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If only I could reach
The homestead of Death's mother
Oh, my daughter
I would make a long grass torch ...
I would destroy everything utterly utterly ...
Traditional Acholi funeral song
Thokoza township, South Africa, April 18, 1994.
"Not a picture," I muttered as I looked through my camera viewfinder
at the soldier firing methodically into the hostel. I turned back
towards the line of terrified, unwilling and poorly-trained soldiers
taking cover alongside the wall next to me. Their eyes darted back
and forth under the rims of their steel helmets. I wanted to capture
that fear. The next minute, a blow struck me - massive, hammer-like
- in the chest. I missed a sub-moment, a beat from my life, and then
I found myself on the ground, entangled in the legs of the other
photographers working beside me. Pain irradiated my left breast and
spread through my torso. It went far beyond the point I imagined
pain ended. "Fuck! I'm hit, I'm hit! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!".
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A wounded
Greg Marinovich is assisted by photojournalist James Nachtwey,
while Joao Silva takes pictures of Gary Bernard and an officer
from the National Peacekeeping Force as they carry the fatally
wounded Ken Oosterbroek in the background, 18 April 1994, Thokoza
township. Photo by Juda Ngwenya/Reuters. |
As automatic fire continued to erupt from along the wall, Joao and
Jim desperately dragged me by my camera vest closer to the wall,
seeking shelter next to the soldiers and out of their line of fire.
Then an anguished voice broke through the cacophony, "Ken O is hit!"
I struggled to turn my head through the tangled cameras and straps
around my neck. A few yards to the right, I could see a pair of long
skinny legs that were unmistakably Ken's protruding from the weeds
flourishing against the concrete wall. They were motionless and at
an improbable angle to each other. Jim ran over to where Gary was
clutching Ken, trying to find a sign of life. The sporadic crack and
rattle of high-velocity automatic gunfire reverberated through the
air around the huddle of journalists and soldiers trying to flatten
themselves against the wall.
Blood seeped from the gaping hole in my T-shirt. I clamped my hand
over the hole to stop the bleeding. I imagined the exit wound of the
bullet as a deadly, gaping hole in my back. Look for an exit wound,
I said to Joao. He ignored me. "Youll be okay," he said. I reasoned
that it must be bad if he didn't want to look, and as though all
this was all happening in some feeble movie, I asked him to give a
message to my girlfriend. "Tell Heidi I'm sorry ... that I love
her," I said. "Tell her yourself," he snapped back.
Suddenly a sensation of utter calm washed over me. This was it. I
had paid my dues. I had atoned for the dozens of close calls that
always left someone else injured or dead, while I emerged from the
scenes of mayhem unscathed, pictures in hand, having committed the
crime of being the lucky voyeur.
Jim returned, crouching under the gunfire and murmured softly in my
ear, "Ken's gone, but you'll be okay." Joao heard and stood up to
rush over to Ken, but others were already helping him. He lifted his
camera. "Ken will want to see these later," he told himself. He was
annoyed that Ken's hair was in his face, ruining the picture. Joao
took pictures of us both - two of his closest friends - me sprawled
on the cracked concrete clutching my chest; Ken being clumsily
manhandled into the back of an armoured vehicle by Gary and a
soldier, his head lolling freely like that of a rag doll and his
cameras dangling uselessly from his neck. Then it was my turn to be
loaded into the armoured car, Jim had my shoulders and Joao my legs,
but I am large, and Heidi's pampering had added more kilos. "You're
too fat, man!" Joao joked. "I can walk," I protested, trying to
laugh, but strangely indignant. I wanted to remind them of the
weight of the cameras.
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An
officer with the National Peacekeeping Force assists Gary
Bernard with a fatally wounded Ken Oosterbroek, 18 April 1994.
Photo by Joao Silva. |
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After four long years of observing the violence, the bullets had
finally caught up with us. The bang-bang had been good to us, until
now.
Earlier that morning we had been working the back streets and alleys
of Thokoza township's devastated no-man's-land that we - Ken
Oosterbroek, Kevin Carter, Joao and I - had become so familiar with
over the years of chasing confrontations between police, soldiers,
modern-day Zulu warriors and Kalashnikov-toting youngsters as
apartheid came to its bloody end.
Kevin was not with us when the shooting happened. He had left
Thokoza to talk to a local journalist about the Pulitzer Prize he
had won for his shocking picture of a starving child being stalked
by a vulture in the Sudan. He had been in two minds about leaving.
Joao had advised him to stay, that despite there being a lull,
things were sure to cook again. But Kevin was enjoying his new-found
status as a celebrity and went anyway.
Over a steak lunch in Johannesburg, Kevin recounted his many narrow
escapes. After dessert, he told the journalist that there had been a
lot of bang-bang that morning in Thokoza, and that he had to return.
While driving back to the township, some sixteen kilometres from
Johannesburg, he heard on a news report on the radio that Ken and I
had been shot, and that Ken was dead. He raced towards the local
hospital we had been taken to. Kevin hardly ever wore body armour,
none of us did, and Joao flatly refused to. But at the entrance to
the township, before reaching the hospital, Kevin dragged his
bullet-proof vest over his head. All at once, he felt fear.
The boys were no longer untouchable, and, before the bloodstains
faded from the concrete beside the wall, another of us would be
dead. |
