Special Report Transcript Episode 6, Section 5, Time 22:15

You were born in New-Zealand and you came to our country to serve the people here, and this is what we have done to you. Why are you still here, what is your relationship with South Africa and South Africans? // Not long after I arrived in South Africa I came to the conclusion that I must either go home, or make it home. I came to the conclusion that if I was to have a right to participate in the process of transforming South Africa, fighting for a free South Africa, I couldn’t keep me passport in my back pocket and think well when the going gets tough I will run away, that I had to play for keeps. And I made very early on an irrevocable commitment. December 1982 the South African Defence Force attacked Lesotho and left 42 people dead. I was away from Lesotho at the time, but it was believed by some people, particularly by the church, to have been a possible target of that massacre. On that occasion I took a vowel that my own life would be dedicated to ending apartheid and creating a society in which little children could go to bed at night and wake up safe. After I was bombed I spent a month in hospital in Harare, 6 months in hospital in Australia. I came back to Zimbabwe and then it became possible to return to South Africa. And many Zimbabweans said to me, why do you return to South Africa, are you crazy, those people tried to kill you. Why go back? Stay here with us. And I said to them, well I was in Zimbabwe because I was in exile. I was in Zimbabwe as a result of the struggle for liberation. It’s now possible to return. But also because of how I was able to respond to my bombing I believe that I have a part to play in the healing of the nation.

Notes: Max du Preez interviews Father Lapsley

References: there are no references for this transcript