18 April 1994
The youths were silent as they vainly tried to fend off the soldiers’ heavy military boots thudding against their heads and bodies. I climbed on to the table in the tiny room, trying to get a view of the assault as Joao and then London-based freelance photographer Mikey Persson went to their knees, their flashes firing intermittently. Shit, I thought, they’re getting frames and I can’t see a thing. I could just hear the muffled thump of leather on flesh and the occasional soldier’s curse. The blueuniformed South African peace-keeping soldiers had stormed the house, an ANC hideout in one of the dilapidated homes in the dead zone, and captured the youths with their battered AK-47 assault rifles inside. It was the second day of the National Peace-Keeping Force’s full deployment in the township. They were tasked with separating the warring factions, and the idea was that this transitional military force, selected from the liberation guerrilla armies, the homeland security forces and the South African Defence Force, would have more legitimacy than the apartheid state’s police or defence forces. But they
found themselves jeered, stoned and shot at by both township residents and hostel-dwellers, both of whom felt that the peace-keepers were biased in favour of their enemy. They were suffering the peace-keepers’ curse - trained to kill but tasked to pacify.
These peace-keepers clearly thought it their right to kick their prisoners. The young fighters, by their silent resignation to the punishment, accepted that being assaulted was their due. Despite wanting to get pictures of the assault, we photographers did not find it at all extraordinary either - it was the South African way. The irony was that many of these black peace-keepers had fled the country to join guerrilla armies to escape the police brutality they had suffered during the suppression of the 1976 Soweto uprising, all the way through to the death squads of the 80s and 90s.
The peace-keepers ceased the beating and ordered us to get out. Within minutes they emerged, displaying the weapons they had seized, and pushing the three bleeding self-defence unit members ahead of them. By now more ANC supporters had gathered in the overgrown yard. They were using a combination of threats and pleas in an effort to negotiate the release of their comrades, but more importantly they wanted the weapons returned. The peace-keepers were having no part of that discussion and as the confrontation became more aggressive, the heavily armed soldiers took up defensive positions opposite the apparently unarmed kids. We quickly moved behind the line of kneeling blue uniforms, framing the shot in case they did open fire on the comrades. But the kids decided it was a losing battle and backed down. We followed the soldiers as they herded their prisoners through the no-man’s-land of the dead zone towards their armoured vehicles, parked in Inkatha territory.
Within minutes, the peace-keepers were under fire from the ANC side - an unequivocal response to the arrest of their fellow fighters. The peace-keepers’ commander, a white captain, barked out orders for his men to deploy along the street. We followed closely as the soldiers made their way towards the source of the gunfire. They crouched against the meagre cover afforded by fences and walls, and we followed.
Suddenly the captain was screaming at us, telling us to leave the area or he would have us shot. We all leapt up, breaking cover and charging up to him, entirely forgetting the danger of standing up in the middle of a skirmish. ‘Who the fuck do you think you are to threaten us?’ Joao shouted, poking the podgy officer in the chest with his forefinger. Jim and I were also shouting at him, while Ken, towering over all of us, was yelling too. The officer was clearly startled at being mobbed by civilians, brandishing cameras and righteous indignation. He was from the old school where anyone in uniform held power over mere civilians. But the old days were gone, and we were vehement in letting him know that there no longer was a State of Emergency that prohibited journalists from being at such scenes. But it was more our combined aggression than our legal right to be there that made him back down. The scene must have bemused the ANC gunmen who had been firing in our direction, because despite our little group being an easy target, no further shots were fired. Good street theatre.
Everyone calmed down and I took the captain to the side of the road to discuss our presence. He maintained that we were getting in the way of his men, endangering them. I convinced him that we would stay behind his men and that we had all done this before, in wars around the globe. We ended up with a reasonable compromise, but the fire-fight was over - the pause to watch our little drama had defused the situation. The peace-keepers were now ready to leave the area and that left us stranded deep in Inkatha territory. Inkatha was not very accepting of the presence of journalists - they were in fact openly hostile, and for us to now have to walk out of Inkatha’s Ulundi stronghold, across a kilometre of the dead zone into ANC territory, would have been extremely dangerous. I asked my new acquaintance - Captain Alberts - if I could get a ride out in the armoured vehicle. The plan was to go for our car so that I could return to collect my colleagues who refused to ride with the peace-keepers, a principled stand of no significance, which simply meant I had to drive across the front-line twice.
