Protestors clashes with cops at Cape Town

In Cape Town on Friday Anti-riot police fired tear gas and water cannon at nearly 2,000 members of the radical left Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party who assembled near the school.

The protesters are also angry at the police and saying they won’t respond in the same manner against white protesters. Cape Town Police later told the protest organisers only 100 people were allowed to march to the school.

The differences were the latest in a string of protests against alleged racism at Brackenfell High School following the party, which was held on October 17, at a winery farm in Stellenbosch, east of Cape Town.

Some locals told us that Before the event, a flyer was shared on a private social media WhatsApp group that included several teachers, Black students from the school. Meanwhile, the school administration keeps aside themselves from it by saying that it was a privately organised function by parents.

A few days after the party, EFF members tried to march to the school but were blocked by some of the students’ parents appearing in fistfights.

As a result, Widely shared video footage showed dramatic scenes of angry white parents punching the EFF’s Black rebels on the streets on November 9.

The confrontation disturbed President Cyril Ramaphosa who called for an examination, calling the clashes as “deeply regrettable”.

“The scene of parents and protesters coming to blows at the school gate is deeply unfortunate,” said Ramaphosa, adding the development brought “back hurtful memories of a past we should never seek to return to”.

The clashes occurred several weeks after likewise racially-charged turmoil in the central farming town of Senekal over the cruel murder of a white farm manager by suspected Black attackers.

Nevertheless, the end of apartheid a generation ago, racial tensions in South Africa often remains high.