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<h1><a
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title="Tribute to Chris Hani on the twentieth anniversary of his assassination">Tribute
to Chris Hani on the twentieth anniversary of his assassination</a></h1>
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<p>10 April 2013 marks the twentieth anniversary of the tragic
assassination of Chris Hani, a legendary freedom fighter and one of the
most courageous and talented leaders of the anti-apartheid struggle.
Although he was only 50 at the time of his death, Hani’s contribution
to the struggle was that of several lifetimes.</p>
<p>Born in 1942 in the Transkei, he was politicised by the sheer
poverty that he saw around him in his early life. He joined the ANC’s
Youth League at the age of 15, and quickly went on to become a
dedicated organiser. As a student radical at the University of Fort
Hare (whose alumni include Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Robert Mugabe,
Julius Nyerere and Kenneth Kaunda), he was recruited to the South
African Communist Party (SACP) by the veteran anti-apartheid leader,
Govan Mbeki. In 1962, Hani became a member of the newly- formed
Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) - the military wing of the ANC - and it was
above all his heroic activities in this organisation over the course of
three decades that led to his well-deserved reputation as one of the
most important figures in the history of the anti-apartheid struggle.</p>
<h2>Regenerating the struggle</h2>
<p>Throughout the 1950s, the ANC’s stock had grown as a result of its
effective disobedience and defiance campaigns along with its propaganda
work. The Freedom Charter, which put forward the core principles of the
Congress Alliance (which included the ANC, the SACP, the South African
Indian Congress, the South African Congress of Democrats and the
Coloured People’s Congress), was adopted in 1955 at the Congress of the
People and became a rallying cry for opponents of apartheid across the
country.</p>
<p>However, with the banning of the ANC, the Pan Africanist Congress
(PAC) and other organisations of the liberation movement in 1960,
following the Sharpeville Massacre, the introduction of ever more
repressive laws, and the Rivonia Trial of 1963 that saw the
imprisonment of almost the entire leadership of the MK (including
Mandela, Govan Mbeki and Walter Sisulu), the movement had hit a low
point by the mid-1960s. Underground activity inside South Africa was
almost non-existent, and the exile movement had not yet become very
effective.</p>
<p>At this point, a critical lifeline was offered by the Soviet Union,
which provided extensive military training to hundreds of MK cadres,
including Hani (as detailed at length in Vladimir Shubin’s very useful
book, ‘ANC - A View From Moscow’). Tanzania and Zambia, which gained
their independence from Britain in 1961 and 1964 respectively, allowed
the ANC and MK to set up bases in their newly liberated territories,
and Hani was involved in setting up the first military camps of South
African liberation fighters.</p>
<p>In 1967, Hani led an operation to insert ANC and ZAPU (Zimbabwe
African People’s Union) troops into Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), with a
view to opening up infiltration roots into South Africa. Militarily the
campaign was far from successful - ending as it did in the loss of more
than half the cadres and a forced retreat into Botswana - and yet it
raised the spirits of black South Africans at an exceptionally
difficult period for the liberation struggle. As Nelson Mandela says in
‘Long Walk to Freedom’, “it was a milestone in the struggle” to see MK
cadres engaged militarily with the enemy for the first time, even
killing some soldiers of the racist Rhodesian regime.</p>
<p>Hani noted at the time:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“This was a virgin victory for us, since we had never fought with
modern weapons against the enemy. For us that day was a day of
celebration because with our own eyes we had seen the enemy run. We had
seen the enemy frozen with fear … We had also seen and observed each
other reacting to the enemy’s attack. A feeling of faith in one another
and recognition of the courage of the unit developed.” (cited in Shubin)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Veteran people’s lawyer Albie Sachs noted that this operation (known
as the Wankie Campaign, owing to its location in the Wankie Game
Reserve) turned Hani into “an admired leader … he’d been in combat and
now had an unofficial, intangible sense of authority”. (More can be
read about the campaign <a
href="http://panafricannews.blogspot.co.uk/2007/11/inside-wankie-campaign-anc-zapu-armed.html">here</a>)</p>
