Johannesburg - Freedom fighter and former SACP leader Chris Hani’s life was celebrated at an event in Ekurhuleni despite the fact that the truth about who ordered a hit on his life is yet unknown.
Hani’s widow, Limpho Hani, did not hold back in lambasting the country’s judicial system, which she said abused and bullied her and others.
Limpho said victims of crime were often blamed and re-traumatised by the courts.
“I have first-hand experience. We sat in court and we were blamed and shamed; this is in the Constitutional Court this year. Responding to a supposed to be a sorry letter from my husband’s killer. The judge is pertinent that this letter that I never received should have been responded to positively by me. Dear South Africans, dear comrades, I did not receive the letter from Walusz or from Chief Justice Raymond Zondo. However, the reason Walusz was given parole was because Zondo felt I did not answer the baas (white man) letter. Remember, Walusz is white, and I am a black Roman with no husband, so I can be bullied?” Limpho said.
Yesterday marked 30 years since Hani’s assassination, when he was gunned down outside his Dawn Park home.
Experts believed that his murder almost plunged the country into civil war.
Hani’s killer, Janusz Waluś was granted parole and released from prison on December 7, 2022, a move that left Limpho and most South Africans angry.
In her view, Limpho believes that the TRC was a waste of taxpayers' money. saying the recommendations were not implemented.
Former ANC treasurer Mathews Phosa said some of the people who were involved in Hani’s killing are living and moving around freely.
“There has not been so much truth; it’s a common cause. A lot of murderers are still roaming around; they never appeared before the TRC. I am happy that there is more criminal investigation going on after the TRC. They could only do as much as they could, and may Archbishop Desmond Tutu rest in peace; he tried his best but he couldn’t cover all the ground; apartheid was all over,” Phosa said.
The SACP is ramping up its call for a fresh inquest into Hani’s killing to be opened. There is an online petition in support of the process.
SACP general secretary Solly Mapaila said the petition is going well and that they are confident that they will meet the required numbers in order to submit them to the government to start this inquest.
“We have been making this call for the inquest over the years, but it has not been followed, and we really feel it is high time for this inquest because the people who are supposed to tell the truth have not told the truth. And they've been released from prison to our judicial system without telling the truth, which is quite shocking,” Mapaila said.
Mavuso Msimang, an ANC veteran, believes it is important to remember Hani and what he stood for.
“It is absolutely necessary that you should be commemorated; it would be a disservice to the revolution and to the struggle for freedom if that were not done,” Msimang said.
The veteran conceded that currently, the country is not living according to Hani’s values and expectations.
“Hani would have been very disappointed to find how the organisation is progressing, how it’s been run, and how it has alienated the people who really voted into government in the first instance.
“There is no doubt that the values that he stood for are being observed in the bridge, they say, by the current ANC, starting with its leadership, of course,” he said.
The EFF said it dips its flag in honour of Hani; the party said his assassination robbed South Africa of a socialist future and denied the nation the most upright state president the people would have ever known.
“Thirty years after the cowardly assassination of Chris Hani, it is still impossible to believe and accept that his murder was plotted by just two right-wing individuals. There is a practical possibility that the white capitalist establishment, in collaboration with collaborationists in the former liberation movement, planned the assassination of Hani because he represented a radical socialist agenda they stood opposed to,” said EFF.
The party further said: “The betrayal of Hani by those who seek to hoist his name up high was cemented when Waluś was released from prison last year.”
The Star