With AAP.
US President Donald Trump has blamed “many sides” for the violent clashes between protesters and white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, that’s left three people dead and 35 injured.
James Alex Fields, a 20-year-old man from Virginia, has been arrested and is accused of driving his car into a crowd of people who were peacefully protesting against a white nationalist rally.
The controversial “Unite the Right” march was organised to protest the removal of a statue honouring General Robert E Lee, commander of the Confederate Army in the 19th-century American Civil War.
A 32-year-old woman has been confirmed dead, while the details of the other fatalities are yet to be released.
The car attack occurred around 1pm on Saturday, soon after a state of emergency was declared in the city.
In reaction to the news, Trump has stated the “hatred and bigotry” broadcast across the country had taken root long before he become president.
On a working holiday at his New Jersey golf club, Trump had intended to speak briefly at a ceremony marking the signing of bipartisan legislation to aid veterans, but he quickly found that those plans were overtaken by the escalating violence in the Virginia college town.
He told reporters that he had just spoken to Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe and “we agreed that the hate and the division must stop, and must stop right now. We have to come together as Americans with love for our nation and … true affection for each other”.
“We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides.
“It’s been going on for a long time in our country. Not Donald Trump. Not Barack Obama. It’s been going on for a long, long time,” he said.
However, Charlottesville Mayor, Michael Signer, said he was disgusted that the white nationalists had come to his town and blamed Trump for inflaming racial prejudices with his campaign last year.
“I’m not going to make any bones about it. I place the blame for a lot of what you’re seeing in American today right at the doorstep of the White House and the people around the president,” he said.
Many prominent past and present US politicians, from both sides of politics, have also spoken out against Trump’s comments on Twitter.
Top Comments
I have been in the southern states in America and you can feel the racial tension. They have white bars and black bars, white restaurants and black restaurants. If you go into the wrong one you will have a bad day. Thankfully Australia is not like this yet.
He doesn't want to alienate the staffers he has/had like Bannon who are members of the KKK. David Duke himself let slip that Trump helped them rise again. Fact is, despite what some of the far-right on here might say, Trump's core constituency are sympathetic to the White Supremacist movement at the very least, if not members of the KKK.
I must add that although, of course Trump was not going to call out his own Constituency and condemn the white supremacists, ironically, what he did say was the only time he has actually been Presidential in his speech since he became President.