<h2>Deepening the armed struggle</h2>
<p>By the mid-1970s, Hani was at the head of an MK base in Lesotho, the
purpose of which was to reinfiltrate small groups of cadres back into
South Africa for short periods in order to organise armed sabotage
cells. Hani was one of the first to be reinfiltrated, in 1974,
successfully avoiding the South African intelligence services and
setting up several cells in Johannesburg, before making his way back
over the border four months later. Chris wrote of that period:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Now we were actually building a number of units from Lesotho into
South Africa … We built a network of structures inside the country. We
trained people in guerrilla affairs, in politics, in intelligence and
everything else … Those were exciting days for me because I was
receiving these cadres coming from the Transvaal, from the Orange Free
State, from the Cape and Natal. I was in touch with trade unions. I
used to go in and out. Meet comrades at Sterkspruit in Transkei. I used
to send some of my colleagues from our collective in Lesotho to Cape
Town, to Johannesburg, to Durban for a few days. We had little meetings
and discussed strategy… We began to build education groups inside
Lesotho. We prepared them in terms of understanding the ANC and our
struggle. We would select the best to send back into the country
underground. We would say: go and form a cell or two, then come back.
We are giving you a week … all the theory that we had acquired in our
training and our limited experience we began to apply creatively in a
new situation. And for me that was a turning point in terms of our
struggle.” (Smith and Beauregard)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This activity quickly became the main theatre of the armed struggle.
The operations stepped up in a serious way after 1976, as thousands of
young militant South Africans were forced out of the country, or chose
to leave, in the aftermath of the Soweto Uprising. These young people
were ready to fight, and eagerly joined the MK’s camps in Tanzania and
Zambia. Chris, who by this time had been placed on the ANC’s
Revolutionary Council (and was Assistant General Secretary of the
SACP), was at the forefront of providing military training and
political education for these new recruits.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“All those who worked with Hani noted his humility, his charm, his
deep concern for the troops, and his incorruptibility - refusing to
enjoy the privileges that his reputation might have earned him, and
eating, sleeping and training with his comrades” (Smith and Beauregard).</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In an interview with the ANC journal Mayibuye in 1985, Hani spoke of
the need to extend the war into the white areas in order to create
greater pressure for the dismantling of apartheid:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“It’s a situation of complete ruthlessness, of acts of atrocities
against the blacks in our country. Now, in the face of that situation,
it is important that the whites should realise that our country is in a
state of civil war, because nothing is taking place where they stay.
Their suburbs are still pictures of peace and stability and the usual
rhythm of life continues. Their lives are not disturbed… Life for white
South Africans is good. They go to their cinemas, they go to their
barbecues, they go to their five-star hotels. That’s why they are
supporting the system. It guarantees a happy life for them, a sweet
life. Part of our campaign is to prevent that sweet life.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Through this revolutionary upsurge in South Africa, the liberation
forces started to break the back of apartheid. Hani’s brilliant
leadership was noted, and he was made MK’s political commissar in 1982
and its chief of staff four years later.</p>
<h2>Return to South Africa</h2>
<p>In April 1990, Hani was able to return to South Africa on a
provisional amnesty order from the white government, as it inched
towards a negotiated settlement. He immediately began working
tirelessly, travelling the country to educate people about the
political process taking place and also to raise their socialist
consciousness. He was everywhere received with undisguised joy, <a
href="http://www.theafricareport.com/Society-and-Culture/sa-leaders-pay-moving-tribute-to-liberation-hero-chris-hani.html">perhaps
second only to Nelson Mandela in popularity</a>.</p>
<p>Although he had been a military man for nearly thirty years, Chris
strongly believed in the peace process. He understood only too well
