Critic in Exile

A silent man no longer

A government crackdown against political dissenters last October transformed South African Journalist Donald Woods into one of his country's silent men. In retaliation for his antigovernment editorials. Woods, 44, was "banned" for five years--which means that his movements were severely restricted, he was prohibited from returning to his job as editor of the East London Daily Dispatch and prevented from speaking with more than one person (except for family members) at a time. Government agents read his mail, bugged his home and phone, and kept him under general--if irregular --surveillance.

All that ended suddenly last week when Woods made a dramatic escape to the tiny, mountainous state of Lesotho. There he was reunited with his wife Wendy and their five children, who had driven from the family home in East London to meet him. After that came a tense, two-hour flight over South African territory to Botswana, then another to Zambia and on to London.

For at least a month, Woods told TIME Johannesburg Bureau Chief William McWhirter in Lesotho, the reasons for going into exile had seemed more and more compelling. The government had won a strong new mandate from the country's white electorate. The inquest into the death of imprisoned Black Consciousness Leader Stephen Biko, who had been a close friend of the Woods family and whose death Woods had criticized and questioned, ended inconclusively--although it did show, as Woods had charged, that the circumstances of Biko's death were extremely suspicious. The Woods family had also been angered and alarmed by a malicious prank that hospitalized their daughter Mary, 6. The child had received in the mail a STEVE BIKOT shirt that had evidently been dipped in some kind of acid; when she tried the shirt on, her face and eyes were burned. Most of all, Woods had grown restless and despondent at the prospect of spending endless days "sitting around, moldering, playing golf and chess."

The actual decision to escape from South Africa was made during a conversation in the family's secluded garden, the only place where Woods and his wife felt they could talk freely. Even there, they deliberately stayed away from the trees lest the branches contain hidden microphones. Already Woods had sought the advice of a few friends, some of whom were political activists like himself. One told him: "Go. You're the best one among us to talk to the [overseas] press." Woods had an additional reason for seeking exile; he was hard at work, in violation of the banning order, on a book about Biko, and was anxious to get it finished.

On the Thursday evening before New Year's Eve, Woods' wife drove the family car to the outskirts of East London. On the floor in the back lay Woods, his silvery hair dyed black and his features concealed by a false mustache and thick glasses. When they were safely out of town. Woods jumped out and began a 185-mile hitchhike to a town near the Lesotho border. An accomplished mimic, he told one curious motorist that he was an Afrikaner. To another driver he explained that he was an Australian poet, and to a third a German engineer. "I fully expected," he admitted, "to find a roadblock beyond every turn." He crossed the border on foot, hiking twelve miles over thickly wooded terrain. After seeking help from three blacks, who told him, "Don't worry, we'll help you--you're one of us." Woods reached the rain-swollen Telle River and forded it to safety.

In the meantime, Wendy remained quietly in East London, fearful that the police might pay the family a visit at any time. Then, on the night after Donald left, she bundled her children into the car, telling friends that they were off on a brief coastal holiday. Instead, she drove straight to Lesotho without attracting the attention of police, crossed the border routinely and joined her husband in Maseru, the Lesotho capital.

Some observers speculate that the South African government might have deliberately allowed Woods to escape in order to free itself of a political nuisance. If so, this was an odd miscalculation, since the eloquent Woods aims to establish himself as a critic in exile. "Whenever [a government spokesman] pops up to sell South African soap abroad," he told McWhirter last week, "they'll have to deal with me on the same platform." Until recently. Woods added, "I had gone along with the belief that South African politics should be left to South Africa to sort out. But I am now convinced that these outrages are the responsibility of people everywhere."

Woods has no regret at having chosen exile. "Even if I had been released," he reflected, "I would always have felt that they had just lifted the blade an inch or two before they let it drop again."

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