Mohamed Amin was one of the most famous news cameramen in the world before his tragic death in 1996. His television coverage of famine in Africa in the nineteen eighties led directly to massive fund-raising and the phenomenon that was Live Aid.
However, Mohamed - or Mo as he was known to everyone - started life as a stills photographer, a skill he perfected and used until his death. Bill Kouwenhoven profiles this remarkable man in this edition's Close Up.
''No news cameraman in recent history has had a greater impact than Mohamed Amin… His pictures from Ethiopia 12 years ago moved the world.''
-Tony Hall, Head of News, British Broadcasting Corporation
Born in Nairobi, Kenya in 1943, the son of a railway engineer of Punjabi descent and one of eight children, Mohamed Amin was obsessed with photography from the start.
At thirteen he was shooting for his school newspaper and The Tanganyika Standard and covering what became the East African Safari Rally. Two years later, work was appearing in international newspapers and he had arrangements with the BBC, Reuters and Visnews, among others.
At a time when Africa was shaking off colonial rule Mo was everywhere. Fellow cameraman and colleague Duncan Willetts remembers: “He knew hundreds of people all over. Networking was his hobby. He did it 24 hours a day”
According to his son, Salim Amin, Mo's experience as a stills photographer made him a better moving-film cameraman than some rivals who had never done stills.
“He found it easier filming a story on video as there was room to maneuver whereas with stills he knew there was only one shot that made the story,” says Salim.
In 1962, the year he set up the now legendary Camerapix photo agency, Mo received a tip that two prominent South Africans in the anti-Apartheid movement had escaped prison and had flown to Dar-es-Salaam in Tanganyika where new President Julius Nyerere offered them sanctuary. It was the first of many scoops.
He covered the handover of Kenya by the British to Jomo Kenyatta and the discovery of Soviet and East German military trainers in Zanzibar. He documented famines that followed the war in Biafra. He recorded Idi Amin's assumption of power in Uganda and later exile. His images of the Pakistan military and the Afghan mujahideen in the 1970s were exclusives and he was with the first TV reporters in Baghdad after the invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
Mo's luck was legendary. Good fortune, tip-offs, planning and taking calculated risks all meant he was where the action was, sometimes under gunfire yet almost always getting his film out.
Willetts remembers, “He was driven, not distracted by anything - not even his family. He knew his job 110% and would say no-one would beat him on his patch”.
Fame came with his images of the famine in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa in 1984 with BBC Television reporter Michael Buerk, a long-time colleague (see Talking Point, edition one).
Filming starving refugees, he presented the horrors of the situation yet preserved the dignity of his subjects.
As a result, tens of millions of dollars were donated to famine relief and water projects. Millions of people worldwide saw his images and, with Mo's energy, the project “We Are the World” was born, bringing in more donations and aid.
Amin's life was cut short when a hijacked Ethiopian Airlines jet, on which he was aboard, crashed in 1996. The pilot's attempt to land on water off a Comoros Island resort was recorded by a South African tourist and shown around the world. Mohamed Amin died as he lived, always making news.
Also killed in the crash was writer and Amin's colleague Brian Tetley - the Tetley-Willetts-Amin trio was a formidable team.
Amin's last project, a pan-African news network—a CNN or Al-Jazeera for Africa—remains a work in progress. His legacy, the Mohamed Amin Foundation, established an educational center for African journalists.
Concludes Salim: “I think young journalists can be inspired by his story – his determination and courage, his passion and spirit.”
Said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson: “Mo's story is one
of courage, persistence, and humanitarian commitment. He started with nothing,
not even a decent education, but became something through his hard work and
determination to succeed”.
Bill Kouwenhoven
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