that the revolutionary forces were not strong enough to defeat the
South African state outright, but that the combination of armed and
mass struggle, described by Nelson Mandela as the <a
href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/039unite-mobilise-fight-between-anvil-united-mass-action-and-hammer-armed-struggle-we-shall-">liberation
movement’s hammer and anvil</a>, could together force a negotiated
solution which would move the overall freedom struggle many important
steps forward. Hani <a href="http://www.sacp.org.za/main.php?ID=2294">stated</a>:
“In the current political situation, the decision by our organisation
to suspend armed action is correct and is an important contribution in
maintaining the momentum of negotiation”. And just a few days before
his death, he <a
href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/death-of-the-soldier-obsessed-with-hamlet-last-week-chris-hani-called-for-peace-yesterday-he-was-killed-in-the-street-john-carlin-in-johannesburg-reports-1454553.html">said</a> :
“The issue now is not armed struggle but elections. That needs a
climate of peace and stability; we cannot afford to have that process
delayed and disrupted by violent elements … Every ANC supporter should
be a combatant, but a combatant now for peace.”</p>
<p>In December 1991, Hani was elected to the post of general secretary
of the SACP, and gave up his post as MK chief of staff in order to
focus on grassroots development of the party. By this time it was
fairly clear that the apartheid era was coming to an end, and Chris saw
the need to consolidate the position of the left within the Congress
alliance, in order to push for the specific interests of the workers
and peasants in the post-apartheid era. This was consistent with the
vision he had always had, articulated in some <a
href="http://www.sacp.org.za/main.php?ID=2294">brief autobiographical
notes</a> he wrote in 1991: “In 1961 I joined the underground South
African Communist Party as I realised that national liberation, though
essential, would not bring about total economic liberation.”</p>
<h2>Communism and the struggle against apartheid</h2>
<p>Hani described his enduring commitment to socialism and the SACP in
the following terms:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Why did I join the SACP? Why was I not just satisfied with the
ANC? I belonged to a world, in terms of my background, which suffered I
think the worst extremes of apartheid. A poor rural area where the
majority of working people spent their time in the compounds, in the
hostels, away from their families. A rural area where there were no
clinics and probably the nearest hospital was 50kms away - generally a
life of poverty with the basic things unavailable. Where our mothers
and our sisters would walk 3km and even 6km whenever there was a
drought to fetch water. Where the only fuel available was going 5-6 km
away to cut wood and bring it back.</p>
<p>“I had seen the lot of black workers, extreme forms of
exploitation. Slave wages, no trade union rights, and for me the appeal
of socialism was extremely great. Where it was said that workers create
wealth, but in the final analysis they get nothing - they get peanuts
in order to survive and continue working for the capitalists. I didn’t
get involved with the workers’ struggle out of theory alone. It was a
combination of theory and my own class background. I never faltered in
my belief in socialism despite all the problems currently. For me that
belief is strong because that is still the life of the majority of the
people with whom I share a common background.” (cited in Smith and
Tromp)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>One important - and controversial - issue related to the life of
Chris Hani is the relationship between the struggle for socialism and
the struggle for national liberation; and more specifically, between
the ANC and the SACP. This relationship has been under almost constant
attack from the 1930s onwards. The apartheid regime and its western
imperialist backers used the relationship to ‘prove’ that the
anti-apartheid struggle was simply part of an evil Soviet plot against
western-style freedom and democracy. Meanwhile, there were plenty of
people within the anti-apartheid camp who opposed the relationship on
the basis that the SACP was allegedly white-dominated and that Marxism
was an imported ideology that was not relevant for Africans.</p>
<p>Nelson Mandela comments on this issue in ‘Long Walk to Freedom’:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“It is perhaps difficult for white South Africans, with an
ingrained prejudice against communism, to understand why experienced
African politicians so readily accepted communists as their friends.
