2 South African students involved in video apologize; black journalist assaulted

BLOEMFONTEIN, South Africa — Two white students behind a video in which five black university workers appear to be duped into eating food tainted with urine apologized and said they had been "crucified as racists."

Meanwhile, a magazine said Friday that one of its black journalists covering the video story had been assaulted in what appeared to be a racial attack at a restaurant in Bloemfontein.

Themba Makamo, 26, had to receive stitches after been accosted at his table by a "burly white man" who later followed him to the bathroom, where he headbutted, kicked and punched the journalist in the face and used racially derogatory words, the news and entertainment magazine Drum said in a statement.

Bloemfontein police spokeswoman Superintendent Annelie Wrensch said the complaint was being investigated.

The video, which showed four middle-aged women and one man on their knees eating the food, has been seen around the world, exposing deep racial tensions in South Africa more than a decade after racist white rule ended.

The University of the Free State in the city of Bloemfontein, 400 miles south of Johannesburg, is regarded as a bastion for Afrikaners, descendants of Dutch settlers who are often most closely linked with apartheid rule.

The two students, Roelof Malherbe and Schalk van der Merwe, who have been banned from the university's campus, said in a statement issued by their lawyer late Thursday that although it appeared as if the food had been urinated on, a "harmless" liquid had been squirted from a bottle.

The two students, said they regretted making the film, which they said they meant as a "satirical slant" on the issue of racial integration at the university dormitories.

Malherbe and Van der Merwe are "not racists and, most certainly, had no intention of humiliating or degrading the employees concerned or black people in general or of detrimentally affecting their dignity," the statement said.

However, it said the students "now regret having participated in the making of the film" and "apologize for any embarrassment which they may, unintentionally, have caused to any person or group of persons, including their parents."

Authorities at the university have launched a criminal probe into the making of the video.

On Thursday, the four female university workers expressed their hurt at the video and said they had not been aware of what they were participating in, believing they were taking part in a competition.