Warrior Pose (10 page)

I'm able to cover the local news in Boston, pursuing the investigative reporting I love, but I have to back off the computer several times a day, stand up, and press my palms into my tender lower back while pushing my hips forward. It's become a newsroom joke as my fellow reporters jump up from their chairs now and then, playfully mocking my stance. They still have no idea how bad it is. My back brace is invisible beneath my trousers and sport coat, and I tell no one about it for fear the station will stop sending me on more rigorous assignments.

My career is all that matters. I have to move forward. Afghanistan was just a few months ago, but it seems like years. I have to find the next opportunity to pitch an international story. I feel like I've almost made it to the top of the mountain and my body is trying to drag me back down.
No way. I'm not giving in. I'll never stop.

CHAPTER 5

Apartheid

I
T'S 1987 AND THE STRUGGLE AGAINST APARTHEID, South Africa's white supremacy system, is boiling over. There are riots and violent clashes throughout the country. Nelson Mandela, the charismatic founder of the African National Congress (ANC), has been imprisoned by the South African government for years and is now a living martyr. Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy is pushing for strict economic sanctions against South Africa in hopes of freeing Mandela and forcing an end to government-sanctioned racism. The Reagan Administration calls Mandela's ANC a terrorist organization and is adamantly opposed to sanctions. Instead, Reagan promotes “Constructive Engagement,” a euphemism for preserving the status quo. It's a classic struggle between liberals and conservatives.

With antiapartheid protests in New England, there's great local interest in the international story. The networks have bureaus in South Africa with correspondents filing reports almost nightly, so if I want to cover it myself, I have to come up with a unique angle. I decide to focus on Zambia, where the ANC is now headquartered and run by Nelson Mandela's law partner, Oliver Tambo.

Tambo is in exile and a prime target for the South African government. It takes weeks for me to make contact, even with the help of Senator Kennedy's staff. When I finally do get his top aide on the phone, he confirms that Tambo has agreed to an on-camera interview with us. This positions me to tell the story from the perspective
of what are called the Frontline Nations of Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Mozambique, where black Africans have their independence and are putting up a united front against apartheid. When WBZ approves the proposal, it's like a miraculous medicine for my back. I can barely feel the pain as Dennis and I board a flight to Africa. Even so, I take an extra dose of Valium and Motrin as we land in Zambia more than fifteen hours later, just to be sure.

Zambia is landlocked, sitting atop the lower third of the continent like a gateway to its southern regions. The capital city of Lusaka, built on a plateau, is subtropical and steamy. Humidity hangs heavy in the air as we bounce into the city in a taxi that feels like it lost its shock absorbers years ago. A million poverty-stricken people live here, virtually on top of one another. The streets are organized chaos. Makeshift markets selling paltry goods. Children play on street corners as raw sewage flows by. Starving dogs fight over bits of food hidden in the piles of trash. The stench is overwhelming, but the thrill of being on a major story makes it almost smell sweet.

Surprisingly, there is little sense of desperation amid all this filth and chaos. The Zambian people hold themselves with dignity. It's been two decades since they ended a century of white domination and exploitation, mostly at the hands of the British. Every time we jump out of our taxi to film, young people immediately surround us to express the pride they feel as members of an independent nation.

In South Africa, it was the white Afrikaners who fought with the British for primacy and ultimately took power. The Afrikaners are a deeply conservative German, Dutch, and French ethnic group called Boers who migrated to South Africa in the 1600s. They formed a political minority National Party that managed to take power in 1948 and quickly enacted harsh segregationist laws that became known as apartheid, which means “apartness.” The policy created a system of complete social and economic discrimination against black South Africans, who were forced into ghettos called townships and denied all rights.

To fight back against the ANC and Frontline Nations, Special Forces of the South African government regularly launch military
strikes into Zambia. They have secret police throughout Lusaka. Assassinations of ANC leaders are all too common. Oliver Tambo has various safe houses hidden within the heart of the city. It takes a day to arrange a secret meeting with Isaac, the ANC operative who will guide us to the right location. We meet at a side street several blocks from our hotel.

“Welcome,” Isaac says with polite formality and a firm handshake. “We must move quickly. I will speak to your driver. Please get back in your car.” Isaac whispers something to our driver, Jonas, and walks off in his well-tailored suit like a businessman headed for an urgent meeting. His commitment to the struggle is palpable. It's clear he's prepared to die for his beliefs, and equally clear he intends not to.

Jonas starts the car quickly and turns into the first alley, entering a maze: Narrow lanes. No street signs. Thicker crowds. Within five minutes I'm completely lost and know I would never find my way out of here without a guide. We begin doubling back, circling, losing anyone who might be following. A sudden stop. We're in front of a fifteen-foot, rusted steel wall with a small doorway cut into its center. Suddenly, Isaac appears from nowhere, now clad in a faded T-shirt and jeans, blending perfectly into the neighborhood.

“Grab your gear and follow me,” Isaac says with firm calmness. “In here. Quickly.” He knocks a code on the steel wall with his knuckles as we get out of the car. Thick steel bolts are unlocked from the interior and the door swings open with a screech. We slip inside the compound with Isaac, and behind us the door is immediately slammed shut and bolted by a tall, muscular young man with a pistol tucked into his waistband. We are standing in a dirt courtyard ten yards from a single-story structure that looks like a cross between a workshop and a residence.

