Rhodes Memorial Beheaded in South Africa
July 16, 20
(IDEX Online) - A memorial to Cecil Rhodes, founder of the De Beers diamond empire, has been beheaded in South Africa.
Damage to the statue, at the top of Table Mountain, Cape Town, was discovered on Monday. Nobody has claimed responsibilty for the attack
Calls to remove monuments to Rhodes - accused of being a racist, a white supremacist and the father of apartheid - have intensified since the the death of George Floyd in Minnesota, USA.
Academics at Oxford University said last month that a statue at the college he attended should be removed and in 2015 the University of Cape Town bowed to pressure from The Rhodes Must Fall campaign.
The damaged bust stands at the top of a flight of massive granite steps at the elaborate Rhodes Memorial, erected in 1912, a decade after Rhodes died.
Rhodes, born in England in 1853, was sent to South Africa as a teenager and established De Beers empire in 1888, gaining near-complete domination of the world diamond market.
He gave his name to the territory that was once Rhodesia and endowed the Rhodes scholarships that have been paying for 8,000 students (including Bill Clinton) to attend Oxford University.
File pic shows Rhodes Memorial, Cape Town. (Bust of Rhodes not visible)