An agreement that saw cleaners at the University of the Free State reconcile with their tormentors after the infamous racist Reitz video five years ago was left hanging by a thread this week.
This followed a fallout between the five former cleaners and the university over its failure to fulfil some of its promises made to them more than two years ago.
The agreement preceded a reconciliation ceremony between the “Reitz Four” students and the workers they humiliated in a videotaped initiation-type ceremony in protest against integration at the university.
The controversial video showed the five black cleaners - Mothibedi Molete, Mankoe Naomi Phororo, Emmah Koko, Nkgapeng Adams and Sebuasengwe Mittah Ntlatseng - on their hands and knees eating food that had apparently been urinated into by one of the white students.
At his inauguration in 2009, Professor Jonathan Jansen said the university had pardoned four former Reitz students, Danie Grobler, Johnny Roberts, Schalk van der Merwe and Roelof Malherbe, who filmed the video in 2007.
This was followed by a reconciliation in June 2011 headlined by American media icon Oprah Winfrey who described the process as “nothing short of a miracle”.
But the process meant to deal with the university’s troubled history has been jolted by a series of setbacks recently.
The Sunday Independent understands that the five former cleaning staff had been left frustrated and angry by the university after it failed to provide them with among others a key undertaking on job security as part of the deal.
Their deed of settlement committed the university to help them establish a cleaning company with funds, training and a five-year tender at the institution.
This was meant to ensure the five did not return to the university as cleaners to suffer more humiliation.
But despite their company being registered and established, the training scheduled to start in January and end in December last year did not take off.
Other promises yet to be fulfilled include the establishment of a centre for human rights at the university as part of remedial measures to eradicate the culture of racism and gender intolerance.
Koko told The Sunday Independent this week that “there was a lot of frustration and anger among us after this long time we spent doing nothing at home”.
She said they had hoped that by now they would be running a profitable business that could not only sustain itself but help them support their families.
“Even now I still think I will raise my hopes when I see things we were promised being delivered to us or at least when there is some action. When all this is done we will call the media to come see how we have turned our lives but we cannot do it now while there is nothing.”
The workers confirmed that a meeting was held this week between them and the university to recommit to the implementation of the outstanding terms of the deed of settlement.
The parties put the blame for the delay in the workers’ company taking off on “a misunderstanding between the university and a service provider contracted to train the workers on how to run a cleaning business”.
“The university has recommitted to continuing with the original agreement to help the workers set up their own company and as we speak now things are back to normal,” said the workers’ legal representative, Mothusi Lepheana. “Generally the workers’ lives have changed for the better but it would have been even better had things happened as agreed in the beginning.”
UFS spokeswoman Lacea Loader had not responded to questions at the time of going to print. - Sunday Independent