Two more men, also with firearms, approach us with the same formal politeness of Isaac and softly say, “We must check you for weapons.” One man frisks Dennis and me with seasoned proficiency. The other deftly goes through all of our bags. “Thank you,” they both say after concluding we're unarmed.

“Through here.” Isaac takes charge again and leads us into the main door. We go down a corridor with aging hardwood floors and
yellowish stucco walls, past a small room filled with filing cabinets, and then a larger room with desks and a few men studiously doing their work. No one glances up, but everyone is aware of our presence.

Now we're turning left down another corridor. Isaac unlocks a door and we enter a comfortable living room with couches and chairs. There's a wide bay window looking out onto a small courtyard with deep green shrubbery and a few trees soaking in glancing rays of warm sunlight. “Please set up your camera,” Isaac instructs. “Mr. Tambo will be with you shortly.”

After fifteen minutes, Oliver Tambo steps softly through a side door wearing a traditional wax-dyed shirt, called a batik, of bright yellow, red, and green patterns. He is almost seventy years old. He has salt-and-pepper hair, a light beard, and thick, black-rimmed glasses. He welcomes us with a soft smile as Dennis clips a microphone on his shirt.

Before I ask a question, he says, “We have struggled against oppression for generations. It is now time for our liberation.”

“Critics say your movement embraces terrorism and has many communist members,” I reply in a respectful tone. “What is your answer to this?”

“We are puppets to no one,” Tambo says with authority and conviction. “We want a democratic, nonracial South Africa where all political parties can participate. We have taken aid from socialist countries because no Western democracies will help us, despite their public statements about seeking equality and justice throughout the world. We have also received support from Scandinavia, which is hardly a radical nation. And no one who assists us tells us what to do.”

It's the Cold War again, a story that's played out too many times in too many places around the world. America and the Soviet Union fight each other this way, using smaller, less developed countries as proxies. Its victims always seem to be those facing poverty and struggling for freedom. Mr. Tambo is eloquent in articulating his case, and the interview ends far too quickly for me. After ten minutes of conversation, his aide says he must go. We have all the material we need, but I could talk to this wise and elegant man into the middle of the night.

Isaac guides us back to the compound entryway. Incredible luck. Chris Hani has just arrived under heavy guard for a meeting with Tambo. Hani is one of the most controversial, elusive, and wanted figures in the movement. I remember seeing his photo during my research and I was struck by the power he exuded. Hani leads the armed wing of the ANC. It's called
Umkhonto we Sizwe
, which means Spear of the Nation. Unlike the Gandhi-inspired nonviolence embraced by Mandela and Tambo, members of
Umkhonto we Sizwe
are convinced that the brutality and injustice of apartheid can only be overcome through armed struggle. South Africa's Secret Police hunt these guerilla fighters relentlessly and kill them when they can. This is probably why we went through so much secrecy and backtracking to get here this morning.

“Mr. Hani.” I stop him as he is about to enter the residence. “We've just completed interviewing Mr. Tambo. May we have a word with you?” His guards stiffen and are about to brush us aside when Hani stops them and answers, “Of course. I can give you a minute.”

Dennis swings his camera onto his shoulder and slips a microphone into my hand with amazing speed. “Why violence?” I ask. “Why not follow Mandela and Tambo? Peaceful resistance. Civil disobedience?”

“I am a communist and a patriot,” Hani says gently. His boyish face and wide smile make it hard to believe he embraces armed struggle until he says, “I make no apologies. The South African government has brutalized, tortured, and killed too many of our people. They make false promises, break agreements, treat us like children. The only thing they will ever understand is violence. We must let them taste the suffering they have given us, make them insecure in their homes and on the streets.” Hani is charismatic and articulate. He is the second most popular figure in the resistance movement after Nelson Mandela. Six years after we air our interview with him he will be assassinated.

Departing Lusaka, we move deep into the countryside, passing through small villages and remote areas where armed gangs with
murky allegiances often ambush travelers. Zambia had previously been the British Colony of North Rhodesia until it declared independence in 1964. Billy Nkunika, a cross between an intellectual and a street-savvy survivor, was a leader of the resistance against the British and is now an advisor to the ANC. We're lucky to have him with us as both guide and protector.

It's our second day of moving south from Lusaka toward the borders of Zimbabwe and Botswana. Just before nightfall, we round a sweeping corner through the jungle and find the road blocked by two battered pickup trucks. As Jonas slams on the brakes, we're quickly surrounded by a dozen armed men. Two of them have rifles pointed directly at us. The rest brandish large machetes as they order us to get out of our car. It's little matter that Dennis and I are not South African; the fact that we're white and carrying expensive camera gear is enough to place us in grave danger.

Nkunika orders Jonas to leave the engine running as he jumps out fearlessly, barking at the men with great authority. A few of the younger members of the gang, who look to be in their early teens, start tapping their machetes on the hood of our car while pressing their faces against the window, staring hard at us. I think about the five thousand dollars I have in my satchel for travel needs and emergencies. Our camera gear is worth a small fortune.