But to us the reason is obvious. Theoretical differences amongst those
fighting against oppression are a luxury we cannot afford at this
stage. What is more, for many decades communists were the only
political group in South Africa who were prepared to treat Africans as
human beings and their equals; who were prepared to eat with us; talk
with us, live with and work with us. Because of this, there are many
Africans who, today, tend to equate freedom with communism.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The fact is that the communists were extremely consistent in their
support of the national liberation goals of the Congress movement, and
proved themselves in struggle to be capable, courageous fighters and
strategists. Indeed, the SACP “has the distinction of being the first
organisation in the history of Africa to call unambiguously for black
majority rule on the basis of universal suffrage. This was at a time
when even the ANC stopped short of this demand.” (<a
href="http://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/sections/sacp/1976/hidden-enemy.htm">Statement
of the SACP Central Committee in 1976</a>)</p>
<p>Longtime ANC President Oliver Tambo notes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“There was a time when anti-communism reared its head in the ANC
and there were often moves for the removal of communists from ANC
ranks, but … to all intents and purposes we are running a common
struggle together.” Pointing out that the leading members of the Party
were also leading members of the ANC, Tambo said: “From my experience,
you could not have asked for more loyalty.” (cited in Shubin)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In another interview, in response to the question “is the ANC under
the undue influence of white communists?”, Tambo responded:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I don’t know where these white communists are. When I ask who
they mean, they reply: Joe Slovo. When I ask who else, they are silent.
It is extraordinary how white communists are credited with so much
power and influence and supremacy and superiority. Why are we not being
influenced by black communists? And why can’t the influence go the
other way? Individual members of the Communist Party are like any
member of the ANC … Our movement has never hidden the fact that there
is a relationship between the African National Congress and the South
African Communist Party on those questions of policy which both
organisations share in common. In particular both organisations believe
that in the present stage of the revolutionary process in South Africa,
the primary aim is the national liberation of the most exploited and
most oppressed section of the South African people - the Africans.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Naturally, the ANC-SACP alliance also helped to cement Soviet,
Eastern European and Cuban support for the liberation struggle, which
proved to be invaluable.</p>
<h2>Looking towards a non-racial future</h2>
<p>Another important and controversial issue that is worth raising when
we talk about Chris Hani is that of the ANC/SACP policy of
non-racialism: the idea that the struggle against apartheid, whilst
primarily fought in the interests of the most oppressed group (black
Africans), was also a struggle to transcend the division of society
along racial lines, and that therefore the struggle should embrace
people of all races, so long as they were genuinely committed to a
non-racial democracy.</p>
<p>The ANC’s <a
href="http://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/anc/1969/strategy-tactics.htm">Strategy
and Tactics document</a> - one of its defining documents - is extremely
clear on this issue:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“This confrontation on the lines of colour is not of our choosing;
it is of the enemy’s making. It will not be easy to eliminate some of
its more tragic consequences. But it does not follow that this will be
so for all time. It is not altogether impossible that in a different
situation the white working class, or a substantial section of it, may
come to see that their true long term interest coincides with that of
the non-white workers. We must miss no opportunity to try and make them
aware of this truth and to win over those who are ready to break with
the policy of racial domination … Our policy must continually stress in
the future (as it has in the past) that there is room in South Africa
for all who live in it but only on the basis of absolute democracy …
Committed revolutionaries are our brothers, regardless of the group to
which they belong. There can be no second class participants in our
Movement. It is for the enemy we reserve our assertiveness and our
justified sense of grievance.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Tambo also <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/show.php?id=4399">elaborated
on this idea</a>: “We call upon those in the white community who stand
ready to live a life of real equality and nonracialism to make common
cause with our struggle for genuine liberation … In sharp contrast to
the racists who have sought to divide our country and people into
racial and ethnic compartments, we have upheld the ideal of one
country, one people and one democratic and nonracial destiny for all
who live in it, black and white.”</p>
<p>The close links between the liberation movement and the Soviet Union
very likely had an important role in affirming the ANC’s non-racial
perspective. In their biography of Hani, Smith and Tromp describe his
first visit to the Soviet Union (in the early 1960s):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“In the USSR now, the men were witnesses to the way a powerful
nation was run. For Hani, having joined the Communist Party a mere two
years earlier, but having read extensively on socialism and Marxism, it
was the culmination of theory, reading, imagining… There were no
beggars and no blatant poverty. The activity in the city was frenetic:
houses being built on one side, flats on the other. Later the men
marvelled at the fact that education and medical attention were free to
all. This was the product of the revolution. All the propaganda, the
lies cranked out by the Western imperialists denouncing life in the
Soviet Union, had been disproved.</p>
<p>“For some of the cadres, this was the first time they had
experienced compassion, understanding and support from white people.
