Chris Hani (born Martin Thembisile Hani) was the South African Communist Party leader and Chief of Staff of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the ANC (African National Congress). He was a fierce opponent of the apartheid authority. Janusz Walus, a Polish immigrant and sympathizer of the Conservative opposition, assassinated him on April 10th, 1993, during the unrest preceding the change to democracy.
His Early Life
Chris Hani was born on June 28th, 1942, in Cofimvaba town, Transkei. He was the 5th of 6 children. He went to Lovedale school in the mid-20th century (1957) to complete his last two years. Chris Hani twice completed two school grades in one year. When Chris Hani was twelve years old, after hearing his dad’s explanations about apartheid and the ANC, he wished to join the African National Congress but was still too young. In Lovedale school, Chris Hani joined the African National Congress Youth League when he was fifteen years old, even though the authorities did not allow political activities at black learning institutions under apartheid. Chris Hani influenced other students to join the African National Congress.
In 1959, at the University of Fort Hare in Alice, Chris Hani studied Latin, English, and modern and classical literature. Chris Hani didn’t participate in any sport as he preferred fighting apartheid to playing any sport. In an interview on the Wankie campaign, Chris Hani mentioned that he was a Rhodes University graduate.
The Political and Military Career of Chris Hani
As stated earlier, at the age of fifteen, Chris Hani joined the ANC Youth League. As a student, Chris Hani was active in protests or demonstrations against the Bantu Education Act. Chris Hani worked as a clerk for a law firm. Following his graduation, he joined MK or Umkhonto we Sizwe. Following his apprehension under the Suppression of Communism Act, Chris Hani went into exile in Lesotho in 1963. In Lesotho, he organized guerilla operations of the Umkhonto we Sizwe in South Africa. Due to Chris Hani’s involvement with Umkhonto we Sizwe, the South African government forced him into hiding, during which he changed his 1st name to Chris.
Chris Hani received military training in the Soviet Union and served in campaigns in the Zimbabwean War of Liberation, also known as the Rhodesian Bush War. They were joint operations between Umkhonto we Sizwe and the Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army in the 1960s. The Luthuli Detachment operation consolidated Chris Hani’s reputation as a soldier in the black army that took the field against apartheid and its friends. As a fighter from the earliest days of MK’s exile, his role was a vital part of the fierce loyalty Chris Hani enjoyed in some quarters later as Umkhonto we Sizwe’s Deputy Commander. In 1969, he co-signed with 6 others the Hani Memorandum, which was critical of the leadership of Joe Modise, Moses Kotane, and other comrades in the leadership.
By 1982, Chris Hani had become prominent enough to be the target of assassination attempts, and he finally moved to the African National Congress’s headquarters in Lusaka.
Chris Hani was accountable or responsible for suppressing a rebellion by dissident anti-Communist ANC members in detention camps but forbade any role in abuses, including murder and torture. Many Umkhonto we Sizwe female operatives such as Dipuo Mvelase admired Chris Hani for having safeguarded women’s rights and caring about their well-being at military camps.
Having spent time as an undercover organizer in SA in the mid-1970s, he returned to SA following the African National Congress’s unbanning in 1990. He took over from Joe Slovo as the South African Communist Party head on December 8th, 1991. He supported the ANC’S armed struggle suspension in favor of negotiations.
The Influence and Honors of Chris Hani
Chris Hani was a charismatic leader with support from the radical anti-apartheid youth. At the time of his demise, he was the most popular African National Congress leader and people at times perceived him as a rival to the more moderate party leadership.
Chris Hani had several honors. In 1993, Jacques Derrida, a French philosopher, dedicated Spectres de Marx to Chris Hani. In 1997, Baragwanath Hospital got renamed as the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in his memory. In 2004, people voted Chris Hani 20th in the top 100 Greatest South Africans.
A District Municipality in the Eastern Cape got named the Chris Hani District Municipality. This district includes Cofimvaba, Lady Frere, and Queenstown. The Thembisile Hani Local Municipality also bears Chris’s name.
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The Assassination of Chris Hani
As mentioned earlier, the radical right-wing Polish immigrant Janusz Walus assassinated Chris Hani on April 10th, 1993, while he was stepping out of his car at his home in Dawn Park. Chris Hani got shot in the morning and died at the spot. During the attack, Chris Hani received 2 bullets to the chest and an extra 2 sub-sonic bullets to the head. With him at the time was his daughter called Nomakhwezi. Margareta Harmse recognized Walus and his vehicle and called the police, leading to his arrest and questioning.
