Cape Town--Black students celebrated the fall of a statue of British colonialist Cecil Rhodes at the University of Cape Town Thursday, as some white groups protested what they see as threats to their heritage.
Cheers went up as a crane removed the huge bronze statue from its plinth at South Africa's oldest university after a month of student demonstrations against a perceived symbol of historical white oppression.
Some students in the crowd of hundreds slapped the statue as it came down amid ululating and cries of "amandla" (power), while others splashed red paint on it and wrapped Rhodes' head in paper.
The government welcomed the removal of the statue, which was given the go-ahead by the mainly white university council in a vote on Wednesday night.
"It marks a significant... shift where the country deals with its ugly past in a positive and constructive way," Sandile Memela, spokesman for the arts and culture ministry, told AFP.
The university, which is regularly ranked as the best on the continent, was built on land donated by Rhodes, a notoriously racist mining magnate who died in 1902.
A decision on the statue's final destination is yet to be made, but it is likely to end up in a museum.
The protests began last month when a student flung a bucket of human excrement at the statue, prompting other attacks on colonial statues around the country.
Memela said the government did not encourage the violent removal of statues, and would host "a consultative conference in the next few weeks where the country can adopt an official position" on statues and other colonial symbols.
Earlier, the youth wing of white Afrikaner solidarity group AfriForum handed a memorandum to parliament in Cape Town to "demand protection" for their heritage.
AFP
