One of South Africa’s top universities descended into violence today, with police firing tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannon at stone-throwing students who are locked in a bitter national dispute with administrators and the Government over demonstrators’ demands for free education.
Stun grenades boomed and gunshots crackled as police cleared protesters at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, the most prominent site of a student movement that recently shut other universities and prompted official warnings that badly needed medics, engineers and other skilled workers might not be able to graduate this year.
“Hell broke out,” said Jo Seoka, an Anglican bishop who described the pandemonium that erupted as students hurled rocks at security guards blocking the entrance to the Great Hall, prompting police vehicles to rumble forward. Seoka, who joined an earlier student march, said police had “militarised” the campus, and he criticised them for not wearing IDs on their uniforms that would make them accountable.