Continuing today's theme about the ANC's policy of targeting minorities and whites in particular, including removing all vestiges of white heritage from South Africa's history, you may recall the callous act by a shit-stupid ANC mayor from Standerton who ripped up a valued Afrikaner monument.
It is inspiring to see that people are finally growing a backbone and taking the fight to the ANC.
UPDATE - AgriForum 30/10/2008: Standerton ordered to restore Great Trek memorial
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Small-town Afrikaners are taking the mayor to court over the bulldozing of a plaque.
Afrikaners from a small town in Mpumalanga have resumed the court fight with their mayor over the bulldozing of a Great Trek monument, which landed on a rubbish dump.
The Standerton Action Committee was in the Pretoria High Court this week again to demand that mayor Queen Radebe-Khumalo restore the commemorative plaque that was broken in 27 pieces after being ripped out of the road the Voortrekkers are believed to have travelled on on their journey north.
In court papers, residents claim that Radebe-Khumalo had no permission from the council to remove the plaque from its position in front of the town hall, but instructed the driver of a front-end loader to rip it up in the middle of the night when no one was watching.
But in responding documents, Radebe-Khumalo, who residents accuse of behaving “like Hitler”, said the council gave her the green light to get rid of the plaque laid in 1988 because it was placed without consulting the town’s black residents. “In fact, this celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Great Trek was a mere disguise,” she said in court papers. “The main idea and purpose of the council (at the time) was to incite emotions and to fully support the concept of the establishment of a volkstaat.”
The all-white residents group have spent R300000 in donated money on lawyers during their 18-month legal battle against the mayor to restore the marble plaque that depicted an ox wagon wheel and footprints. But as ratepayers they have also footed their mayor’s lawyers’ bills, which are being paid by the Lekwa local municipality under which Standerton falls.
A report released by the Mpumalanga Department of Local Government and Housing states that the council has already spent R450000 on the mayor’s lawyers in this ongoing battle.
Residents of Standerton, as well as members of the Afrikaner activist group, Afriforum, who joined them in the court application, protested outside court on Wednesday. They yelled words such as “skande!” (disgrace!) and “sies!” and held up placards with the words: “Queen’s vandalism is racism”. They want Radebe-Khumalo to have the stone restored to its former glory and placed back where it was, as well as pay their legal costs.
But Radebe-Khumalo, who did not travel to Pretoria for the court appearance, said she had intended to place the plaque in a museum that council wanted to build when it had spare cash, and the marble was of such bad quality that it broke and they had to throw it away.
In papers, Radebe-Khumalo also said the plaque was “offensive” to the town’s black residents, but the Standerton Action Group denied this, saying that a protest march in May consisted of “90% black residents”, which proved that their black neighbours were on their side.
The marchers’ memorandum that was handed to council officials at the time read: “We are strongly disappointed with the decision taken by our mayoral committee to remove the stone that belonged to another ethnic group without consulting the public.” In his affidavit before court, Standerton resident Daniel Combrinck, who designed the R40000 plaque, said an open hole exists now where it once lay. “The monument’s removal had no public purpose other than the disadvantaging of the Afrikaners’ cultural heritage,” he said in papers.
Judge Eberhardt Bertelsmann postponed the case until Thursday to allow the Mpumalanga branch of the South African Heritage Resources Agency to make a submission about the case. DA councillor Rosier de Ville, one of the applicants in the case and a member of the national assembly at the time the plaque was laid, said residents had hoped that the case would have been concluded this week, because it was costing them a fortune to keep up with their lawyers’ R30000-a-day fees.
UPDATE 30/10/2008 - Great Trek memorial case settled
The mayor and the municipality of Lekwa in Mpumalanga were to bear the cost of the rebuilding of the monument, the court ruled.
This followed the destruction of the memorial, on the mayor’s instruction, in 2007. The rebuilding process — which is yet to begin — will happen under the guidance of the Provincial Heritage Resources Agency.
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