Student formations confront global issues

The South African Union of Students (SAUS) held its ordinary National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting on 15 May 2021 at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT). 
SAUS said in a statement post the NEC meeting that it had discussed a number of socio-economic, political, and higher education matters.

One of the key issues was the current regional and international political situation. SAUS has condemned what it called ‘the callous brutality and repression’ meted out against the people of Palestine. “SAUS has consistently expressed its profound opposition to the colonial occupation of Palestinian Land by the Israeli regime,” read the NEC statement.

The meeting was stated to have further pledged to strengthen the existing efforts of boycott, sanctions and pickets across higher education institutions in demonstrating solidarity with the people of Palestine.

The student union had also called on the African Union (AU) to address the issues of climate change and food security. SAUS acknowledged the Stellenbosch University in its inclusion of climate change studies to the curriculum.

SAUS had further outlined its condemnation of the abuse of human rights in Egypt, Uganda, Zimbabwe and South Africa, and said it reaffirmed its position that the Boko Haram atrocities in Nigeria and the insurgency in Mozambique were matters that required a ‘strong AU’.

Meanwhile, the South African Students Congress (SASCO) with its alliance structures, will on Thursday, 20 May 2021, lead a protest action to the Israeli Embassy in Pretoria to demonstrate against the ‘slaughter of Palestinians by Apartheid Israel’. “We cannot in good conscious allow for an embassy of an apartheid state like Israel to exist in a democratic South Africa,” said the student organisation.


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