‘We were clicking and clicking after hell broke loose’
ACCORDING to veteran photographer Dan Makate (Tleketle), Sam Nzima was in the right place at the right time when he took the iconic June 16, 1976 picture of a dying Hector Pieterson, 13, in the arms of a distraught Mbuyisa Makhubu, with Hector’s sister, Antoinette, running next to them.
It was that image, syndicated internationally about two hours after it was taken, that alerted the world to the atrocities committed by the South African apartheid regime, which responded with guns and live ammunition to pupils’ protests against their language policy of enforcing Afrikaans as a medium of instruction in black schools.
Makate was Nzima’s boss as chief photographer at The World newspaper. A year later, in 1977, on what was later called Black Wednesday, The World and its weekend edition was banned by then justice minister Jimmy Kruger. The paper’s editor, Percy Qoboza, together with other journalists, were detained without trial for almost a year.
At the time of the student march, The World’s journalists had been tipped off by a colleague, Duma Ndlovu, now the producer of a popular television soapie, to the planned march by Soweto secondary and high school pupils.
Makate said he was with a group of journalists – including the late Sophie Tema, the late Moffat Zungu, Shadrack Khumalo and Nzima – who had been dispatched to Naledi High School, where the children’s march had begun early on the morning of June 16. They followed the peaceful protest as pupils hoisted placards and sang while walking to Orlando West High School.
The photographers’ brief was not to take pictures of the marchers’ faces, as the children feared they would be used by the security police to track them down. Makate added that primary school children, including Hector, were not included in the activities but had followed the marchers out of curiosity.
“Although the march was meant to be a secret, we knew all along, because youngsters such as Duma Ndlovu and Gabu Tugwana, at the Rand Daily Mail, had been in touch with the students, who had tipped them off …
“We walked with these kids all the way until Phefeni. Then, along Vilakazi Street, next to Orlando West High and the then Orlando West Zulu Junior Secondary, the first signs of trouble started after pupils had joined their counterparts on the streets.
“The police arrived in a convoy and parked a few metres away from the children. Then a Sergeant Botha, from Orlando police station, who was sent by the headquarters in Protea, told the kids to disperse. When they didn’t budge, he set two dogs upon the children.
“Normally people run away from police dogs and this is probably what the police expected the children to do, but they … killed them and then placed a placard with the words ‘Away with Afrikaans’ on their carcasses.
“During apartheid days, (if) you killed a police dog, you were as good as dead, because you would have killed a policeman. The police were fuming and went for their guns and were ready to shoot, but Moffat Zungu got in between the kids and the police and screamed “Don’t shoot”. There is a picture of this scene, where Moffat has his hands up.
“After defusing the situation, we (followed) the marchers all the way to where the Hector Pieterson Memorial is standing today and, up until then, there were no other violent scenes, just a march against Afrikaans. When we got to Uncle Tom’s Hall, Pieterson’s sister (Antoinette) had a container with petrol, plus a newspaper … coincidentally, the paper was The World. She and a few others were going towards a police car parked next to the traffic lights.
“The middle-aged white policeman and his colleague were standing next to the car but, when they saw this group advance, one opened the boot of his car, pulled out a rifle and started shooting. I don’t think his intention was to shoot the advancing pupils, but tragically, because he used live ammunition, the bullet struck Hector, who was walking in a furrow and probably following his sister, like all the younger children from primary schools.
“When Hector got shot, Antoinette dropped the canister and ran towards her brother. It was at that moment that Nzima got the historical shot. It was just one shot at the right angle. We all had pictures like that, but none of us had captured anything like what Sam had. Sam was able to capture the right moment, in time. Sam was closest to the real thing,”says Makate.
He added that the bullet that killed Hector was the one that brought on the outrage of the students, who went “berserk”, throwing stones at every car in sight. The photographers had their hands full, also trying to protect two white nuns caught in the mayhem.
“When that shot was fired… hell broke loose. Even as reporters, we couldn’t intervene and convince the pupils to stop. We found ourselves just clicking and clicking, no longer protecting faces. Alf Kumalo lost a lens when the kids beat him up and he fell, breaking it.”
As chief photographer, Makate’s task was to choose the main frontpage picture for the paper that would best capture the historic moment of the Soweto riots.
Of all the pictures taken that day, he decided that Nzima’s was the one. It has been said that he had hidden the film in his sock so that the police wouldn’t confisticate it.
“I had to take Sam’s film, go to the office and process it … Sam’s picture was the best, but there was resistance in the newsroom, with some white sub-editors who felt that using such a picture would cause a war, but Qoboza intervened and backed my decision. Then within two hours, the whole world knew what was happening in South Africa.
“Sam was in the right place at the right time and he clicked.”