Special Report Transcript Episode 23, Section 5, Time 26:49

This school in the township of Thabong was at the heart of student mobilization. In 1986 literally hundreds of young men and women from the goldfields skipped the country. Testimonies at the TRC this week suggested the flood into exile was caused by the push of the security forces rather than by the pull of the ANC. // We are under a state of emergency, the army moved into our township and I understand that was the situation nationally. That should have been the major factor why comrades in large numbers left the country. Because they could see that if they don’t leave now, all of them, they were going to be, like some of us - because I think we were about 50 then - people who were detained. And it was good for them because they escaped the torture; they escaped the beatings that went with detention. Because it seemed security police were so convinced that we were doing this under the instructions of the ANC.

Notes: Teto school; Papiki Ngesi