35 Moshupa students arrested

Chandapiwa Baputaki
Staff Writer | Friday June 17, 2011 00:00

 

Police were called in from Thamaga, Jwaneng and Kanye villages and rained tear gas and rubber bullets on the resisting students. While no student was reported hurt during the incident, one teacher was hit by a rubber bullet on the leg and had to be rushed to the village hospital. In their anger the students burnt the school garden and broke classroom windows. The police were left with the tough work of putting out the fire, which started spreading on the dry grass. On the other side of the school, the police randomly arrested students in uniform as they tried to contain the situation.

The Police have confirmed that they have arrested 35 of the students who will help them with investigations into the vandalism of school property. Station commander Superitendent Onkemetse Tawana said the police attacked from a distance because the students were very hostile so they needed space to retreat if need be.

'We will be interviewing them (arrested students) and eliminate those who are not implicated. We will then see if crime has been committed then we will open a case against those implicated,' she said.

The chaos started at break time when the students instead of queuing orderly, allegedly made a scramble for the bread which they threw all over the dining hall floor. According to one Form Four student, it seemed like a planned incident after a placard was found in the toilets calling all students for a meeting at the softball grounds that would look at the impact of the national public service strike on their learning. It was reported that after the commotion in the dining hall the students met at the grounds and sang struggle songs catching the school leadership off guard who asked the day scholars to go home and boarders to return to their hostels. It would later emerge that the police had already been called in case the situation got out of hand.

One student said that when they went out of the school they were met by the police officers in riot gear ready for combat. 'What were we supposed to do after being told to go home then at the gate being pushed inside the school by the police officers. We ran all over the schools and that is when all the damage was done to school property.

This was started by the Form Fives who are troubled by what will happen to their course work now if the teachers do not teach from where they left off when they decided to strike,' stated one Form Four student. 'The painful thing is that those who commute from Thamaga and surrounding villages were arrested at the bus stops and at the gate while waiting for the combis that transport them,' the student said.

However, the school head Kealogile Kobe said that he was in Kanye attending a meeting at the Education Regional Offices when he was called with the news. He said though he found that the students had dispersed, he assumed from the placards that were salvaged from the commotion that the students are troubled by the teachers who have refused to cover topics that were supposed to have been taught during the eight weeks that they were on strike.

The placards read: 'No Projects, no Course work, What are we to get? X? Gare dumalane', 'When the elephants fight it is the grass that suffers. We want our right to education. Why should we suffer for what we were not part of?'

Kobe said he is yet to give a report to the regional director but the boarders would remain in school.

Arriving at the police station. students who were arrested looked tired and helpless as they sat in the shades. 'We don't know why we were arrested because we did nothing wrong,' said one boy. Three girls told Mmegi how they were chased by the police car right to their homes.

'Can you believe it if we told you right now that the police with their guns came in their car, stopped by the gate, not even greeting our parents but came straight into the house and pulled us out making derogatory terms at us.

They searched the house and when my mother asked them what we had done one of them told her we will tell her ourselves later,' said the student, showing Mmegi her torn skirt from the jostling.

Teachers who were on strike have said through their unions that they will not be doing any backlog work because they have not been paid for the time that they were on strike.