The soldier jumped off his Casspir and walked towards a house into which a frightened group of people had run. He stopped at the gate, raised his rifle and fired a shot. An old man, an onlooker standing outside the house, collapsed in a pool of blood. The soldier fired another shot I heard shattering glass and a short scream, and saw a woman fall. She had been peeping through the window of a neighbouring house. The large crowd in the street started screaming and throwing stones at the soldiers.
The Casspir retreated and people ran to aid the two victims. The old man was covered with blankets and driven to hospital. He was dead. So was the woman, by the time a car arrived for her. The floor and the bed next to which she had stood were blood-drenched. ”Another Winterveldt massacre,” commented one of the thousands of people who marched in the Odi region on Wednesday. He was referring to the 1986 incident when Bophuthatswana police killed 12 protestors. This time it was soldiers doing the shooting, not police.
Earlier in the day when thousands of marchers had gathered, Bophuthatswana police had been responding to shouts of ”Viva ANC!” ·and ”Amandla!” with clenched fists I saw three vanloads of police take off their camouflage uniforms, hide them in their vans and join the march. ”Viva comrade police, Viva!” the crowd shouted. Garankuwa, a small segment of Bophuthatswana just north of Pretoria, was like a war-zone on Wednesday.
A friend had woken me at 6am to say there were huge numbers of people marching in the Odi region, which incorporates Garankuwa, Mabopane, Winterveldt, Klipgat and other villages. As far as I knew, there would be a peaceful march similar to the one I witnessed three weeks ago in the same township; the people were going to present a memorandum to the Odi magistrate’s office. We went to speak to the marchers at Mabopane’s traffic circle, where residents from the region were converging for a 20km walk to the magistrate’s offices. Marshals and organisers had started rousing people as early as 2am to make sure that those catching the earliest transport to work also joined the march.
A taxi driver came from the direction of Garankuwa. ”It is burning in Garankuwa,” he told marchers. ”Police cars and other government cars have been burned and police are shooting teargas.” I jumped into my car and sped towards Garankuwa. We were met with barricades, thick clouds of smoke and hundreds of toyi-toying youth and workers. Zone 16, with the well-known Uncle Nat’s shopping complex, was on fire. Three police vans and a Nissan Skyline, allegedly belonging to the homeland’s Department of Works, were on fire. Tyres, metal containers, tree trunks and piles of old metal blocked the roads.
I went towards a black smoke-cloud 2km away. In Zone 6, the administration office was on fire. Streets were blocked. Everybody was on the streets, except the ”little ones” – primary school students. There was a mixture of jubilation, anger and uncertainty on their faces. ”Today Mangope must resign,” they said. There were no police in sight, but someone said people who were toyi-toying in Zone 2 had been arrested.
I drove back to Mabopane. Large banners of the South African Communist Party and the African National Congress waved over the crowd. Huge numbers of people were pouring in from different directions, each group with its flags and placards: ”Away with bantustans!” ”Away with Mangope, forward to a democratic South Africa!” Marshals formed human chains. Police, marching alongside the crowd as escorts, raised clenched fists and responded to shouts of ”Viva ANC !” an It was here that I saw police taking of their uniforms and joining the march. Bu the soldiers would not be so friendly.
Teachers, students and the elderly joined in the toyi-toyi on the 20kn march. Some came from as far as Eesterus and Mogogelo near Hammanskraal about 15km from Mabopane. They have begun their march at 2am to be in time to meet other residents from Winterveldt Mabopane and Klipgat. Three Putco buses brought people from Soshanguve, part of South Africa and just a stone’s throw from Mabopane which is part of Bophuthatswana. The crowd moved to Hebron and still more joined. Five kilometres on, residents of ”elite” Zone 8 joined the march.
The crowd now stretched for 12km, and we were only halfway. There would be no point, I thought, for the homeland police and soldiers to attack such a large and peaceful protest march. Those in the front reached Zone 16 at about 10am – almost two hours after the march began. They met with residents of Garankuwa and proceeded to Zone 5, where the Odi magistrate’s offices are situated. More flags were hoisted. At the front gates of nearby houses there were containers of water, in anticipation of teargas.
At the entrance to the magistrate’s offices stood a large contingent of soldiers with Casspirs and a truck. The leaders went inside to present the petition as the crowds stood in the street, on a hillock and in a nearby field. Trouble started at about 11am, when an army truck loaded with uniforms, rifles and other items was set alight- much to the amusement of a crowd of police and soldiers who stood and watched. It burnt for 15 minutes with no move from soldiers.
Suddenly, there were gunshots – I could not see from where -and part of the crowd scattered. But many were still arriving. People stumbled into the muddy veld. A stampede ensured. The soldiers fired teargas and rubber bullets at those who had run into the open veld, driving them into thousands of others who were heading towards the offices. Angered by the teargas, the crowd moved to a yard where government vehicles were parked. Three were set alight. More teargas was fired and the oncoming crowd was forced back.
One of three army helicopters, which had been hovering overhead since the march began, swooped so low over the crowd that people could feel the turbulence from its rotors. Casspirs were driven through the crowds; more teargas was fired. People ran in different directions, trip ping and falling. Then they converged again, some armed with stones. The crowd was very angry. I was looking in the direction of an on coming Casspir when I heard a shot fired. Panic ensued. I ran for cover. The soldiers continued to fire teargas. One climbed off the Casspir and fired the two shots that killed the old man and the woman at the window. Shooting continued for about an hour, uninterrupted. Many fell; some were helped into nearby houses.
In Zone 16, a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet and a police van were on fire. In Zone 1, the administration offices were burning. A Fedmark outlet in Zone 4 was also aflame. Most marchers had began the long walk home. The atmosphere was tense. The electric, jubilant mood of earlier had been destroyed. Many had lost shoes and other belongings. At the Hebron/Mabopane intersection, a beige Mercedes Benz with a white driver was stoned. The vehicle was badly damaged, but sympathetic people helped the driver and summoned help. I drove to the hospital. There was blood in the corridors, on the wheel chairs, stretchers and the floors. When I approached the receptionist, she thought I was an outpatient and quickly cautioned me: ”If you have come for treatment today, please do so tomorrow. The situation in the hospital is bad today. We are only treating the unrest victims.”
In the intensive care unit, the white overcoats of more than a dozen doctors and staff were stained with blood. By 3.30pm hospital staff had treated 173 victims and more were still on stretchers. Five others were undergoing major operations. Some had bulled wounds; others has been injured during the pandemonium as the crowd dashed for safety. The hospital superintendent confirmed that five people had been certified dead on arrival and three had died in the intensive care unit.
This article originally appeared in the Weekly Mail.
