A JOURNALISTIC tenet holds that -- the best reporter is an observer of events, not a participant. But in almost every correspondent's career there comes a moment when the only thing he can do is stop looking and start participating. One of those moments came to TIME'S Caracas Bureau Chief Mo Garcia as he finished observing a hot-tempered political rally in British Guiana, the British colony where a violent conflict is going on between Negroes and East Indians (see THE HEMISPHERE). The Negroes bitterly oppose and the East Indians support Leftist Premier Cheddi Jagan. Turning to leave the rally, Garcia noticed a commotion beyond the glare of floodlights and heard shouts: "She's dying! She's dead!" Wedging his way through a crowd of about 40 Negroes, Garcia found an East Indian girl of about 18 on her knees, trying to ward off the crowd of anti-Jagan-ites who had partly torn off her clothes and were showering her with kicks and blows.

"I lifted her with my left arm," Garcia reported, "and she clung to me for her life." The reporter yelled, "Let her go, she's just a girl," but to no avail. As he tried to carry her to safety, the rest of the girl's clothing was ripped off; Garcia's pockets were picked, his watch was snatched from his wrist, his head was smacked with what felt like a piece of pipe, and something smashed against his right kidney. His knees sagged, but he kept going.

Warding off blows as best he could, Garcia at last reached a couple of mounted policemen and shouted, over and over again, "Can you protect this girl?" The cops did nothing, and the mob closed in again, chanting obscenities, pummeling the newsman and clawing at the girl. Garcia managed to drag the girl another 30 yds. or so along the street before the mob stopped them. There seemed no escape, but at that moment a black car rolled up and the crowd fell back, afraid that more responsive police had arrived. The driver turned out to be a hospital official rather than a policeman; he managed to take the girl to the hospital, and drop the blood-drenched correspondent at his hotel.

Garcia hunted up a doctor, who stitched up a 1 1/4-in. gash cleaving through to the skull. For Garcia, a laconic, spotlight-shunning sort, the aftermath was almost worse than the ordeal of the rescue. There were grateful phone calls from Premier lagan's U.S.-born wife Janet, a U.S. State Department protest, and an announcement that the mounted cops who had ignored Garcia's pleas for help had been suspended. The final flourish was the arrival of a delegation of East Indian women who brought a document of thanks and a pair of gold cuff links, then placed a garland of pink oleander and purple madaar flowers on the correspondent's stitched-up head.

IT'S DIFFICULT ROLE FOR ME TO PLAY AND QUITE EMBARRASSING,

Garcia cabled New York, I FEEL

FINE EXCEPT FOR HEADACHE AND PAINS ALL OVER.

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