In the eye of the storm
Lesang Maswabi | Monday May 27, 2024 09:27
Friday, April 27, 2024, marked South Africa’s 30th anniversary of the dawn of democracy. Also called Freedom Day, this day was ushered through the 1993 Interim Constitution, drawn up through negotiations amongst various political parties, culminating in the country’s first non-racial elections in 1994.
That year (1994) has remained indelible and will always be special to me as it marked the beginning of my stay for my studies at Design Centre – College of Design around the leafy suburb of Greenway Street, Greenside, away from the hustle and bustle of my temporary home at Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) flat by Corner Rissik and Wanderers Street in Braamfontein.
Though I had stayed at the same location encountering little or no turmoil the previous year (1993) whilst on attachment at then The Weekly Mail & Guardian, 1994 would, however, present a totally different state of affairs. Great disturbance, confusion, and uncertainty, as well as, violence spread all over the imminent new South Africa.
ANC’s leader and incoming South Africa’s president, Nelson Mandela, had calmed down the masses who had almost arrived at the tipping point of taking up arms to avenge the assassination of Chris Thembisile Hani by Janusz Waluś, a Polish immigrant and sympathiser of the Conservative opposition on April 10, 1993. However, the situation seemed set to change for the worse from the beginning of 1994 as the transition to democracy on April 27, 1994, was nearing.
The country was in no doubt on the brink of civil war with the right-wing forces of Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) and their like-minded hot-heads siamese-twins at Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) causing havoc in major hotspots, especially around Gauteng such as Boipatong and Thokoza.
Ken Oosterbroek, the chief photographer at Johannesburg’s The Star newspaper, was shot and killed while covering a gunbattle between Inkatha supporters and the National Peacekeeping Force, mostly from the African National Congress (ANC) in the township of Thokoza, 11 days before
South Africa’s first democratic election. He was a South African photojournalist and member of the Bang-Bang Club. The Bang-Bang Club was a group of four young war photographers, friends, and colleagues: Ken Oosterbroek, Kevin Carter, Greg Marinovich, and Joao Silva. Carter had been a photographer at Weekly Mail newspaper, where I had previously interacted with him during my internship there. On July 27, 1994, Carter took his own life through carbon monoxide poisoning aged 33.
Perhaps one of the fiercest attacks, by hundreds of armed white separatists together with the AWB was on June 25, 1993, when they stormed the World Trade Centre in Kempton Park, Johannesburg, Gauteng where negotiations for the constitutional transition towards democracy in South Africa were being held.
South Africans watched with horror on their television screens from their homes and offices as the racist lot used a somewhat army-like-truck to smash through the plate-glass at the venue, leaving most people there traumatised as the AWB members marched in carrying shotguns and pistols.
Former Mmegi’s Advertising Manager Steve Kuhlmann and Pamela Dube, another of my former colleagues at Mmegi, who had also had stints at South Africa’s various media houses, including The Weekly Mail & Guardian (before and after elections) had also crossed the Botswana-Bophuthatswana border into Mahikeng under then Chief Lucas Mangope’s Bophuthatswana on March 10, 1994. They were on a mission to investigate possibilities of opening a South African bureau in Mahikeng, only for them to stumble upon an uprising. The civil service, including the security apparatus and the state media (Radio Mmabatho and BOP TV), were on strike. The border was manned by the discredited South African Defence Force (SADF).
From her first account experience that Dube would share with us back at Mmegi: “Feeling power slipping, Mangope sought support from the paramilitary Afrikaner force, AWB of the late Eugene Terreblanche. The khaki-clad AWB members were met with resistance from the striking Bophuthatswana Police, and three of them were shot dead by an angry Motswana policeman, in the presence of SABC crew, who captured the incidents.”
The Mmegi duo, who had intended to return to Gaborone on the same day, extended their stay, to witness a revolution in the making. Said Dube: “The public sector strikes soon escalated, with private sector workers, joining in. Malls and shops in the affluent Mmabatho closed down as looters from poorer neighbouring townships of Mafikeng landed.”
“Seeing that the international media had converged in Mmabatho, reporting on the uprisings of once a peaceful nation, Mangope called a press conference at the State House. The Bantustan leader, knowing well that a greater percentage of the journalists on assignment understood only English, decided to address the presser in Setswana. Objections from the journalists were met with a bold defiant statement that, “mo Bophuthatswana wa me, go buiwa puo tse pedi, Setswana le Sekgoa...then he went on declaring that “mapantiti a ANC ga ana go tsaya puso yame”. Suffice [it] to say, a day later, a helicopter sent from Pretoria flew into the complex and left with Mangope and family to Lehurutshe,” Dube reported.
These acts of the AWB, IFP, and Third Force desperados (terrorists) amongst others, not only made some of us coming from peace-loving countries like Botswana uneasy but also got our families and friends worried back home, with most insisting that we (Batswana abroad) return home.
Even worse for me, I was one of the very few black Africans attending the predominantly prestigious white institutions located in the elite white suburbs. The situation would sometimes get very scary as I would also use white-dominated (electric-buses) mode of transport. Now this exposed one to become an easy target to both black and white extremists, as the violence was not only black on black but also white on black and vice-versa.
Despite the turbulent era, there were, however, several good relations across the race lines, as I would personally experience the warm reception at Weekly Mail later named Mail & Guardian (M&G). There I was welcomed by the mainly white directors, Bruce Cohen as the CEO, Anton Harber as the Managing Editor, Shaun de Vaal as the Literary Editor, Political Commentator Jonathan Shapiro (known as Zapiro), and Investigative Journalist and later Political Editor, Phillip van Niekerk. Whether within or outside the office at social events, one would never feel any sense of white supremacy or seniority towards their black junior and upcoming senior counterparts of the likes of Mondli Makhaya (later M&G Editor), Mduduzi waka Harvey (MHSRIP), and Bafana Khumalo then an arts and culture columnist.
I would again be accorded the same type of treatment by my college’s white senior directors and lecturers at Design Centre, Desmond Laubsher and Ingrid Templer. Against all expectations, the same institution would offer me a scholarship during my second year after my initial sponsorship from the then Botswana Confederation of Commerce, Industry and Manpower (BOCCIM), now Business Botswana funds via USAID (the United States Agency for International Development) had dried up.
Though we had been at risk of becoming part of casualties of war statistics, we (the Mmegi trio) would all survive the eye of the storm by the grace of God.