wire: ‘jobp/ pho/lonp Send all pictures. faas/lonp.’
Faas, Monty and Denis feared that the notoriously sensitive New York desk would kill the pictures because they were too gory. But on that weekend the London people convinced their cautious counterparts across the Atlantic to let all the pictures move on through to the newspapers. Their fears were well founded: by Monday morning there was an outcry from some of the newspaper editors and publishers who own the AP. They objected to such brutal pictures running on the wire. One editor complained that he ran a family paper, and castigated the AP for putting out such pictures. It was not as if the existence of pictures on the wire obliged anyone to print them; only a fraction of any day’s production are ever published - hundreds of pictures are routinely ignored.
But Monty and Faas believed that the pictures of Lindsaye Tshabalala’s death should be seen. To censor pictures that are too strong, indecent or obscene was to make decisions for the reader that were not theirs to make. They held that it should be shown that people were inflicting terrible violence on other people. In fact, some newspapers in the US did pull back from publishing the pictures, though many papers around the world ran them.
In South Africa, the violence of the photographs had an explosive
effect. The South African government saw Lindsaye Tshabalala’s death as a perfect opportunity to portray the ANC as killers who could never be entrusted with leading the country. Within days, police approached the AP Johannesburg bureau to see if I would hand over my pictures to enable them to identify the killers. It would also be necessary for me to appear in court to validate the authenticity of the pictures so that they could be submitted as evidence. The police had not contacted the AP or the local newspapers about my photographs of the Inkatha warriors killing the alleged ANC supporter the previous month - it was presumably not in the interests of the South African state to prosecute their allies. Luckily, the police were trying to find one Sebastian Balic, the pseudonym I had adopted for my by-line, consisting of my middle name and my mother’s maiden name. I had done this to avoid being detected by the military police, who were haphazardly searching for me to complete my military service. During my initial two years of compulsory national service in the army I had refused to carry a weapon. I had been allowed to get away with that little defiance because they needed me to translate Russian - something I just managed to do with a pile of dictionaries as the language is similar to my parents’ mother tongue: Serbo-Croat. But by the time I was called up for camps, as the extended military call-up was known, I knew that even without carrying a gun, I would be playing my part in supporting apartheid.
Despite my horror at the brutal murder and the desire that the killers be prosecuted for it, there was no way I was going to testify. I had been allowed to stay during the clashes because I had convinced the ANC supporters that I was a journalist and not a police informer. If I did testify, journalists covering the war would almost certainly be targeted as soon as word spread. And once in court, Seb Balic would be revealed as Greg Marinovich. After I refused, the prosecutor issued a 205 subpoena, a court order used to force journalists, doctors and others to testify. The AP lawyers ascertained that the state would press ahead with charges against me if I refused to testify - with a maximum sentence of ten years for contempt of court and several more for avoiding military
camps. I decided to leave, rather than try my luck with the courts. So, within 24 hours, I was on a plane to London, leaving my housemates to deal with the security branch and plains-clothes policemen who would occasionally appear at the door.
Once in London, I felt that the AP and my magazine photo agency Sygma were less than helpful in
Faas, Monty and Denis feared that the notoriously sensitive New York desk would kill the pictures because they were too gory. But on that weekend the London people convinced their cautious counterparts across the Atlantic to let all the pictures move on through to the newspapers. Their fears were well founded: by Monday morning there was an outcry from some of the newspaper editors and publishers who own the AP. They objected to such brutal pictures running on the wire. One editor complained that he ran a family paper, and castigated the AP for putting out such pictures. It was not as if the existence of pictures on the wire obliged anyone to print them; only a fraction of any day’s production are ever published - hundreds of pictures are routinely ignored.
But Monty and Faas believed that the pictures of Lindsaye Tshabalala’s death should be seen. To censor pictures that are too strong, indecent or obscene was to make decisions for the reader that were not theirs to make. They held that it should be shown that people were inflicting terrible violence on other people. In fact, some newspapers in the US did pull back from publishing the pictures, though many papers around the world ran them.
In South Africa, the violence of the photographs had an explosive
effect. The South African government saw Lindsaye Tshabalala’s death as a perfect opportunity to portray the ANC as killers who could never be entrusted with leading the country. Within days, police approached the AP Johannesburg bureau to see if I would hand over my pictures to enable them to identify the killers. It would also be necessary for me to appear in court to validate the authenticity of the pictures so that they could be submitted as evidence. The police had not contacted the AP or the local newspapers about my photographs of the Inkatha warriors killing the alleged ANC supporter the previous month - it was presumably not in the interests of the South African state to prosecute their allies. Luckily, the police were trying to find one Sebastian Balic, the pseudonym I had adopted for my by-line, consisting of my middle name and my mother’s maiden name. I had done this to avoid being detected by the military police, who were haphazardly searching for me to complete my military service. During my initial two years of compulsory national service in the army I had refused to carry a weapon. I had been allowed to get away with that little defiance because they needed me to translate Russian - something I just managed to do with a pile of dictionaries as the language is similar to my parents’ mother tongue: Serbo-Croat. But by the time I was called up for camps, as the extended military call-up was known, I knew that even without carrying a gun, I would be playing my part in supporting apartheid.
Despite my horror at the brutal murder and the desire that the killers be prosecuted for it, there was no way I was going to testify. I had been allowed to stay during the clashes because I had convinced the ANC supporters that I was a journalist and not a police informer. If I did testify, journalists covering the war would almost certainly be targeted as soon as word spread. And once in court, Seb Balic would be revealed as Greg Marinovich. After I refused, the prosecutor issued a 205 subpoena, a court order used to force journalists, doctors and others to testify. The AP lawyers ascertained that the state would press ahead with charges against me if I refused to testify - with a maximum sentence of ten years for contempt of court and several more for avoiding military
camps. I decided to leave, rather than try my luck with the courts. So, within 24 hours, I was on a plane to London, leaving my housemates to deal with the security branch and plains-clothes policemen who would occasionally appear at the door.
Once in London, I felt that the AP and my magazine photo agency Sygma were less than helpful in
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