Back in the ANC area, things had quieted down. Some of the foreign photographers had brought in hand-held radio scanners that could pick
up the police frequencies. While standard equipment in the US and many other places, the scanners were illegal in South Africa. During the early days of the war, Kevin had managed to get a scanner from a towtrucker friend of his. It may have been faulty, but in any case we never figured out how to use it. But the new ones that had come in were great and since most of the police message traffic was in Afrikaans, we local boys were essential if the scanners were to be useful. While listening to the various police frequencies, we overheard a message that sounded as though a policeman had been killed. But the static, crackle and police verbal shorthand meant we missed where it had taken place. Ken, Joao, Jim and I began cruising the area in the car, frantically trying to pick up an intelligible reference to where the dead cop was. After half an hour of fruitless driving and listening, we joked about going to the police station and asking them directly. Right, maybe Ken - known for his lack of tact - should be the one to go in. Joao imitated Ken’s gruff voice: ‘Show us your dead!’ We all laughed, then somehow Ken figured out where the incident had occurred. We raced to an open field next to the cemetery in Kathlehong and found three wounded black teenagers lying on the ground, surrounded by policemen. The cops were surprised to see us and said the kids had fired at them and that they had all been wounded when police returned fire. It was unclear what had happened, but there was a strange atmosphere; something weird had gone down, but no one was about to tell us about it. We took pictures and, vaguely disappointed (no pictures of dead cops), returned to the dead zone in Khumalo Street.
There was a lull and dozens of journalists had gathered in the side streets waiting for the next phase in the action. There was an air of expectancy: it was clear that Thokoza was gearing up for a major battle. I was thirsty, a little bored, and decided to make the dash across Khumalo Street to buy us cold drinks, which meant risking 30 metres of possible sniper fire. In retrospect it was stupid to risk getting shot for a Coke but at the time I felt that the risk was negligible and, in any event, the crossing was uneventful. I bought drinks from a small tuck shop, but they did not have enough change. ‘Never mind, keep it,’ I
said. ‘No, I will find you change,’ the shop-owner insisted. It was just a couple of rand and I said to keep the change and then sprinted back across to where the guys were waiting. Both Ken and Kevin took pictures of me racing across the tar, a big grin on my face and bottles of Coke in my hands. We swallowed the cold drinks greedily, then the shop-owner came charging across the road with my change. I laughed and again told him that he should keep it; finally he accepted the money and ran back again. He had wanted to make sure I did not think he was trying to cheat me by pretending to not have change. It was just another of the quirky things that happened amidst the chaos and carnage, small displays of goodwill, humour and outright craziness.
Kevin had to go: he had to return to Johannesburg to be interviewed about the Pulitzer he had won just a week back. Joao told him to cancel, that it was dumb to leave now as the township was going to cook, but Kevin left anyway, saying he would be back in the afternoon. A few minutes after Kevin had left, ANC activists decided to string a ‘Vote Mandela’ banner across Khumalo Street, within easy range of the gunmen in the hostel. Everyone knew that this would provoke a response from the hostel-dwellers. As the comrades struggled to tie the long banner between a pine-tree and a lamp-post, we gathered under them, waiting, the peace-keepers’ armoured vehicle between us and Mshaya’zafe Hostel. It was not long before the expected shots rang out. Everyone scattered for cover and the peace-keepers’ vehicle trundled up the deserted street. We followed, using the slow-moving vehicle for cover. BBC journalist Jeremy Bowen was doing a stand-up further down Khumalo Street. Finishing the piece, he watched the group of photographers follow the blue vehicle up the street. ‘One of those arseholes is going to get shot,’ he said to himself.
