Human Rights Violation Hearings — Soweto — 1996-07-22

YASMINE SOOKA: Would you agree that a possible explanation for that could have been that the taking of their photograph exposed them to the system at the time?

SAM NZIMA: That was the correct thing.

YASMINE SOOKA: Thank you.  I will ask my fellow Commissioners and Committee members whether they want to ask you any questions.

THOMAS MANTHATA: Mr Nzima do I understand you well to say that since the picture you took and the march you saw there was never peace amongst the students in Soweto?

SAM NZIMA: After the picture was taken, yes, there was never peace in Soweto.

THOMAS MANTHATA: Even at that time was it possible to get shots, snaps, photos of the police confronting the students, what I mean is that there was a continued confrontation between the police and the students, was it possible to catch such scenes as you were moving around?

SAM NZIMA: It was very, very impossible.  I got a warning that once they can get me again at the rioting place they are going to shoot me.  They wanted me to come to John Vorster's 10th Floor for interrogation.  That's the thing that made me run away from Johannesburg to go to the Eastern Transvaal.  The police were harassing the journalists.  I remember one day we were at Naledi Station looking for the,
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following the pictures while they were shooting other students there and the police shot at our Press car.  The bullet went through the car and nobody was injured in that car.  We ran away and we left that place because the police were now hunting for the Press, not to take them pictures anymore, because we were exposing what was happening.  The job, dirty job was done by the police in Soweto.

THOMAS MANTHATA: What about the community at that time, was it possible to get communities that were peaceful that you could have managed to take photos of?

SAM NZIMA: There was no more peace in Soweto at that time, because everybody was a victim of the police.  Once we take a parent a picture and they use it in the Press saying that she's looking for her son or daughter that parent will be harassed and they will be taken to jail because her or his daughter is a terrorist.

THOMAS MANTHATA: At the World offices what was the thinking of the late Percy Goboza who sent you to take photos of the students on the march?

SAM NZIMA: The thinking of the Press at that time of Percy Goboza was that we must go ahead, we must not be intimidated whether the police are shooting or not we must take the pictures and he himself, Goboza was detained because of that exposure which was using the World newspaper before it was banned. So that was the strategy of the Press in South Africa.

MR LEWIN: Just a brief question if I may, in the light of everything else that happened it might not seem, that important that you mentioned it very specifically as a reason for the fact that you are no longer a Press photographer, or even a photographer, were you actually paid SOWETO HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
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by anybody for your picture, possibly the most famous picture to come out of South Africa in the last 30 years?

SAM NZIMA: I was never paid a cent for that picture and that's why I say I was exploited by the Argus Group.  And the picture was used extensively even abroad.  The picture has now been publicised in the history of South Africa, if you look at the book called Illustrated History of South Africa, that picture is there.  I don't know who is ripping the royalties of that picture, it must be the Argus Group or who else I don't know.

MR LEWIN: Who has the negatives?

SAM NZIMA: The Argus Group have got the negatives but when I go to them now they told me that the negatives are missing and that the picture has become the people's picture, they don't have control over the pictures anymore.

MR LEWIN: Thanks very much.  Would you like to become a photographer again?

SAM NZIMA: No I don't want to.

YASMINE SOOKA: Thank you.

MS MKHIZE: I have just one question for you which is to say the Commission partly hopes to be able to assist young people to ask critical questions about our past.  Our Act aims at promoting national reconciliation and unity, but we don't know what to say exactly to young people about reconciliation if we do not understand what exactly happened.  Maybe I will ask you to assist us that based on the picture that made you known worldwide of Hector Petersen and many other minute details that you came up with around June 16, how can the journalist be of help to our schools in terms of helping young people in particular to understand human rights violations?
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SAM NZIMA: I think our student of the 1996 should be in the position that they should match the change in this country, to follow the political change and the education shall change to suit the system of today.  The student of 1976 and 1996 should show a difference between those days.  The duty of the Press should be the way of changing the system of education that as they are doing now I can...(tape ends)
...take this journalism career as a profession.  Journalism is a very important career that some of the students should follow that.  Then focusing at the teaching courses only, but journalism is a very important thing.  I am no longer interested to be a photographer but I've started a photographic school in my area to teach the young ones to be photographers and to be journalists.  I have already started a darkroom whereby they can take a black and white picture and teach them how to process and print the pictures themselves.  That is my contribution in the community where I live now.

MS MKHIZE: I have said I will ask you one question but on the basis of what you have said I am also tempted to ask you another related question as to also relating to the role of the Press.  Right now we have heard the testimony from Antoinette Sithole and after she has given her testimony I was saying to myself how does the family cope with such a traumatic memory, and then I want to ask you a question as to what do you think should be the role of journalists in assisting the communities to relive this June 16th without leaving too many people injured, because we have these commemorations and young people's names like Hector come to the fore, but how can that be done in such a way that you promote national unity and reconciliation?
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SAM NZIMA: A journalist has got an important role to play in the community.  A journalist can build the country and they can destroy the country.  It is the duty of all the journalists to be committed, to write something that is going to reconcile the people with the understanding that this writing they are doing is to build South Africa.  Let us forget about the past.  A drop of Hector Petersen's blood bought the freedom for education in South Africa.

YASMINE SOOKA: Thank you.  I would like to thank you Antoinette for sharing your story with us.  It is one of the sad tragedies about South Africa that this democracy that we cherish so has been brought about by the blood and the sacrifices of many, many young people such as your brother.  We know that there is a monument to him but I would like to ask is there anything else that you think that the Commission can do which it can recommend to government to make sure that young people remember the sacrifices of people like Hector Petersen?