This treatment strengthened their will to fight for a nonracial society.</p>
<p>“With three square meals a day cooked by white women, and being
taught by white instructors, this was ‘a new world of equality where
our colour seems to be of no consequence … where our humanity is
recognised,’ wrote Hani.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Although the policy of non-racialism was criticised harshly and
frequently by separatist elements within the movement, it proved its
value in practice: creating a highly effective fighting alliance, and
inspiring the broad masses of the people with a vision of a brighter
future.</p>
<h2>The legacy of Chris Hani</h2>
<p>Chris Hani was murdered on 10 April 1993 in Johannesburg by a
fascist gunman by the name of Janusz Waluś, who was working with a
senior South African Conservative Party MP on a plot to assassinate a
number of prominent liberation fighters and thereby spark a civil war
along race lines, derailing the negotiations to end apartheid. Their
plot was unsuccessful, as the massive wave of shock and grief at Hani’s
death was channelled towards a new momentum in the peace process. South
Africa’s first democratic election - one of the most historic events of
the twentieth century - took place a year later, on 27 April 1994.</p>
<p>Looking at some of the problems that South Africa still suffers
today, it seems obvious that Hani would have been hugely important in
the search for solutions. <a
href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/opinion/columnists/2012/02/19/making-sa-great-is-a-far-better-way-to-honour-madiba">His
words just two weeks before his death</a> were prophetic:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I think finally the ANC will have to fight a new enemy. That
enemy would be another struggle to make freedom and democracy
worthwhile to ordinary South Africans. Our biggest enemy would be what
we do in the field of socio-economic restructuring. Creation of jobs;
building houses, schools, medical facilities; overhauling our
education; eliminating illiteracy, building a society which cares, and
fighting corruption and moving into the gravy train of using power,
government position to enrich individuals. We must build a different
culture in this country… and that culture should be one of service to
the people”.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Chris was a relentless voice for the poor and oppressed, a legend of
the struggle, a man of the people who had the confidence and support of
the radical youth. As Nelson Mandela wrote in his autobiography: “He
was a great hero among the youth of South Africa, a man who spoke their
language and to whom they listened. South Africa was now deprived of
one of its greatest sons, a man who would have been invaluable in
transforming the country into a new nation.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/4194">Mandela’s moving
words at Hani’s funeral</a> perhaps give an indication of the type of
man that the world lost on 10 April 1993:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I would like to address a final word to Chris himself - comrade,
friend and confidant. We worked together in the National Executive
Committee of the ANC. We had vigorous debates and an intense exchange
of ideas. You were completely unafraid. No task was too small for you
to perform. Your ready smile and warm friendship was a source of
strength and companionship. You lived in my home, and I loved you like
the true son you were. In our heart, as in the heart of all our people,
you are irreplaceable. We have been struck a blow that wounds so deeply
that the scars will remain forever. You laid down your life so that we
may know freedom. No greater sacrifice is possible.</p>
<p>“We lay you to rest with the pledge that the day of freedom you
lived and died for will dawn. We all owe you a debt that can only be
repaid through the achievement of the liberation of our people, which
was the passion of your life. Fighter, revolutionary, soldier for
peace, we mourn deeply for you. You will remain in our hearts forever!”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In remembering Chris Hani, we must resolve to be more like him.</p>
<p>Amandla!</p>
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