Afterward, Clive Derby-Lewis, the Shadow Minister for Economic Affairs for the Conservative Party of SA at the time, also got apprehended for complicity in Chris Hani’s murder as he had lent Walus the modified pistol used in the attack. The gun used was unlicensed, and accomplice Jean Taylor had stolen it from the military via Edwin Clarke and had been in possession of Clive Derby-Lewis. During investigations, the police uncovered a hit-list that Walus and Derby-Lewis had compiled. It featured the locations and names of figurehead left-wing political leaders, including Nelson Mandela and Joe Slovo.
The Aftermath
Following the assassination, riots broke out in Durban, Port Elizabeth, and Cape Town because of tensions between the far right and the extreme left. As a political and racial movement, youth activist groups increased protests resulting in more than five casualties, including three casualties due to police fire.
According to estimates, more than six million black workers engaged in a 1-day strike to commemorate Chris Hani on April 15th, 1993. According to Jeremy Cronin, then-Deputy Secretary of the South African Communist Party, the actions of Clive Derby-Lewis and Walus came close to plunging SA into a civil war.
In response to the assassination, Nelson Mandela addressed the nation on April 14th, 1993, to rationalize the conflict between the left and right-winged politics during the peak of tensions. He called for a national day of mourning.
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Conspiracies Surrounding Hani’s Assassination
Several conspiracy theories have risen suggesting the involvement of alternate political agendas in the Chris Hani assassination, including Terry Crawford-Browne’s suggestions concerning Joe Modise’s participation because of engrained corruption within the African National Congress. Other theories suggest collusion between Derby-Lewis and Thabo Mbeki because of the large political gain he received due to Chris Hani’s assassination.
Media claims and NIA (National Intelligence Agency) reports since the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearing have proposed or suggested conspiracy from the Vlakplaas counter-insurgency police force within the initial stages of the killing.
Brief Description of the Assassins (Janusz Walus and Clive Derby-Lewis)
Before discussing the hearing and conviction of Janusz Walus and Clive Derby-Lewis, it is vital to know something little about them
Janusz Walus was born in Poland on January 14th, 1953, and gained residence in SA in 1981 to works as a truck driver and glassmaker with his brother and father. Later, Janusz Walus joined the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging and the National Party, committing his support of far-right politics and their goals or objectives to quell the spread of communism and racial equality through SA. Before 1993, Janusz Walus became involved with Clive Derby-Lewis and planned a series of political assassinations.
Clive Derby-Lewis was a founding member of the Conservative Party. Clive served as the Shadow Minister for Economic Affairs at the time of Hani’s murder. Because of his strong public support of apartheid and extreme right-wing policies, Harry Schwartz, Derby-Lewis’s opposing minister, has described him as the biggest racist in Parliament.
The Hearing and Conviction of Walus and Clive
After their arrest, his Lordship Mr. Justice Eloff convicted both Walus and Derby-Lewis in the Supreme Court of Joburg and got sentenced to death. However, because of a renewed Constitutional ruling in 1995, their sentences got commuted to a life sentence that, until 1997, didn’t allow the application for future amnesty or parole. At his trial, Walus never testified. The Supreme Court in Joburg tried wife Gaye Derby-Lewis. However, the court cleared Derby-Lewis’s wife despite her involvement within the Conservative Party until 1989.
Mr. Mandela formed the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1995 to enable the exposure of political crimes during the apartheid in an attempt to help SA’s change to democracy. In 1997, Derby-Lewis and Walus applied for amnesty to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on the grounds that their actions were political and that the murder was a result of orders from the Conservative Party.
George Bizos represented Chris Hani’s family in a trial that lasted from 24th to November 27th, 1997. Several discrepancies came to light throughout their individual hearings concerning the motivations and methods as told by Walus and Derby-Lewis.
Derby-Lewis continued to apply for amnesty throughout his sentence, which got accepted after many failed attempts because of his lung cancer condition in 2015. Derby-Lewis died of cancer on November 3rd, 2016. Walus continued to apply for amnesty through the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria, which got accepted, but Michael Masutha later rejected it in the Supreme Court of Appeal in April 2015. Michael Masutha then was the Minister for Justice and Correctional Services.
Walus did not get parole because of his lacking remorse and retained political ideology. Walus is 67 years old, serving his sentence at Pretoria Central Prison in SA.
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