‘Racism has no place in SA,’ says Cyril Ramaphosa after ‘racist attack’ at resort swimming pool

Cyril Ramaphosa

Cape Town – President Cyril Ramaphosa has warned against racism following an incident that occurred at a Free State holiday resort where white adult males were captured on camera seemingly attacking two young black boys because they were allegedly “not allowed in a pool reserved for white people”.

The incident occurred on Christmas day.

The sister of the brothers who had been on the receiving end of the attack took to Twitter, posting a video of the incident and giving an explanation of what took place.

“Family came to spend the day @ MASELSPOORT RESORT & CONFERENCE CENTRE in Free State,” she wrote.

“My brothers were attacked by these grown men because they are apparently not allowed in the pool as it’s reserved for the ‘white people’ here.

“The Oranje-Vrystraat we love.” 

In a statement on Monday, Ramaphosa said racism had no place in South Africa, adding that “racists must expect harsh consequences in terms of the law”.

The president commended the South African Police Service for opening dockets and launching investigations into the case.

Ramaphosa said: “Our Constitution means exactly what it says when it declares that South Africa – and that means all of South Africa – belongs to all who live in it.

“As black and white South Africans, we should be united in condemning all manifestations of racism and attempts to explain or defend such crimes. Racism is not a problem to be fought by black South Africans only.

“We must also be united in ridding our society of the violence we see in the videos of the incident at the Free State resort, whether such violence comes with racism or not.

“It is deplorable that adults dealing with teenagers resort to violence with such disturbing ease, hurting people physically and offending provisions in our Bill of Rights around security of the person, including the right to dignity and being free of violence.

“Under the rule of law, we must let investigations take their course but under the rule of law we can and must also declare that racism has no place in our society and racists have no place to hide.

“We must defend our continuing national mission of ridding our society of the divisions and the hurts of our past.”

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) also condemned the incident, saying the party continued to be the first respondents to racism.

According to SABC, the EFF’s Free State Chairperson Mapheule Liphoko said it can’t be that a black man still has a no-go area in this day and age.

“We want to condemn in the strongest point as possible, it cannot be that a black man still has no-go areas, this time and day. And we met with the provincial commissioner of the police, he promised us he’s dealing with the matter and we’re here to supervise. We still have to meet with the management. We’re told that some of them are enablers of racism and that’s why there are segregated pools for certain people and not black people. So, we’re supervising, at best take a swim,” the report quoted Liphoko as saying.

In a statement, the EFF said it blamed the resort management “for enabling such actions by having whites-only pool that made those white racists think that’s the space for whites only”.

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Compiled by Betha Madhomu 

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