Journos' long road to a free press

IN THE 1980s Themba Khumalo, an old friend, and I used to travel between Botswana and South Africa, sometimes Swaziland and Lesotho.

Khumalo, formerly with The Star and I with Sowetan, had left the comfort of our jobs to help liberate South Africa.

We were couriers for the then banned liberation movements, Khumalo for the ANC and I for Apla, military wing of the PAC.

Many journalists contributed in the struggle to free South Africa, some even paid the ultimate price.

Journos that come to mind include Joe Gqabi, Siphiwe Nyanda, Duma Ndlovu, Thami Mazwai, Joe Thloloe and many others.

As was common knowledge, the ANC had more resources than the other groups so Khumalo always had a car rented out for him by Winnie Madikizela-Mandela every time we went out on a mission.

Such was the working relationship inside the country between Khumalo and I, and by extension the ANC and the PAC.

But as soon as we arrived in Gaborone, Khumalo would dump me outside the African Mall and disappear.

I would then find my way to my PAC comrades, who were scattered between the University of Botswana and the suburb of Broadhurst.

South African exiles had a very strong presence in Botswana. Ace trumpeter Hugh Masekela had an expensive recording studio in Gaborone, while the late George Phahle and his wife Lindi ran a roaring transport business.

Sadly the Phahles were brutally killed during a raid by the apartheid security forces in June 1985. Many South African exiles studied or lectured at the University of Botswana, like the late former health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang.

Others worked for local print and electronic media, others manned offices of groupings like the SA Youth Revolutionary Council, the Black Consciousness Movement of Azania, the ANC and the PAC.

Others had left SA to live a quiet life in Botswana. Then there were those who were in and out of that country on business, and others on holiday.

Khumalo and I also had our business in Botswana.

In 1987 I was arrested in Botswana and spent a week in Gaborone's Central Prison after police found ammunition in my car. Former scribe Mudini Maivha, now spokesperson for the PAC, flew all the way from Zimbabwe to secure my release. Maivha had been in exile in the frontline states, shepherding Apla cadres on their military mission inside South Africa.

Khumalo and I would hook up at an agreed rendezvous and head back home.

So, when the present government, which Khumalo and I and many of our colleagues helped to power, thinks of setting up a media appeals tribunal, it must also remember the sacrifices we made to free this country from apartheid propaganda.

Those sacrifices were also for a free press!