Inside Isithebe with Courier jounalists Sboniso Dlamini and Jacqueline Herbst
Courier journalists share their experience covering the Isithebe protests. This assignment ain't for sissies!
“Bhuti (brother), don’t even go there; you will not come out,” said a handful of residents Courier journalist Sboniso Dlamini met at a deserted bus shelter in Yellow Street, Isithebe.
“I wanted to go into the township to speak to the people and find out what they have experienced that has made them so angry but was advised to stay out. I was told that going into the township was extremely dangerous and that the people did not want to see police or journalists inside there,” said Dlamini.
“If they see you in the township and they don’t know you, you are in trouble.
“I felt a little uncomfortable when people slowly appeared from the township, as if out of the blue, and sat down around us.”
“Hide your notebook,” said one of the men at the bus shelter and quickly walked away.”
“You’d better start moving away, my brother, these people are here to listen to our conversation and you will be in trouble,” said another man.
“I could see that the young men who sat around us were involved in the protests. Their feet were covered in mud, their clothes were grubby and they looked tired,” Dlamini said.
“I greeted them and they responded with menacing looks so I left.’
“Walking further down the street past burnt debris, branches and anything protesters could find to block roads with such as tyres, I met up with a group of police officers who told me in no uncertain terms not to go into the township because I would be risking my life.”
The industrial estate was quiet on Thursday, but extremely tense, balancing on a knife’s edge between anarchy and eerie silence.
Isithebe has been hit by wave after wave of violent and extremely destructive outbreaks of protest action while shrouded in tension and volatility.
“Nightfall is the most dangerous because that is when protesters are brave enough fire live rounds under the cloak of darkness,” said Courier journalist, Jacqueline Herbst.
“After Wednesday’s failed community meeting, an estimated 150-strong group of troublemakers taunted and challenged police to come and get them.”
They had rolled a massive skip a couple of hundred metres downhill to the field where the community meeting had taken place and were now chanting and dancing around it. Two teenagers climbed on top of the upside down bin and started jumping up and down.”
“The mob scattered in all directions with the first rubber bullet was fired, only to take cover and hurl sharp, tennis ball size stones at police and journalists following the action.”
“I moved a couple of metres out of range to the right when stones rained down to my left.”
“The red smoke bombs were quite spectacular but we left the field when tear gas drifted down wind. My colleague, Dlamini, was caught out by the teargas and suffered the consequences: eyes burning like fire, a foul, almost poisonous taste in the mouth that makes you want to spit out litres of saliva while tears stream down your cheeks.”
“Being there is such an adrenaline rush that it takes a few hours to calm down in the evening and fall asleep.”
Another community meeting is planned for this afternoon and the intrepid Dlamini and Herbst will be there.
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