Undeniable: Memoir of a Covert War

Suddenly, two men, with sweat pouring from their faces, ran into the crowded church grounds. The women must be ready to run, they said, Inkatha may attack. But there was nowhere to run to. And now, some blanketed men, the veteran fighters of Phola Park, who’d torn a hole through the fence behind the church, began streaming in, sending a wave of panic through the trapped sea of bodies. “Turn off the lights,” someone shouted. In the terrifying darkness, Mondli and I lay low in our car, trying to blunt our nerves with quarts of warm, foamy beer that someone had given us. Each time another taxi circled the yard slowly, panic stirred again. The hours crawled by.

Philippa Garson worked for the brave and upstart Weekly Mail during the early 1990s, where she covered the civil war between Inkatha and ANC-aligned communities. Undeniable is an account of that period of her life, where she and colleagues, Mondli Makhanya, Kevin Carter, Eddie Koch, Anton Harber and others, tracked and discovered the involvement of a Third Force, which was fuelling the killing frenzy.

There were times when Philippa escaped with her life. In this book, she tells of the casualties, victims of war and colleagues who did not. Her relationship across the colour line and partying during the off-hours in an effort to diminish the pain of what she had witnessed are all part of this brilliant account of a harrowing period in South African history. It is a period that has not been investigated sufficiently, and which escaped much scrutiny from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Rogues, lovers, family, friends, journalists, warlords and victims are all part of Philippa’s gripping memoir, in which she explores what it was like to investigate apartheid crimes through the lens of white privilege.