By Sue Maclennan
Members of Uncedo and BATA taxi associations will on Tuesday 24 August participate in a candlelight vigil in Church Square, Makhanda. The event, coordinated by Eastcape Midlands College (EMC) student liaison officer Lithemba Busakwe is in protest against the horrific killing of University of Fort Hare student Nosicelo Mtebeni. It will be the first of two events planned in Makhanda this week.
“As members of a fellow Higher Education institution, we stand in solidarity with the University of Fort Hare community as they try to come to terms with the terrible violent death of a young student,” Busakwe said.
The DispatchLive reported that Mtebeni’s mutilated body parts were discovered in a suitcase and a plastic bag on Thursday morning in a house in Quigney, East London. Students, school learners and residents have participated in protests and vigils there in the past few days.
In Makhanda, local members of the BATA and Uncedo taxi associations are partnering with EMC staff and students in a candlelight vigil to honour Mtebeni’s memory and take a stand against gender based violence. Participants in the event, from 6pm to 7pm on Tuesday 24 August, will wear black. Busakwe said the number of participants would be limited to 100 or fewer in compliance with current Disaster Management Act regulations, along with masks and social distancing.
Uncedo Transport Manager Lungisa Sixaba told SmilingSouth that drivers from Uncedo and BATA would wear black on Tuesday 24 August and would drive with their headlights on all day. BATA official Sibongile Waka confirmed that the association would participate, as did a post on the Border Alliance Taxi Association’s Facebook page http://bit.ly/southBATA_UNCEDOvsGBV
#CodeRed march for social justice
A separate event on Friday 27 August is being organised by the local (Makhanda) chapter of #CodeRed with the Unemployed People’s Movement.
In a Daily Maverick op-ed, #CodeRed describe themselves as “a collective of feminists who urgently convened to respond to the social unrest of July 2021… aware that those who were poor would be criminalised while the big looters of our country’s resources would once again get away with acting with impunity without any serious consequences”.
The UPM is an early signatory to their founding document, alongside Rural Health Advocacy Project (RHAP), The Right2Know Campaign, Sonke Gender Justice, Soul City Institute for Social Justice, The Teddy Bear Foundation for Abused Children and Women’s Legal Centre, among others.
In media for Friday’s event, organisers describe it as a peaceful march in Makhanda, starting at Fingo Square (‘KwaJackie’) scheduled for 10am. Partipants plan to wear red and alongside the implementation of funding to end GBV, their demands include vaccine equity and immediate implementation of a Universal Basic Income Grant.
The march is billed as Covid compliant, with masks, sanitising and social distancing. Local convenor Esther Ramani said they were not encouraging members of the public to participate because they don’t want to have to turn people away to remain compliant; however, people could show their support in other ways, such as via social media. Simultaneous #CodeRed events are planned in other centres including Joburg, Pretoria, Cape Town and Bloemfontein.
SmilingSouth 