A series of bangs rang out. They weren’t loud or deep enough to be gunshots, but the possibility of rubber bullets immediately occurred to me. The crowd surged, carrying us along in it and splitting us up. People were shouting and screaming as they ran. Someone, I can only assume for my benefit, shouted in English, ‘Run!’
So I did, frantically, for about half a block before turning into the landing of what I think was a bank. A small crowd had gathered there, bunching behind the faux marble pillars. The shutters were down. Next to me, a young man, probably the one who had shouted for me to run, said in English with a shaky smile on his face, ‘Revolution, like 1979.’ I had a mental image of the green handprints I had seen on walls, echoes of the handprints in blood that had been a symbol of support for the revolution then.
I looked back to where we had come from and saw more people running towards us, with the police following at a jog. In the space between them, I suddenly spotted the Nippon TV crew. Toshi was doing a piece to camera, as the police line approached him from behind. The Japanese made no more effort to avoid them than a rock at the beach makes to avoid an incoming wave. Toshi just kept on talking and staring down the barrel of the camera. They were swamped and disappeared from view.
It was then I saw where the bangs were coming from. Another kind of police had shown up. They rode on motorbikes – big powerful machines – and wore jungle camouflage topped with black body armour, just like that worn by dirt-bike riders, and full-face helmets. They swept in, two to a bike, one steering and one behind wielding either a long truncheon or chains wrapped in thick plastic with two metal prongs on the end. The bangs were coming from electric charges popping between the prongs.
Cops on motorbikes with tasers on chains, riding in like soldiers on horseback to put down a township rebellion. They rolled down the street, perhaps a dozen bikes, maybe more, striking out wildly, the crowd parting before them as people scrambled out of range. The sound of their engines became an intimidating roar as they approached, just like the sound of a chapter of bikies. I was told that these were the ‘Special Forces’.
Once they had passed I ventured out from the landing and spotted Iman, the Nippon crew’s translator, and made my way towards him through the crowd. He was visibly shaken, and told me he’d been struck once across the back. I suggested we clear out. He agreed, but seemed incapable of figuring out where to go. We sat for a minute on a bench as he smoked a cigarette and tried to come up with a plan for getting to the subway. From there he could get home and I could get to my travel agent friend to book my ticket out. It was bad enough that I was out and about without my translator – a government requirement. I did not want to be caught in the country with an expired press visa.
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