The armoured vehicle was accelerating. I looked to the side and saw Jim leaning forward, straining to keep up with the vehicle. It was obvious that we were going to lose the race and we peeled off, making for the safety of the houses lining the street. Civilians were crowding the pavement and peering out of front yards to watch the action. There was an atmosphere of excitement and glee - the soldiers were going to
take on their enemy for them. Another episode of the neighbourhood’s favourite spectator sport was about to unfold, but this time with well-armed soldiers on their team. A self-defence unit member appeared with an AK and we followed as he threaded his way along the narrow alleys that led through the houses. By the time we emerged near the derelict petrol station on Khumalo Street again, we found that the peace-keepers had formed a barrier of armoured vehicles to prevent the ANC supporters crossing the concrete forecourt towards the hostel. Our gun-toting guide melted into the crowd. We kept moving and the line of soldiers let us through.
The first thing we saw was a peace-keeper hopping across to an armoured vehicle, leaning on a colleague who was carrying his boot. He had shot himself in the foot. Joao and I followed him, taking pictures, and after he had struggled into the back of the high vehicle we pulled away and exchanged malicious grins. It was a silly picture, one that showed the peace-keepers to be farcically unprepared for this nasty neighbourhood war they found themselves in. We should have thought about that a little more. We moved on, to the long pre-cast concrete wall that marked the end of the garage forecourt and that shielded us from the outer wall of the hostel, some 20 metres further ahead.
Dozens of soldiers had taken up positions along the wall, crouching in the rank profusion of weeds and grass. Their officers were moving among them, preparing them to advance around the edge of the protective wall to charge the hostel that the sniper was firing from. The windows of the hostel that faced us had long ago been blocked by plywood and iron-sheeting, and the walls were pockmarked by the bullets from many gun battles. The soldiers were scared - this was more than they had bargained for when they signed on as peace-keepers. Some were so reluctant that a stocky black officer was kicking them to get them moving. Though doubtless a time-tried military motivational method, it did not seem to be working too well. Ken, Gary, Jim, Joao, several other photographers, a couple of television cameramen and I were all lined up parallel to the soldiers, focusing our lenses on their clearly terrified expressions. I approached the black officer who had
been using his boot to encourage his men, ‘We are not going to get in your way, but we want to follow you guys in. We’ll stay behind you. Is that OK?’ ‘Sure, that’s fine,’ he said. ‘Hey, and if one of us gets hurt, you will help us, right?’ I half-joked. He smiled back.
There was a tense, anticipatory lull as the solders readied themselves. We waited for the moment when we would have to fling ourselves around the wall and into the line of fire. Adrenaline was pumping into my veins. I was scared, but it did not occur to me to leave - there were pictures to be had. This is what we do.
A little while earlier, Ken had called Robin Comley,
The Star
’s picture editor. He was angry, telling her to make sure the paper ran a story about how the peace-keepers were fucking up in the township. Ken had, some weeks before, gone to photograph the peace-keepers training. He had seen them practising crowd control with batons and shields - as far as he was concerned, that preparation was not what they needed for the war in Thokoza. Then, he went on to tell Robin about a mouse that he had been forced to kill at home that morning. About how Monica had made him kill it and how upset he was over that. Robin listened for a while, quite unsettled by this strange conversation. She had never heard Ken ramble on like this before. ‘Ken, can we discuss this another time? Anyway, haven’t you got pictures to shoot?’
The first breezes of autumn had begun, blowing an empty tin across the forecourt; its eerie rumbling clatter stood out from the white noise of the armoured vehicles’ idling diesel engines. The hiatus was broken by a burst of gunfire from the hostel. A soldier on top of one of the armoured vehicles began to fire towards the hostel gunman.
And then I got hit. An utter confusion of sensations overwhelmed me. The video footage of cameraman Sam Msibi captured me as I was hit and careened into him and Joao. The videotape has the blur of my shadow merging with theirs and there is the violent gasp of air leaving my lungs on the soundtrack before the camera hit the ground and switched off. I had always known that I might be wounded somewhere some time. On many occasions, death had come too close to allow me to dismiss the danger, but I had never truly felt that I would be
wounded. I had accepted the intellectual possibility, even probability that one day I would be hurt; but on an emotional level, I was untouchable, immortal. The illusion of safety that was merely the absence of being hit had unexpectedly been blasted away to reveal an unimaginable vulnerability. The pathetic belief that I was in control of myself, my own destiny and my immediate environment was shattered.