Cape Town - The Economic Freedom Fighters on Tuesday applauded the toppling of Port Elizabeth’s 110-year-old Horse Memorial but said it could not claim responsibility for the act.
“We are not aware that any of our members did that but we do not condemn it. In fact we applaud it because we have now taken a decision that all these statues must come down,” said Simcelile Rubela, the party’s Eastern Cape co-ordinator.
The bronze statue was erected in memory of horses who served and died in the Second Boer War and shows a kneeling soldier holding a bucket of water for his horse. The soldier was ripped off the plinth on Monday.
The EFF, which has issued a call for all colonial and apartheid era memorials to be dismantled, reacted in the same manner after the statue of Paul Kruger in Pretoria was defaced at the weekend.
The City of Tshwane has called on heritage experts to help clean the landmark memorial in Church Square after vandals poured green paint over two of the bronze sentries that form part of it.
On Monday, the 363th anniversary of Jan van Riebeeck’s arrival in the Cape, the EFF also called on supporters to remove his statue from Adderley Street in Cape Town.
ANA