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30 October 2019 | Story Ruan Bruwer | Photo Sonia Small
Springboks
Prof Francis Petersen, UFS Rector and Vice-Chancellor, paid a special visit to the Springboks in 2018 before they faced England in Bloemfontein. From the left are Jacques Nienaber (Springbok assistant coach), Oupa Mohoje (Springbok), Prof Petersen, Rassie Erasmus (Springbok head coach), and Swys de Bruin (Springbok consultant coach at the time). De Bruin, Erasmus, Nienaber, and Mohoje are all Kovsie alumni.


Like the rest of the country, we are behind our Springboks all the way. This is what Prof Francis Petersen, Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Free State (UFS), told alumnus Rassie Erasmus in a letter this week.

Prof Petersen wrote the letter to Erasmus, the head coach of the Springboks, to wish him everything of the best in the team’s preparation and for the game on Saturday (2 November 2019) at which they face England in the Rugby World Cup final in Japan.

"On behalf of the staff and students of the University of the Free State, I would like to wish you and the Springbok team all the best with your preparations this week and for the final. I know that Saturday’s match will be played with vigour and determination,” Prof Petersen wrote.

Prof Petersen said the UFS community was extremely proud of the Springboks’ achievements during the 2019 Rugby World Cup – especially with Erasmus at the helm of the team. The Boks defeated Japan in the quarter-final and Wales in the semi-final to reach their first final since 2007.

“As a former Shimla player and Kovsie Alumnus of the Year 1998, we are truly proud of what you have achieved during your career in South African rugby, and especially during the World Cup tournament. We are also proud of our other alumni – Jacques Nienaber as defence coach, and referee Jaco Peyper.”

Peyper refereed one of the quarter-finals and will be an assistant referee in the bronze medal play-off between New Zealand and Wales on 1 November 2019.

Under Erasmus the Springboks won the Rugby Championship this year, the first time since 2010. Erasmus and Nienaber have a long relationship. They met in the army in 1991. Later Nienaber served as physiotherapist with the Shimlas and Erasmus captained the team. They worked together at the Cheetahs, Cats, Stormers, Munster and now the Springboks.

News Archive

Mekondjo! National exhibition to reveal the courage, determination, repression and torture of PLAN
2014-05-21

 
Angelina Angula ex PLAN soldier injured during the 1978 Cassinga attack - photo by John Liebenberg.

A pioneering exhibition by John Liebenberg and Christo Doherty is about to open on the Bloemfontein Campus. ‘Mekondjo! born in the struggle for Namibia’ gives South Africans their first insight into the lives of the men and women who fought against the SADF in the bush of Northern Namibia and Angola from 1966 – 1989.

This public exhibition presents eleven portraits of People’s Liberation Army veterans in the process of speaking about and coming to terms with their very different experiences in the Namibian War of Liberation.

When the People’s Liberation Army (PLAN) returned to Namibia after the UN-supervised elections of 1989, it had been fighting against South African rule for 23 years. Formed in 1966 as the armed wing of the South West African Peoples’ Organisation, PLAN had developed from a handful of poorly armed guerrillas to a sophisticated mechanised force. These soldiers fought alongside Angolan, Russian and Cuban soldiers against the SADF and UNITA. Since SWAPO’s election victory, the new government has mythologised the heroism of the armed struggle. The stories of the individual PLAN fighters’ experiences are only now being articulated, though.

Their stories are of great courage and determination against often impossible odds; but also of repression, torture, and disastrous decisions by the PLAN leadership.

The exhibition will be on display from Thursday 22 May to Friday 23 May for the duration of the Silence after Violence conference. The conference is hosted by the UFS Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice and the Center for Holocaust Studies at the University of Vermont.

Date: Thursday 22 May and Friday 23 May 2014
Place: Centenary Complex, Reitz Hall, Bloemfontein Campus
Exhibition Introduction: Thursday 22 May, 14:00 – 15:30
Other viewing times: intermissions during the Silence after Violence programme

The public is welcome to attend.

* Spotlight photo: PLAN commissioner Nkrumah Mushelenga, Windhoek 2013 – photo by John Liebenberg

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