S. Africa Hero: Color Him Blue

Gregory Rockman, a lieutenant in the hated South African Police, was shopping for a quart of milk a few days ago when he overheard the storekeeper and a customer whispering his name.

Minutes later, a crowd of 150 young activists had gathered in the township street outside, waiting for him.

But what they wanted was a speech--and to shake his hand.

“It’s amazing, you know,” the mixed-race officer said later. “I’m recognized everywhere I go. People are saying, ‘This man is marvelous. He’s out of this world.’ ”

Black and mixed-race police are widely scorned in South Africa’s townships as instruments of white oppression.

But one man in blue, acting on his own conscience, has become the overnight hero of even the more radical elements of the black liberation struggle.

Rockman risked his job and his life to describe how his fellow police officers had provoked a township riot on Sept. 5 by viciously beating peaceful black protesters and innocent bystanders.

That accusation, unprecedented from within police ranks, brought a white major and lieutenant in the police riot squad to court in Cape Town on charges of assault for ordering police to use whips and batons “in an unlawful manner” against demonstrators.

Rockman, the prosecution’s chief witness, testified that the men had behaved “like wild dogs.”

The judge found the police beatings of innocent civilians to be “not only illegal but utterly reprehensible.” But he later acquitted the officers, saying they had not “consciously identified” with their subordinates’ actions.

But the impact of Rockman’s allegation has far exceeded any single court case. It has helped force the government to take the most significant steps toward approving peaceful protest in more than three years.

Within days of Rockman’s whistle-blowing, South Africa had banned the use of police whips and declared it had no objection to “peaceful and orderly protest,” opening the way for anti-apartheid marches by tens of thousands of activists across the country.

Rockman, a 30-year-old father of two, is no radical. But his belief that people should be allowed to air their views, free of police action, has captured the hearts of his countrymen, black as well as white, and proved that one man’s voice can still make a difference in this troubled land.

Anglican Archbishop Desmond M. Tutu led two standing ovations for the officer at a recent Cape Town protest march. At the funeral of a mixed-race youth slain by police, the Rev. Allan Boesak urged mourners to send flowers to Rockman, “this very courageous, brave man who was prepared to tell the truth.”

Asked for Autograph

As Rockman posed for pictures recently outside the station house in Mitchell’s Plain, a mixed-race township of 300,000 near Cape Town, dozens of passers-by waved from the street, shouting, “Hi, lieutenant!” A few even stopped to ask for his autograph. One brought him a gift, a wall clock, in appreciation “for what you were prepared to say.”

About 1,000 teen-age activists staged a rally in Rockman’s honor recently in the township square. A few held signs reading: “Viva Lt. Rockman,” surely the first time that popular cry of liberation has ever preceded a police officer’s name in South Africa.

The slender policeman, wearing the two gold stars of rank on his epaulets, raised his arms to acknowledge the applause and urged the youngsters not to express themselves by throwing stones and burning barricades of tires.

“Show the world that you are peaceful citizens,” he said, repeating a message that he has given over and over at the invitation of township schools.

At a similar town square gathering a few days earlier, Rockman had witnessed the scene that turned his life upside down.

He had been following the Mass Democratic Movement’s “defiance campaign” since Aug. 2, when it began staging demonstrations to defy apartheid as well as emergency laws that curtail the right of protest. The campaign had grown especially heated near Cape Town, where it exacerbated long-simmering tension between students and police.

Rockman, a crime-prevention officer for the all-Colored station in Mitchell’s Plain, already had seen several peaceful protests on the campus broken up by white riot police using whips, batons and shotguns.

On Sept. 5, Rockman heard the police radio report a protest in the town square.

“I thought to myself: ‘Greg, you’d better rush there before the riot unit arrives and messes it up,’ ” he said.

When he arrived, about 30 students were singing and holding placards, demanding the release of activists held by police. Rockman negotiated with them, pointing out that theirs was an illegal gathering. He agreed to give them 20 minutes to make their point and disperse.

A white, six-man police riot squad arrived minutes later and Rockman ordered them back. A second riot squad approached from another angle and began beating the protesters. Again, Rockman intervened and ordered the police out.

But when the protesters began to leave after 20 minutes, two dozen white police officers charged.

“They were so eager to get them that they fell over each other’s feet,” Rockman said. “They were like a pack of wild dogs, feasting on the people.”

Rockman saw curious shoppers and people waiting for buses beaten by the white policemen.

Later, a white officer, Maj. Charles Brazelle, threatened to arrest Rockman if he didn’t get away from the demonstrators. When he refused, Rockman was summoned to the general’s office in Cape Town.

“I knew there was trouble coming,” Rockman remembers thinking as he and his superior drove to see the general. “Even in the police force, it is white oppression, white domination. We are second-class people.”

Rockman claimed the riot unit had created the violence, and the general said he would look into it.

The next day, during nationwide parliamentary elections, Rockman told his story to a local reporter.

“We’ve got regulations that keep our mouths shut. But I had just had enough. I felt like I was just bursting out,” Rockman said in a recent interview. “I would never have found true peace in my heart if I hadn’t spoken up.”

Under public pressure to act, Minister of Law and Order Adriaan Vlok opened an investigation into assaults and killings alleged to have been committed by police. However, the force also has been investigating Rockman for breaking police rules by giving interviews to journalists.

“Not everything in the police force is right,” Vlok recently told Cape Town riot units. “But we must fix it inside the family, not wash our linen in public.”

Rockman was 18 when he joined the nation’s police force. His father, an automotive worker, urged him to reconsider. Black and mixed-race policemen in South Africa often have been targets of anti-apartheid guerrillas. The homes of more than 1,500 black police officers have been firebombed in the last five years and many have been killed.

“I was aware of the reputation of the police, but I thought, ‘What would a country be without police?’ They’re important to everyone’s safety,” Rockman said. “I wanted to serve my community as a protector--not to play the part of oppressor.”

Rockman hated apartheid. In high school, he and some friends had organized anti-apartheid demonstrations and a few of them later ended up in jail for political activity.

But Rockman believed he could best help the cause by working within the system. He worked in several Colored townships, rising through the ranks, but his anti-apartheid feelings kept getting in the way.

“Once I was inside, it wasn’t so easy to reconcile,” he said. “I was being treated like a second-class citizen, but I didn’t think of myself as a second-class citizen.”

Realized the Problem

In recent weeks, as white riot police cracked down on school protests, Rockman and other Colored officers met with principals, teachers and students. Soon, he said, he realized that the main problem was the police: Their presence on the campus incited the students.

Rockman didn’t agree with the aims of the more radical activists, but he thought they had a right to protest.

“I’m not political,” he said. “All I believe in is justice, and that people should be given channels to express themselves peacefully.”

Many of his mixed-race colleagues have congratulated him privately for his stand, but he says they are afraid to go public with allegations against white officers, who control virtually all senior positions in the force.

Rockman has drawn the ire of many right-wing whites, including policemen, and he has received several anonymous death threats.

“I worry about my family, but what else can I do? Some people must be prepared to sacrifice,” he said.

Rockman and his wife, a clerk in a creditor’s office, have two children, a 6-year-old son and a 6-month-old daughter. He figures he’ll have to leave the force eventually, but he’s been heartened by the support of the black majority.

“It shows people appreciate what I’m trying to do,” Rockman said, “even though I’m just an ordinary small man in South African society.”