| Time | Summary | |
| 13:05 | A lot of the evidence I have listened to at the Truth Commission hearings were really heartbreaking. But when the testimony is about the human rights violations of children, it is more than disturbing. The Truth Commission recently held special children’s hearings in East London and Bloemfontein. It gave us just a glimpse of what our young people had to go through. | Full Transcript |
| 13:27 | Screams of horror of our very young in homes daily across the country, screams of pain caused by those who were meant to protect, the South African Police. At the height of political unrest many young people were the foot soldiers for a nation’s struggle for change in a country torn apart by racial hatred. They also became the victims. | Full Transcript |
| 14:07 | Their pain and anger has been witnessed by the nation. But the viciousness of apartheid and its violence is not only the pain and suffering they caused to people they targeted as enemies. It was also the way that they did undermine what was most important about South African communities, African culture and in particular, ubuntu. | Full Transcript |
| 14:36 | At the Human Rights Violations Special Hearing for children in Bloemfontein last month TRC Committee members Mr. Ilan Lex and Professor S’mangele Magwaza heard how children was subjected to abuse other than torture or detention or shooting. They heard of widespread abuse of children on farms. | Full Transcript |
| 15:00 | On the farms for example the children were violated by being used as labourers in the lands of the people that were on the farms that is the owners of the farms. Children had to work, some of them as early as ten years old were ploughing and reaping and weeding in the fields were the order of the day for the people living on the farms. During the winter months, in May, the teachers and the children routinely went to the lands of the owner of the farm. He was the school manager, to go and pick up peanuts and reap them from the fields, put them into bags, ready to be taken to the markets. The boys were forced to work on the farm. They had to work shifts. Working for the family on a farm, the family would be told to leave the farm. If the sons went to the urban areas the entire family would be told to leave the farm and follow their children. | Full Transcript |
| 16:09 | Many youth in the Free State were taken in by police during the early 1990s and tortured. Christian Makwatle Sammy was detained and assaulted together with his schoolmate Tubias Montwedi. To his shock the morning after their detention his friend had disappeared from the cell next door. | Full Transcript |
| 16:30 | We went to the charge office at Mokwalo. On our arrival at Mokwalo they asked us about the fire arm that was lost, that is a fire arm belonging to a policeman called De Beer. We told them that we do not know anything about a gun. They then assaulted us. They took my friend. They took him into a room, the room that they took us when they electrocuted us and I was left behind with another policeman. They were together with him in that room and assaulted him and when he came back he had lost balance. He was kicked, he was bleeding and they said myself and the other policemen, we should pick him up and take him to the front of the charge office. I asked the CID’s from Welkom where my friend was. And they could not give me an answer. But the cell where he was, was wide open but nobody was in the cell and I was now crying. I was banging the doors. I wanted them to tell me exactly where my friend was. | Full Transcript and References |
| 17:53 | ‘Christian’s friend, Tubias Montwedi died the next morning in detention.’ | Full Transcript |
| 17:58 | Other youth told of how they had been shot and abducted. | Full Transcript |
| 18:02 | They shot me at the back then I fell on the ground. They shot me in the right leg with seven bullets. I tried to stand up to run. They shot me on the head with five bullets and they shot me in the left hand with two bullets and on the right hand they shot me with three bullets. I fell on the ground and my fellow comrades came to pick me up. I was not able to talk or do anything. They took me to the doctor. | Full Transcript and References |
| 18:38 | Woyika Phooko and Fikiswa Mzondi told of how they were abducted by the police. One was held up with a gun to his head, the other raped. | Full Transcript and References |
| 18:50 | I’ll never forget that day especially when the guy who was with me was stepping on my back, told me not to or look or do anything or stand up. I tried to save my cousin by all means, but I couldn’t because he was holding a pistol against my head, standing on my back. I couldn’t do anything. | Full Transcript |
| 19:23 | When the day ended the youth of Bloemfontein like many others in the country had told their awful stories and maybe they can now put the horrors of their past to rest. | Full Transcript |
