South Africans Protest Over Rhodes Statue Move

White South Africans have been protesting against a university's plans to remove a statue of Cecil Rhodes from their campus.

Rhodes was a British colonialist who lived in South Africa and founded Rhodesia.

The statue stands in the campus of the University of Cape Town but students said it was a symbol of historical white oppression that could make black students feel uncomfortable.

The council of the university - South Africa's oldest - agreed to remove the monument but following the decision Afrikaner men - some wearing quasi-military outfits - held demonstrations in Pretoria and Cape Town to protest at the move.

They stood in front of a paint-splattered statue of former president Paul Kruger in Pretoria and at a monument to the leader of the first settlers, Jan van Riebeeck, in Cape Town.

White Afrikaner solidarity group AfriForum said in a statement: "The Afrikaner is - from a historical perspective - increasingly being portrayed as criminals and land thieves.

"But apartheid freedom fighters are certainly not the untainted heroes Government is making them out to be.

"If the heritage of the Afrikaner is not important to Government, our youth members will preserve our own heritage."

Members of the youth wing of the group have handed a petition to parliament demanding that Cape Town protects their heritage.

The Afrikaners descend from the mainly Dutch settlers who colonised the region in the 17th and 18th centuries and, through apartheid segregation, controlled South Africa's white-minority government until 1994.

It is unclear what will happen to the bronze statue of Rhodes, who was on the British side of the Anglo-Boer war early in the 20th century and is not a natural figurehead for the Afrikaners.

It is thought it may end up in a museum.