The much anticipated centenary celebrations for the University of
Fort Hare will go ahead on Friday despite threats of protests by students.
Today minister in the Presidency Jeff Radebe gave a state of
readiness for the celebrations under the theme, “Celebrating 100 Years of
Academic Excellence” and announced that President Jacob Zuma and Zimbabwe
President Robert Mugabe will be among the key speakers.
Zuma will deliver the keynote address while his counterpart, Mugabe
will speak as an alumnus of the university.
Radebe speaking on behalf of a 11-member Inter-Ministerial
Committee which was tasked to oversee the plans of the celebrations of the
university said the main event would take place on Friday with 2 500 attendees
expected at the Sport Complex in Alice, main campus.
Addressing members of the media via a video link from Cape Town to
East London’s University of Fort Hare campus, minister Radebe said about 1 000
members of the public will be hosted in an overflow marquee, while an off-site
venue will be provided in East London for students from other campuses.
The University of Fort Hare has produced some of the most decorated
African leaders and heads of states including South Africa’s own, late former
President Nelson Mandela, Robert Mugabe, Sir Seretse Khama of Botswana and Ntsu
Mokhetle prime minister of Lesotho.
Among other great struggle icons and intellectuals are ANC’s
longest serving president, Oliver Tambo, Govan Mbeki, Robert Sobukwe, Mangosuthu
Buthelezi and Christ Hani.
One of the most respected alumnus of the university is ZK Matthews,
who become one of the first graduates and later become lecturer at the
institutions, also known as Kwa NoCollege.
But the historic celebrations comes at a time when the present-day
generation of students are up in arms with management over the issue of student
financial aid with mounting threats to disrupt Friday’s main celebration by the
president.
Dr Mvuyo Tom principal and vice-chancellor at the university
admitted there were “simmering tensions” and possible disruptions that might
occur on the day of the celebrations.
“It is true that there are tensions that have developed at the
university since Monday. The East London campus is not involved in that
particular tension we have in our Alice campus,” he said.
He said the Alice campus tensions were related to financial aid
where 16 complaints have been handed over to management.
“Most of those complaints and issues have been dealt with as
management responded to them yesterday. It would seem that the real intension
indeed is to try and disrupt the celebrations. That is some of the word we have
received from information gathering we have had from Alice,” Tom said.
He said since yesterday the university management has heard that
the students have escalated the protest to try and get workers out of the
campus.
“We working on dealing with that situation but I wouldn’t say what
how we are going to deal with it at this stage. We have a planned meeting with
the SRC for this afternoon,” Tom said.
There was an element to ensure that there is no peace until Friday,
he said.
Premier Phumulo Masualle said as the provincial government they
would monitor and provide support too efforts to bring calm.
“We should be able to find one another such that there is no need
for any contingency measures that perhaps we should speak about at this time,”
Masualle said.
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