Sjambokked journo's ordeal

2006-05-16 19:13

Cape Town - A Sapa reporter was treated for a thigh wound after being assaulted by striking security guards during their rampage through Cape Town city centre on Tuesday.

Wendell Roelf also was hit on the head with a sjambok and in the ribs with a rock before being saved from worse injury by other strikers.

The attack happened at Church Square, where Roelf had watched the rampaging guards smash shop windows and dent car bodywork with a volley of stones.

He said on Tuesday: "I thought they were finished, and ran across the street. Then they started throwing stones at me: I was hit on the ankle by a half brick.

"I stopped and turned around, and looked at them: I tried to see who the fuckers were who were doing the throwing.

Stinging sensation in leg

"A group of strikers came across to me. One guy grabbed me by the throat. I hit his hand away, and somebody behind him hit me on the head with what I think was a sjambok.

"Out of the corner of my eye I saw another person making a throwing motion, and I turned my back and a rock hit me in my ribs. I also felt a stinging sensation in my leg.

"As more of them came towards me, fortunately some other comrades (strikers) intervened."

Roelf said that as he walked away he saw a ragged tear in his trouser leg. He pulled down his trousers and found a gaping wound. He was unsure exactly how the wound was caused.

"I didn't see a knife," he said.

At the casualty unit of the Christiaan Barnard Memorial Hospital, he received six staples to the gash in his thigh and was discharged.

Earlier during the march, Roelf was twice accosted by strikers wanting to know what he was writing in his notebook and why.

Some strikers appeared perturbed at his presence, he said, and one confronted him eyeball-to-eyeball, foreheads touching.

A string of violent incidents

Sapa editor Mark van der Velden said Roelf was fortunate his attackers were stopped.

"This is the latest in a string of violent incidents - some of them much more serious - caused by strikers allowed to run amok.

"In Wendell's case, I am particularly disturbed that the strikers appear to have targeted a journalist.

"If Satawu can't control its marchers - and clearly it can't - it should not bring them out on to the street."

- SAPA