Our own little war in Port St Johns

                                                Our own little war in Port St Johns

28 March 1994, Johannesburg is remembered in South African history as a day of a terrible street battle, when warring factions of ANC supporters and IFP supporters clashed in a terrible fight that claimed lives, maimed healthy young bodies, and brought more shame to South Africa’s bitter war against itself. The world reacted with horror to the day’s events, and there was global recoil as the bloody scenes were transmitted on television sets across the world.

In Port St Johns we knew nothing of what was going on in Johannesburg. We were too busy thinking of our own survival, to tune into the news. We had gotten caught up in the crossfire between the local factions of the ANC and the PAC.

It was during what I refer to as the ‘shoot a white days’, pre-elections, Transkei hadn’t been re-incorporated into South Africa, crime was rampant and out of control, any misdemeanor was done ‘for political reasons’. That was an outright lie – the police were more crooked than the criminals, and the supposed people in charge were either in cahoots with the ‘real’ criminals, or too apathetic to do anything about the situation.

We were constantly on the alert for attacks, it was a real ‘Wild West’ situation. Women carried pistols in their handbags, we all knew that in the event of an attack while driving, it was best to sit up high in the seat, that way there was less of chance of a bullet hitting something vital. So most people left Port St Johns in an exodus, We stayed, and I used to watch TV with a shot gun across my lap.

Gunshots were a regular occurrence, and for the most part were taken as a background noise. If they weren’t too close, they’d be ignored.

The day started normally. Our wholesale was open for business as normal, and the traders came and went. Our manager and I, at around 11.30 in the morning, were standing in the shop, discussing a consignment of dried beans, when shots were heard in the distance. We stopped talking, and listened. More shots were fired, and as they were fairly far away, we shrugged our shoulders, and carried on discussing the beans.

Then we heard closer shots, and shouts and screams. We listened, and decided to get the hell out of the shop. So while she shoo’ed customers out, and closed doors and shutters, I ran over the house to my sons, aged 31/2 and two years. ‘Running’ is an exaggeration, I was very pregnant and looked like a cross between hippo and an elephant, so I actually waddled fast. I gathered up the children, our maid, Miriam, the Nanny, Princess, and tried to get all our dogs to follow us, upstairs, above the shop, to our tenant Anna lived. The entrance to the stairway was out of sight, and we had a view of all comings and goings, so we thought that it would be the safest place to be. One dog, and the cats couldn’t be found, I hoped they would have the brains to hide in the bush. They did

Shots were now being fired in earnest, in what we later found was a running gun battle up and down the Main Road. Mortars were being fired too. The town emptied. No voices were heard, no vehicles moved. The afternoon went. We realized that we hadn’t been very clever in planning our safehouse – in the rush of getting everyhouse to safety, food hadn’t been thought of, and the only edible stuff Anna had was Weetbix and a bottle of Bovril. It’s an interesting combination.

A person was seen moving up from the beach towards us. We were all on the alert, and would have been quite happy to shoot him should he have been a threat. It turned out to be one of the Special Forces (?!) soldiers we knew, and we asked what he was doing there. “Hau! Eet iis tu danjerus there, Ayem going.” The first deserter, and he was supposedly trained by Rhodesia’s Selous Scouts! There were many more runners.

Night fell, we didn’t have any lights on, we talked in hushed voices. Voices were heard from below, from the direction of our house. As we peered into the darkness, we had a good giggle. For some reason, a stick of ten soldiers were creeping across our garden, in typical ‘ready for action’ stances (like you see in the movies), when they got a surprise – as they got halfway to the house (to digress – I don’t think the house was a target in any way, they didn’t know where they were), the motion detectors switched on the security lights, and we saw a totally confused and horrified bunch of soldiers with no idea what to do. They opted for running back in the direction they’d come from.

The rest of the night was spent wide awake as we listened to shots and mortars going off intermittently. Later,t and backfiredhe folk of Port St Johns all told stories of how they spent the night, stories that all became quite funny in the light of day. Those closest to the action had mostly favoured the bath tub as a safe place to be should a mortar hit the house. Our local headmaster had just taken ownership of a refurbished Land Rover, his pride and joy. He couldn’t bear the thought of that being incinerated, so he took the chance of running outside and moving it to the furthest corner of his garden. Then he and his family hid under the dining room table.

Eventually, in the early hours of the morning, the shooting first became intermittent, then stopped. Police vans were heard, odd voices. Cars drove around. Road blocks were set up on the only two roads leading out of town, to stop any baddies leaving.

 Stories started filtering through of what had happened – over two thousand rounds had been fired, twenty odd mortars had been used. Death toll: 5 of the baddies (PAC) and a very pot holed road from where the mortars had landed. Our mayor got shot in the bum. It’s a very big bum, it didn’t do any serious damage.

Shops opened, school started. The vice principal, Kevin had to drive from Second Beach (where there had been no action) to town. His car, an old jalopy, normally backfired continuously. Kevin drove up the road, and saw a road block, where a car going in his direction had been stopped. It was surrounded by police and army, all brandishing weapons. Kevin, who is not normally religious, prayed fervently that his car, just this morning, please! didn’t backfire, please! It didn’t, he was recognized by the police and waved through, his car still behaving itself. Then it went off, and backfired, or he thought it did. It hadn't. It turned out that the car that had been stopped was full of baddies, they were hauled out the car, and shot there on the spot. And the problem was over – right up until elections in April 1994, Port St Johns did not have any more ANC – PAC skirmishes.