South Africa’s President, Cyril Ramaphosa has supported the removal of statues that glorify the country’s apartheid past.

The president who made this known in a virtual address on Thursday as the country marked Heritage Day, an annual public holiday to celebrate the country’s diverse cultures, said, “any symbol, monument or activity that glorifies racism, that represents our ugly past, has no place in democratic South Africa”.

“Monuments glorifying our divisive past should be re-positioned and relocated,” he said

He however noted the removal of the statues shouldn’t be taken as an erasing of history, but as a way of “being sensitive to the lived experiences of all this country’s people,” adding that “We make no apologies for this because our objective is to build a united nation.”