Shooting to keep the peace

Filming peace missions can be just as dangerous as covering war, says army cameraman

If there is one film director who knows more about Chinese peacekeepers than anyone else, it must be Shang Changyi, a military documentary director from the August First Film Studio of the People's Liberation Army.

Since 2003, when China sent its first troops to Africa, Shang has filmed seven of the nine peacekeeping missions in which Chinese peacekeepers have served, including in Lebanon, Liberia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Darfur region in Sudan.

On many hostile occasions, such as when Shang walked through minefields in Lebanon or had guns pointed at him in Darfur, his only equipment was his camera.

"I am a documentary director and member of the military. I believe my place is on the battlefield," says Shang, 48, who joined the army when he was 18.

"Peacekeeping is a special mission for the PLA. It's my responsibility to record these missions because it is important for the army's history."

To record the Chinese blue helmets, Shang has traveled 300,000 kilometers, spent 15 months living with Chinese troops abroad and filmed more than 500 hours.

He has finished six documentaries about Chinese peacekeeping missions, two of which won awards at the International Military Film Festival in 2005 and 2011.

Last year, Shang finished a 20-part documentary series called China Peacekeeping Action.

"As far as I know, no one in the world has filmed UN peacekeeping missions longer than I have," he says.

"I know the job is dangerous, and we've been in danger many times while filming. But we are Chinese soldiers, and we never thought about giving up. If we stopped filming because of the dangerous situations we faced, we would see ourselves as deserters."

When Shang was filming in Lebanon in 2006, the Chinese peacekeepers went to defuse a 2,000-pound unexploded bomb in a ruined house.

The owner of the house, a 73-year-old Lebanese woman, hoped the peacekeepers could clear the large bomb so she could build a new place to house her grandsons. But if it exploded, no one within 50 meters would have survived the blast.

The Chinese peacekeepers decided they would make the home safe for the grandmother. "Because she reminded all the Chinese troops in that mission of their mothers, and their homes in China," Shang says.

It took four days to defuse the bomb, the longest four days of his life.

"I had two assistants on the spot filming with me," he adds. "If something happened to them, I didn't know how I could face their families."

Shang's toughest time was in the African Union-UN Hybrid Operation in Darfur, currently the world's largest peacekeeping mission.

Shang and his crew arrived in Darfur in March 2010, immediately after Sudan's general election, when violence erupted. In the previous two years, 55 UN peacekeepers had been killed there.

"The day before and after our arrival in Darfur, UN peacekeepers and international reporters were attacked or kidnapped by local armed forces," Shang recalls. "During the time we stayed there, more than 20 days, the gunfire never stopped."

He followed PLA engineering troops on the Darfur mission. One of their jobs was to drill wells to ease local water shortages. But the situation was very dangerous, and people were shot at in the streets by snipers.

One day, when the documentary team was getting ready to film the Chinese drilling crew and the Tanzanian UN peacekeepers guarding them, three pickup trucks drove up at high speed carrying members of one of the local armed militias.

"When the militia commander realized that I was the officer with the highest rank at the time, he asked for his photo to be taken with me. I tried to keep smiling, but I was seriously concerned about what would happen to us," Shang says.

The local gang told the peacekeepers that the region was under their control and they were capable of doing the drilling themselves. If the blue helmets would not withdraw, they could not guarantee the UN troops' safety, they said.

"This kind of threat was common during the Darfur mission," Shang says.

"When PLA engineers were operating on the drilling platforms, they were not sure how many guns were trained on them, but they clearly knew that they were in danger."

By sharing hardships and risking his life with many Chinese peacekeepers, Shang says he made many good friends with troops while abroad. He also cherishes his peaceful life at home more than before.

"Now I am back home safely, but I often tell my daughter about those tough days I had and those challenges that children of her age are facing in other parts of the world," Shang adds.

When he heard that the PLA was planning to send troops to join the UN peacekeepers in Mali, the seasoned director started thinking about his next documentary.

"From my films, I hope more people will get to learn about the work of Chinese peacekeepers and understand how the PLA troops have brought some peace to the world."

zhaoyanrong@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily Africa Weekly 12/20/2013 page8)