The truth is covered in blood

MBOMBELA – “When I met Maj Gen Johan Booysen, I decided that life is stranger than fiction. He told me stories that made me doubt his sanity. About a provincial commissioner in the pay of a wealthy businessman, of more than a million rand in cash placed in the boot of his car in an attempt to bribe him, of elements in the National Prosecuting Authority hell-bent on destroying him, of a police service so busy spying on itself that crime fighting was being ignored.”

So says journalist and author Jessica Pitchford, who met former KZN Hawks head, Booysen, when he returned to work in 2015, after he and 28 other police officers had been charged with racketeering, a crime that carries a life sentence.

According to Pitchford, he has sued the state six times and lodged civil claims against a host of top police officials and prosecutors in attempts to clear his name. She could hardly believe what he was telling her.

“Sensing my scepticism, he told me to go and do some research. All of what he’d told me I found, hidden in brief and seemingly disparate articles without much context,” Pitchford says.

“I decided that anyone so intent on clearing his name needed an author. I defy anyone to understand the machinations within the criminal justice system by reading what is in news articles.”

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Blood on Their Hands: General Johan Booysen Reveals his Truth is Pitchford’s attempt to join the dots. The book has already sold out its first print run, so people are certainly reading it. She hopes the second edition will be in stores as early as this weekend.

And in two weeks’ time, she and Booysen will visit Mbombela to officially launch the book in the Lowveld as part of this paper’s brand-new initiative, Pen in my Hand.

I love that South Africa has a thriving and competitive publishing industry. We hope to reach new readers with his story. Everyone loves a fighter and that is who Booysen is.”

Pitchford says most people would have chucked in the towel after being charged and suspended once Booysen has been suspended five times.

“He’s an ordinary oke who, in a very strategic but simple way, took on a system determined to bury him.”

Blood on Their Hands is Pitchford’s third book.

She wrote her first book, Carte Blanche 25: the Stories Behind the Stories, and second, Switched at Birth, with the natural instinct to treat them like a journalistic exercise and try to make sure everyone had an equal say.

“But you can’t. A book unfolds and if some characters contribute more than others. By the time I wrote the Booysen book I’d decided that it wasn’t about balance, it was about telling a story through the eyes of one person,” she adds.

Pitchford is used to dealing with serious and difficult material. She began her career as a journalist in the early ’90s reporting on township violence. While working for Special Assignment being intimidated while investigating stories went with the territory. She admits to feeling a little anxious when Booysen brought a bodyguard along to a meeting.

“But most of the time he took the heat, not me. We both have high blood pressure though! I can’t imagine ever writing a novel when South Africa is brimming with real-life characters in search of authors.”

She is excited about returning to the Lowveld of which she has fond memories.

“As a child I used to spend holidays with my uncle and aunt in White River. Their farm overlooked the Legogote Mountain.We’d head off to the Kruger at the crack of dawn in an old Peugeot with no air conditioner,” she reminisces.

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