Cape Town – Investigations are under way after a mural of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu was desecrated on Longmarket Street in the Cape Town CBD over the weekend.
The mural was defaced with a racist k-word scrawled over it.
According to ILO, the City was checking its CCTV footage to see if it could identify who was responsible for defacing the mural.
“The City is devastated to see the destruction of an iconic mural celebrating the life of the archbishop.
“The work was not commissioned by the City. We are working to identify the owner. The owner will be urged to repair the damaged mural and/or open up a case for the matter to be investigated. The City will support the investigation, however possible. ”
Meanwhile, the Desmond Tutu IP Trust has described as “loathsome” the vandalism of the mural.
EWN quoted the acting chairperson of the Archbishop Desmond Tutu IP Trust Mamphela Ramphele as saying that in the 1980s, at the height of the anti-apartheid struggle, Archbishop Tutu was regularly threatened by hate-mongers.
She said in one incident in 1989, a baboon fetus was hung outside the Tutu’s home in an attempt, police later said, to bewitch him.
She believed for this hatred to be repeated decades later, by someone scrawling the K-word on a mural of Tutu “casts a slur on our democracy”.
ALSO READ | ‘God Has a Dream’: Top seller for Tutu’s 90th-birthday auction
“The Arch is about to celebrate his 90th birthday. He is the grandfather of the nation, and a global symbol of peace and righteousness. Racism is a curse South Africa must escape.
“We have enough problems on our plate, including radical inequality in wealth and living standards still largely tracking the social, economic and environmental hierarchies of the past,” News24 quoted Ramphele as saying.
Tutu turns 90 on October 7.
The report said the GOOD party was calling for the person who desecrated the mural in Cape Town’s CBD to be brought to book.
Follow African Insider on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
Picture: Getty Images
For more African news, visit Africaninsider.com
Compiled by Betha Madhomu
