Everyone thinks being a journalist is glamorous and easy. It sometimes is, the other times, like this week, it is dangerous.
I was in Vuwani yesterday to cover the protests, and in my 15 years as a journalist, I have never experienced anything like it.
As journalists, we never really take the danger factor into consideration when covering a story.
When I arrived in the area at 15:00, a large crowd was waiting to be addressed by the Minister of Cooperative Governance, Pravin Godhan. There was heavy police presence, which included a helicopter monitoring the situation.
But the situation soon took a turn for the worse an hour later when the crowd learned that the minister wanted to address the Pro-Makhado Demarcation Task Team in Louis Trichardt, and not them. The crowd lost its cool and started throwing stones at the police, who responded by firing rubber bullets.
The journalists and photographers were then shouted at and accused of being spies. We were shot with hand catapults, which struck me and a SAPS cameraman.
There was a wire barricade between the police and the crowd, but the crowd tried to remove the wire, with some of them even using petrol bombs. The police also fired stun grenades to disperse the crowd and when a grenade exploded, they ululated and sang: “happy…happy”.
Although it was risky to do so without a police escort, I left the area at around 18:34 and there were still protesters throwing stones in the dark.
The situation in Vuwani is still tense.
I warn all journalists and photographers to be vigilant when they cover the violent protests in the Vuwani area.
