Raj Patel, Durban
It was an ordinary mugging. The bastard had a gun, a swagger, a gang and didn't seem to want me to take his photo when he was roughing someone up. So he came up to me and told me to hand over the camera. Timid as I am, and not wanting much further trouble, I handed it over. There were witnesses. "What's your name?", I asked him. "Nayager", he said, pointing to his badge. Superintendent Glen Nayager of the South African Police Service, it turns out.
Not without irony, he's the one in charge of "crime prevention". Turns out, talking to those more familiar with the Durban scene, that he's a man with a history. He faces several pending charges, but has enough protection from his patrons to carry on with that particular blend of thuggery, racism and vendetta, known in Durban as "community policing".
It's a shame he stole my camera. I had plenty of shots on it of today's [November 14] protest by shack dwellers in the Foreman Road informal settlement. Pictures, for example, of the police charging on unarmed protesters.
[At noon on November 14, at the Foreman Road settlement in Clare Estate, Durban, South African police attacked a peaceful demonstration of settlement dwellers from around the municipality. Dozens were arrested. Cops surrounded the Foreman Road settlement and blocked both exits. No-one was allowed in or out. The elected committee of Abahlali base Mjondolo, a shack dwellers' movement with 16 affiliated settlements, followed due procedure in attempting to gain permission for the march. The African National Congress-controlled city council, however, illegally denied the application. At 11am, the 3000-strong crowd decided to march to the nearby Asherville sports field. At first, the march proceeded peacefully until marchers were met by a police cordon. At least 2000 people were up against the police barrier. Witnesses did not observe the mandatory five-minute warning being given before police charged the crowd with riot shields, backed up by riot trucks, plucking individuals at random for arrest. The crowd fled back towards the Foreman Road settlement. Police chased them, firing rubber bullets, charging with batons and arresting protesters in the process.]
Todd McPherson, one of our fellow travelling photographers, managed to shoot this feller (see < http://voiceoftheturtle.org/raj/blog/2005/11/fucker-stole-my-A href="mailto:camera-and-shot-my.html"><camera-and-shot-my.html>). Yes, that's a pistol. Witnesses say he shot off a few rounds at the backs of retreating protesters. Luckily, he managed not to hit anyone. His brethren were armed with rubber bullets, and they also sprayed the crowd, though with more enthusiasm than competence, it would seem.
Finally, they managed to rugby tackle someone in the bushes, and shot him point blank. There's a fairly grim picture, not yet on Indymedia (though check again at ) of a man shot in the head with a rubber bullet. To ensure optimum fish-in-barrel shooting conditions, the police sealed off the Foreman Road informal settlement, preventing anyone from entering, and firing at anyone trying to leave.
Activist Richard Pithouse caught a rubber bullet in the foot. This was before he'd had a chat with a white policeman, name Swart (translation: Black), who said, pointing around at the informal settlement, "There's no democracy here". The implication was clear. Just as Foreman Road was shielded from the main road — it's in a ravine, far from sight — so the actions of the police were invisible. Then the police came after Comrade Pithouse. "I want to arrest the white guy", said Mr. Swart. Richard managed to dodge them, and get out.
But I digress. I was saying that I managed to take a good few photos. One was of the toilet block in Foreman Road. If memory serves there were four toilets there. Foreman Road settlement is bigger than Kennedy Road informal settlement and, as one newspaper reported, Kennedy Road has six toilets for 6000 people. The ratio is surely worse in Foreman. But Foreman doesn't have the good fortune to be visible to passing traffic.
I want payback, not least because Nayager's tactic worked. He scared me. After he took my camera away, I was so fucking gobsmacked that I just stood there. Stood there when System Cele, a 19-year-old woman, who had come to the protest with her infant, was marched to the police van. I managed a hoarse "Hey, System". And then the police threw her in the back of the van. When they got her to the police station, they interrogated her, asked her to confess that S'bu Zikode — leader of the Abahlali base Mjondolo, the informal settlement dwellers' association — forced her to march. She said there are people marching all over the world. Can S'bu be making them all do it? They smashed her face into the ground, and broke her teeth.
In fact, S'bu had been advocating that people not march, because he knew that the march had been banned (illegally) by the ANC Durban city council. But people wanted to march, and that was that. And slowly, it's turning out to be payback time, not merely for me, but for Durban's poorest people.
[Abridged from Raj Patel's blog, Class Worrier, visit . Patel finally retrieved his camera and photos; they can be viewed at .]
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, November 23, 2005.
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