments of rubber bullets, but he said he was not in pain and was trying to recover from shock.

Kaunda said he “detested and condemned all acts of violence, vandalism, destruction of private and public property, including at all institutions of learning”.

“We view such vandalism as criminality,” the MEC’s spokesman, Sipho Khumalo, said.

Khumalo said the department urged institutions where protests were taking place to immediately embark on talks with students and work to tighten security.

University spokesman Lesiba Seshoka said the fire at the Law Library building had been extinguished before it could do serious damage.

Student Thando Maseko has just been arrested. He says he is innocent. Accused of stoning. #UKZN @DailyNewsSA @iol pic.twitter.com/FbveDrVAD9

—  SihleMlambo ✍️ (@SihleSays) September 6, 2016

He believed the fire was started about 4pm.

On Tuesday night SAPS spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Thulani Zwane said the situation at the campus was calm.

“Public order police, the Umbilo police, the metro police, as well as security guards, are monitoring the situation,” he said.

Rubber bullets were fired to disperse protesting students at the campus on Tuesday, Zwane said.

One was arrested and would appear in the Durban Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday, facing charges of public violence and contravening a court order.

Five women were injured during protest action at the Pietermaritzburg campus on Tuesday.

ER24 spokesman Russel Meiring said several authorities had requested medical assistance at the campus.

“Paramedics found that five women had sustained minor injuries, apparently caused by tear gas and rubber bullets.

The patients were treated and transported to nearby hospitals,” he said. Zwane said members of the public order police and from the Alexandra Road police station were monitoring the situation and trying to disperse the “ruthless crowd who are throwing stones at the police”.

At the Westville campus, a large auditorium was set alight about 11.30pm on Monday night.

It took the university’s risk management services and the fire department almost four hours to quell the blaze, Seshoka said.

“Students also torched six vehicles and pelted stones at the risk management control room,” he said.

“Some suspects were apprehended by RMS and are now in police custody.”

Central Student Representative Council president, Senzo Ngidi, said he was among those detained at the risk management offices.

A group of students, he said, were taken from their residences during the night without reasons.

“I was detained for trying to find out where they were sent.”

The students’ grievances concern the looming fee hikes, applications for the National Student Financial Aid Scheme, registration and the composition of the university’s executive management committee.

Last week UKZN obtained a high court interdict protecting it against unlawful protests, disruptive gatherings, demonstrations, mass action, intimidation and other violent acts to persons or property at the entrances and premises of the university’s campuses.

The SRC has been invited to make submissions at a council sitting later this month.

Seshoka said on Tuesday that the university would bring forward its recess period to limit academic disruptions.

“In light of the ongoing student protest action, management has taken a decision to bring forward the September recess period.” The university would be closed from September 7 to 19.

He said the programme would resume on September 20.

KwaZulu-Natal Premier Willies Mchunu, addressing business leaders at the KZN Coalition Breakfast in Durban on Tuesday, said: “We strongly deplore any kind of destruction of property, especially in tertiary institutions as we have witnessed at UKZN.

“We are determined to prevent any attempts to derail the strides taken in pursuit of peace and security in our province.”

The Mercury

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