XENO PROTEST: SNUBBED STUDENTS STONE HIGH COMMISSION
Written by Millennium on September 5, 2019
LINDA SOKO TEMBO and NCHIMUNYA CHIDAKWA write
ENRAGED University of Zambia (UNZA) students and others from Lusaka based colleges yesterday stormed the South African High Commission grounds and threw stones and other miles when officials refused to address them.
Thousands of aggrieved students from the University of Zambian (UNZA), Evenly Hone, and National Institute of Public Administration (NIPA) yesterday took to the streets and later stormed the South African High Commission grounds in protest against xenophobia attacks in South Africa.
The UNZA students who marched from their Great East Road campus through Addis
Ababa chanted slogans in denouncing the barbaric attacks on Africans, Zambians
inclusive.
The students who carried placards that questioned the silence from the AU,
SADC, COMESA and UN on the matter demanded for an immediate stop.
As students were marching, armed Police officers were seen keeping vigil along
the roads to ensure there was law and order.
On reaching the High Commission, the students demanded to be addressed by South
Africa High Commissioner but the top official refused to do so.
This incensed some students who demanded that the South Africa flag be pulled
down, while some set blaze the signpost at the high commission, but alert
police quickly quenched the fire.
Students then started throwing stones at the high commission premises, breaking
windows.
The situation forced the Zambian Police to fire warning shots in the air and
threw teargas canisters to disperse students who scampered in all directions.
One student twisted her ankle while running for her life and about eight
students were apprehended among them the president of Cleaning Association of
Zambia (CAZ) Lawrence Makumbi and Misheck Kakonde, Zambia National Students
Union president.
The arrested students were however later released from Woodlands police by
Lusaka Province Minister, Bowman Lusambo who marched with the students back to
the university in solidarity.
More students also followed the protests from Evenly Hone, and NIPA demanding
that they should also be given a chance to go to the South African high
commission but the police managed to block them.
Evenly Hone Students Union president general Bruno Stanzye, said as students,
they were saying no to xenophobia in South Africa and that it was sad that
Zambians too had been killed and authorities were quiet about it forcing the
students to voice out their concerns.
He said they were sending a message to South Africans that Zambians were not
happy with what they were doing and that enough of xenophobia attacks because
Africans came from the bantu people, a sign that they were one people and that
there was no need to fight one another.
“We are all blacks with the same skin, we have foreigners like the Chinese,
Indians, South Africans among others and we do not fight them,” he said.
And one of the students interviewed, Charles Pobela, said they were very
disappointed with what was happening in South Africa.
Pobela who is president of NIPA student union said it was sad that fellow
blacks were fighting each other and he appealed to Pretoria to put an end to
the xenophobia attacks.
And the Cleaning Association of Zambia Lawrence Makumbi said his association
joined the students to show solidary and that all they wanted was to meet the
South African High Commissioner to Zambia to talk to her citizens to the stop
the violence against fellow Africans.
“We in the cleaning sector are saying xenophobia is evil, we do not tolerate
violence despite a number of cleaning companies being South Africans and they
take away $3 million every month and all we do is dialogue with them,” he said.
Meanwhile Southern African Students and Youth Association (SASYDA) have
appealed to SADC to intervene in the xenophobic attacks in some parts of South
Africa.
SASYDA president Ibrahim Mwamba said the xenophobic attacks in South Africa
painted a kind of environment that only introduced self-hate among native
blacks.
