(MENAFN- The Post)
Lerotholi Polytechnic students who fled the country last week say they will not return home unless the Police drop public violence charges levelled against them.
The students are wanted in Lesotho to answer charges of malicidamage to property.
Sixty-two students skipped the country last Thursday. Twenty-four of them have since returned home.
Foreign Affairs Minister Lejone Mpotjoane told a press conference in Maseru yesterday that the students were seeking reassurances that they will not be arrested on their return.
They are also demanding that the police should leave the Lerotholi Polytechnic camwhere they are providing security to those who want to write exams.
The students skipped the country alleging that the police had molested them for vandalizing a U-Save supermarket in Maseru, a charge they have refuted.
But as soon as they crossed into South Africa, they were picked up by the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) border guards.
Mpotjoane said the students were granted temporary asylum that will be reviewed today.
“It is yet to be finalised if they are to get a full asylum or should come back home,” Mpotjoane said.
He said the students' grounds for seeking asylum are not convincing enough to the South African authorities.
What had irked the students was a Court of Appeal ruling that they should sit for exams as their case in which they were demanding payment of their stipends would be heard in October.
This was after the students dragged the National Manpower Development Secretariat (NMDS) and the Lerotholi Polytechnic to court over their monthly stipends.
The students were also not happy with the school calendar that was changed by the authorities without engaging them.
Mpotjoane accused some unnamed politicians of influencing the students not to come back home.
“Unfortunately some of them (politicians) never enrolled with tertiary schools that is why they do not understand the implications,” he said.
He said they went to the border earlier this week where they met the students.
“They refused to come back saying they are scared of the police,” Mpotjoane said.
He said the police were not against the students but were there to do their job.
He said the police had information that the students wanted to burn examination question papers and disrupt classes to delay the exams.
Also the students in exile were sending threats to those who wanted to sit for examinations, he said.
Mpotjoane said the police made it clear to the students that the investigation into the vandalism of the U-save supermarket was still continuing.
He said the South African government told the students that they will not interfere in the matter.
He said the students were also told that they could struggle to qualify for asylum in South Africa.
“The South African asylum officials have made it clear that Lesotho should be the one working out the matter to finality,” Mpotjoane said.
He said the students told them that they are aware of two students who were arrested and beaten up by the police during interrogations at Pitso Ground charge office.
The Lerotholi Polytechnic rector, Professor Sepiriti Tlali, said the students were enraged by the Court of Appeal judgement that their case was not urgent.
“They then came from courts and started vandalising the shops,” Professor Tlali said.
Many students who remained in Lesotho began writing their examinations on Monday.
Professor Tlali said the school Senate will make a decision on those who fled to South Africa as to whether they should write or not.
Nkheli Liphoto