The Walkley Foundation

Independence is one of journalism's key tenets, but what happens when your survival depends on taking sides and your hired bodyguard is one of Africa's "most notorious mercenaries"? James Brabazon wrestles with morality and the reality of being behind rebel lines in Africa.

Name me someone that’s not a parasite and I’ll go out and say a prayer for him. Bob Dylan

James Brabazon’s choice of opening quote is telling, war seems the perfect breeding ground for parasites, thriving in its carnage and swarming on its spoils. It is not news that ethics and war do not make for good bedfellows, but what is rarely discussed is the grey scale of morality which descends over those living, fighting and, in Brabazon’s case, reporting and filming in a war zone.

“There will come a time when you must act for your own survival – at which point, you inevitably become a participant,” says Brabazon, who also lectures on the ethics of journalism in war zones. “There is a great myth surrounding the ‘independent’ journalist. I tell my students that at the end of the day you need to be able to live with the decisions that you’ve made. If you can’t do that, then you’re in trouble.”

In 2002, Brabazon travelled to Africa to cover the Liberian Civil War. He was the only journalist to report from behind rebel lines and the reason he was able to do so lay in large part with the efforts and experience of his hired bodyguard, Nick du Toit, “one of Africa’s most notorious mercenaries” and now one of Brabazon’s closest friends.

In his book, My Friend The Mercenary: A Memoir, Brabazon charts his experiences in Liberia and his relationship with du Toit. In the murky midst of war, Brabazon wrestles with the ethical complexities of his situation and his desire to get a genuine scoop by capturing the first images of a war which many in the Western world were denying even existed.

“One concession had led to another: I had promised not to implicate the Guineans, or the Americans, in a war that they both supported; I had agreed to act as a de facto agent for US Intelligence and give an as-yet-undisclosed amount of (someone else’s) money as ‘security’ payment to a rebel commander; and I had agreed to allow someone in my professional charge [du Toit] to help shoot down a helicopter on the basis I could film it.”

Passages of the book are graphic to the point of nausea. Cannibalism, dysentery, torture and the chaos of the blood soaked, rain soaked rebel stronghold of Tubmanburg are juxtaposed with the calm comments of du Toit, who appears unshakable. However, in early 2003 du Toit started dropping hints about an upcoming job which Brabazon may be interested in filming; a group of mercenaries were to be used in the overthrow of a small West African dictatorship, Equatorial Guinea. The two parted ways and Brabazon returned home forgetting the offer, until he turned on his television in 2004 and saw the news of the failed coup, the planning of which Mark Thatcher was famously implicated in.

Du Toit was sentenced to 34 years in the notorious Black Beach Prison for his involvement, granted clemency he was released last year. Brabazon describes his absence from Equatorial Guinea and an adjoining cell as “a twist of fate” but after so much time spent bearing witness in war zones, is there any room left to really believe in fate, karma or kismet? Brabazon says yes, to a point.

“I think you make your own luck, but there is an element of fate. A bullet passes you two centimetres to the left and kills the man beside you.” He shrugs.

All the good fate and front line experience in the world however, will not protect you from a nasty dose of food poisoning in the sunny inner-city suburbs of Sydney. As such, I found myself facing a queasy but determined James Brabazon for our interview, which was ultimately cut short. It’s somewhat jarring to watch a man who has witnessed so much brutal violence, appear so nauseated by the sight and smell of his flat white.

It is his honesty, in person and on the page, which makes Brabazon’s book so compelling. The tension between morality and the reality never seems resolved. Instead, Brabazon’s account serves as an example of just how far a journalist can go in order to capture the “bang bang” necessary to make a piece newsworthy for the rest of us, as we channel surf over dinner.

My Friend the Mercenary by James Brabazon, Text Publishing ($34.95)

Review by Walkley Foundation Intern: Lucienne Bell