Regime-change plotters blamed for varsity uprisings

Shanti Aboobaker

THE Progressive Youth Alliance (PYA) has laid the blame for student protests which have gripped the country over the last few weeks on regime-change plotters, saying these included Wits and UCT academics.

This was as several universities in the country failed to open yesterday, with North-West University students reportedly being evicted from their campus residences and battles at Wits University.

SA Students Congress (Sasco) secretary-general Luzuko Buku said there were academics funded by unknown elements and people wanting to launch their political parties who were behind the scenes of “chaos” on campuses.

“Firstly, there are academics, mostly at Wits and UCT, mostly in anthropology and sociology, who say everything that has happened must (also) happen in politics,” Buku told journalists yesterday.

“They tell students what to say to PYA. We say, ‘you are making it hard for us to lead our own struggle. If you over-burden us with a regime-change agenda, it makes government to think we are sinister’.”

He blamed the EFF and expelled EFF leader Andile Mngxitama’s “Black First, Land First” outfit for carrying out their own agenda, using the student protests.

“And also you have the DA. They are very Johnny-Come-Late (sic) and say we must write exams in March because they want to continue civil disobedience. They are pitting us against society in our country,” Buku added.

The PYA has been criticised for coming late to the student protest movement. But Sasco president Nthuthuko Makhombothi said that for years the organisation had been at the forefront of opposition to financial and academic exclusion.

“We are the students who’ve marched on our own government every year for free education,” he said.

However, the PYA has called for protests to end and to resume when exams have been written across the country.

ANC Youth League secretary-general Njabulo Nzuza said some of the people who threw stones at last week’s march to the Union Buildings by students were “easily identified as not students”.

He slammed Wits university vice-chancellor Adam Habib for not seeing the protests coming, saying he should face a “charge of treason”, adding that he did not deserve a performance bonus this year.