Read Online Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation by John Carlin - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: John Carlin
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its immediate sights, it was a menacing expression of the vast black sea that might rise and engulf them.
After “Nkosi Sikelele” came a Christian prayer. While the thousands addressed themselves to their God, heads bowed, and before anyone had even begun to broach the political matters at hand, a local police officer, Captain Botha, wrested command away from Captain van Dyk. Botha was from Upington.
To Van Dyk’s dismay, Botha lifted a bullhorn to his lips and announced, in a cry familiar to all veterans of black protest in South Africa, that the crowd had “ten minutes to disperse.” The only thing that was unusual about the warning was that it should have come quite so early on, before the prayers had even finished. Captain van Dyk might well have reached the same point himself, but he would have observed the religious decencies a little more, and might have at least gone through the motions of seeking a negotiated outcome.
Captain Botha didn’t wait for the full ten minutes to tick by. Before two minutes had passed he ordered his troops to open fire with tear gas and rubber bullets, to let loose their snarling dogs. Some of the younger blacks hurled stones, but most of the crowd ran off, the screams of the women drowned out by the fearsome revving of the pursuing Casspirs. Most routes had been blocked off by policemen carrying guns, stroking truncheons, or cracking sjamboks, thick leather whips, on the stony ground. Seeing a gap, Justice led a group of about 150 people—men and women, young and old—down Pilane Street, leaving the white policemen behind them.
Suddenly, from one of the small gray-brick houses on the street, shots rang out. A child fell, seriously wounded. Then a man charged out of a house with a gun above his head. Straight into the anger, the fear, the chaos ran the man who had fired the shots. His name was Lucas Sethwala. He was that peculiarity in apartheid South Africa, a black policeman; he and other “collaborators,” the butt of the rioting on Sunday night. Somewhere at the back of Justice’s mind, driving him on, were the images that had shaped him, Robben Island and the suffering of “our leaders,” the transient joy of watching the All Blacks murder the Upington rugby team, the Separate Amenities Act, the Group Areas, the schooling that ended at age fifteen, the thrilling example of the hero who stabbed the white policeman to death . . . all those memories and more ate away at him. But at that moment, as he broke away on his own and chased after police constable Lucas Sethwala, the foremost sensation was frenzy; the sole purpose was revenge.
“ There was no time to stop and think. There was no rational choice made. It was pure emotion,” Justice remembered.
The fact that Sethwala still had the gun in his hand and Justice carried no weapon, that Sethwala turned around as he ran down the road and fired at Justice, showed just how irrational Justice’s response was. But the shots missed and Justice caught him, forced the gun out of Sethwala’s hand, and beat Sethwala over the head with it. He only hit him twice, but twice was enough. He lay still, dead. Justice got up and kept running, but the group behind him, who had celebrated Sethwala’s capture and pummeling with a cry, did as black South African crowds ritually did too often in such circumstances. They kicked Sethwala’s inert body and then someone ran off to get a can of gasoline. Justice did not see this; he was told about it later. About a hundred people gathered round the body, whooping with delight. It was a victory at last, or something that in the madness of the moment felt very much like it for Paballelo. They doused the body with gasoline, scratched a match, and set it alight.
Justice fled across the border to Windhoek, the capital of Namibia. But then it was not yet an independent country; it still belonged to South Africa. Six days later, on November 19, he was arrested and brought back to Upington, where
After “Nkosi Sikelele” came a Christian prayer. While the thousands addressed themselves to their God, heads bowed, and before anyone had even begun to broach the political matters at hand, a local police officer, Captain Botha, wrested command away from Captain van Dyk. Botha was from Upington.
To Van Dyk’s dismay, Botha lifted a bullhorn to his lips and announced, in a cry familiar to all veterans of black protest in South Africa, that the crowd had “ten minutes to disperse.” The only thing that was unusual about the warning was that it should have come quite so early on, before the prayers had even finished. Captain van Dyk might well have reached the same point himself, but he would have observed the religious decencies a little more, and might have at least gone through the motions of seeking a negotiated outcome.
Captain Botha didn’t wait for the full ten minutes to tick by. Before two minutes had passed he ordered his troops to open fire with tear gas and rubber bullets, to let loose their snarling dogs. Some of the younger blacks hurled stones, but most of the crowd ran off, the screams of the women drowned out by the fearsome revving of the pursuing Casspirs. Most routes had been blocked off by policemen carrying guns, stroking truncheons, or cracking sjamboks, thick leather whips, on the stony ground. Seeing a gap, Justice led a group of about 150 people—men and women, young and old—down Pilane Street, leaving the white policemen behind them.
Suddenly, from one of the small gray-brick houses on the street, shots rang out. A child fell, seriously wounded. Then a man charged out of a house with a gun above his head. Straight into the anger, the fear, the chaos ran the man who had fired the shots. His name was Lucas Sethwala. He was that peculiarity in apartheid South Africa, a black policeman; he and other “collaborators,” the butt of the rioting on Sunday night. Somewhere at the back of Justice’s mind, driving him on, were the images that had shaped him, Robben Island and the suffering of “our leaders,” the transient joy of watching the All Blacks murder the Upington rugby team, the Separate Amenities Act, the Group Areas, the schooling that ended at age fifteen, the thrilling example of the hero who stabbed the white policeman to death . . . all those memories and more ate away at him. But at that moment, as he broke away on his own and chased after police constable Lucas Sethwala, the foremost sensation was frenzy; the sole purpose was revenge.
“ There was no time to stop and think. There was no rational choice made. It was pure emotion,” Justice remembered.
The fact that Sethwala still had the gun in his hand and Justice carried no weapon, that Sethwala turned around as he ran down the road and fired at Justice, showed just how irrational Justice’s response was. But the shots missed and Justice caught him, forced the gun out of Sethwala’s hand, and beat Sethwala over the head with it. He only hit him twice, but twice was enough. He lay still, dead. Justice got up and kept running, but the group behind him, who had celebrated Sethwala’s capture and pummeling with a cry, did as black South African crowds ritually did too often in such circumstances. They kicked Sethwala’s inert body and then someone ran off to get a can of gasoline. Justice did not see this; he was told about it later. About a hundred people gathered round the body, whooping with delight. It was a victory at last, or something that in the madness of the moment felt very much like it for Paballelo. They doused the body with gasoline, scratched a match, and set it alight.
Justice fled across the border to Windhoek, the capital of Namibia. But then it was not yet an independent country; it still belonged to South Africa. Six days later, on November 19, he was arrested and brought back to Upington, where
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