Cape Town – Police have arrested two men believed to belong to the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) on suspicion of defacing the statue of Boer War general Louis Botha outside Parliament, a police source said on Thursday.
“They are in the cells. We have opened a case of damage to property,” an officer at Cape Town Central police station told ANA.
“They were arrested in town, they are in their early twenties and they were wearing EFF berets,” he added.
The defacing of the statue of the general who become the first prime minister of the Union of South Africa is the latest in a string of attacks on apartheid and colonial era memorials in recent days.
The plinth was smeared with red paint that partly obscures the Afrikaans inscription: “Louis Botha, Boer, Krygsman, Staatsman.”
The EFF has denied responsibility for several attacks on statues, including that of Paul Kruger in Pretoria at the weekend, but said it applauded the acts.
On Thursday morning, EFF spokesman Mbuyiseni Ndlozi posted a picture of the defaced statue at Parliament’s main entrance on his Twitter timeline, with the words “Louis Botha must go”.
The Freedom Front Plus urged the EFF leadership to take responsibility for the paint attack.
“We completely condemn the attack and we challenge the EFF leadership to accept responsibility and to say publicly that it was them,” FF Plus MP Pieter Groenewald said.
“We must all respect the history and the culture of other groups.”
He said the FF Plus was taking legal advice on bringing charges of inciting vandalism against the EFF because party leaders had called for a campaign to deface and dismantle statues.
The office of the ANC chief whip and the Democratic Alliance also expressed disapproval, saying the attacks were neither constructive, nor courageous.
“The Office of the ANC Chief Whip regards the defacing of the statue outside Parliament and others elsewhere in the country as sheer acts of hooliganism and criminality which should be frowned upon by all sensible and law-abiding South Africans,” spokesman Moloto Mothapo said.
“The malicious damage of statues at certain locations in the cover of darkness signifies nothing but cowardice by those seeking to opportunistically piggyback on the publicity generated by the successful campaign led by the progressive students of the University of Cape Town regarding the statue of Cecil Rhodes.”
DA national spokesman Marius Redelinghuys said: “It adds nothing to a much needed constructive national dialogue about the role of statues, monuments and memorials in a post-apartheid society.”
“It is equally cowardly to do these things behind a veil of anonymity instead of making intentions known for their act of vandalism. Vandalising statues has become a bandwagon to jump on for quick attention-seeking political stunts.”
The statue stands some three metres away from a police sentry.
Technically, it is located not in the parliamentary precinct but on land belonging to the Cape Town city council. The council indicated that it intended to remove the paint marks.
Parliamentary spokesman Luzuko Jacobs pointed out that there had been discussions in the legislature on how to deal with objections to the statue in a sensible manner.
“It is a serious matter and from Parliament’s side there has been a constructive dialogue, from the time of the Fourth Parliament, and it continues within the context of a multi-party steering committee,” he added.
Parliament and the city said they were aware of the arrests.
ANA