Townships are horrible places. Dusty , desperate, angry places. Alexandria was such a place. Just worse. We were only supposed to be deployed when the police could not manage the situation, and at that level live ammunition was authorized.
The tactics came straight out the (1950’s) manual. I suspect the last time someone used D-formations in riot control was when the Brits were in Aden. And the Standard textbook instructions was that one person would be instructed to fire one shot, preferably at someone identified as a leader in the rioting crowd. The standard instruction would be “One shot. 12 o’clock. Shoot the man in the red shirt” So, if you’re ever involved in a riot in South Africa – never ever wear a red shirt!
So there we were, in our little D-formation. The troops to the front were kneeling, magazines were in, and each had a round in the chamber. The police were somewhere, but not close. This was really not where I wanted to be right now. Two people were dead already. Necklaced. And bricks were lying all over the place (they should have brick throwing as an Olympic sport – we’d win Gold with our 3rd team).
One silly man (with a red tshirt) got hold of a megaphone and shouted “ We are the people!” And right behind me a megaphone boomed back “Fuck the people, we the people!”. It was my sergeant. I didn’t even know he had a megaphone on him. There was a stunned silence. And then someone in the crowd laughed.
Half an hour later we were playing soccer against the crowd. We got thrashed about 20 – 0.
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