Johannesburg – The African National Congress (ANC), and its Tripartite Alliance partners – the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) – have written to the Department of Justice demanding an inquest into the assassination of anti-apartheid hero Chris Hani.
The demand was made public Wednesday, the eve of the scheduled release on Parole of convicted murderer Polish national – Janusz Walu?, who is recovering in a prison hospital from a stabbing.
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Walu? served about 25 years of his life sentence for shooting dead Hani as he alighted from his vehicle outside his Dawn Park, Boksburg home on 10 April 1993.
Last week the Constitutional Court ordered that Walu? be released on parole “within 10 days”.
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In a letter addressed to the Department of Justice and Correctional Services Parole Board, National Prosecuting Authority, and Department of Home Affairs the “national democratic revolutionary Alliance” comprising the ANC, SACP, and COSATU, “demand a full inquest” into Hani’s assassination
The letter demanding an inquest was also endorsed by the uMkhonto weSizwe Liberation War Veterans, associated leagues, organisations constituting the Mass Democratic Movement, and other supportive victims from the historical community of apartheid victims.
“As the Truth and Reconciliation Commission established under our democratic dispensation concluded, the assassins failed to make full disclosure of the truth and all the circumstances surrounding the assassination of the magnitude they planned and carried out. The commission denied them amnesty,” the national democratic revolutionary Alliance wrote.
The Alliance said in the letter that it demands full disclosure of the truth and all the circumstances surrounding the assassination of Chris Hani and justice for Hani.
“[We] reject with the contempt it deserves the allegation that Janusz Walu?, the triggerman who assassinated Chris Hani in cold blood, permanently depriving Hani of his supreme right to life, is remorseful or sincerely apologetic without making full disclosure of the truth,” the letter said.
The Alliance said it considers, “it nothing but apartheid ‘justice’ an irregularity if not corrupt conduct, as opposed to real, democratic justice, to accept as remorse pretensions of remorse without full disclosure of the truth”.
The letter added: “As opposed to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which had full disclosure of the truth as its yardstick for amnesty, apartheid ‘justice’ does not care about full disclosure of the truth as a ground for remorse or sincere apology.”
The Alliance demanded that the convicted assassin, who without full disclosure of the truth remains unremorseful, unrepentant, and uncorrected, must serve his entire sentence in the Republic of South Africa.
“Our preference is still that he must do so in jail as other considerations give rise to a threat to societal peace and stability”.
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The Alliance said within a week of the Constitutional Court order that Walu? is placed on parole, the Chris Hani Memorial at Thomas Nkobi Cemetery in Boksburg was vandalised, “constituting a continuation in our view of the assassination of Chris Hani in his grave”.
The Alliance said: “Unrepented and unremorseful apartheid perpetrators, beneficiaries, and apologists who form part of the assassin’s network of support went on the rampage, celebrating after the judgment”.
The Alliance said it considers it “nothing but an injustice” to elevate the privileges (or “rights”) of an assassin above the rights of the victim of the assassination, the family of the victim, and broader society.
When he was assassinated, Chris Hani was the General Secretary of the SACP, a member of the ANC National Executive and Working Committee, a former commander and Chief-of-Staff of the MK, and a popular leader of the South African working-class, poor peasants, the oppressed and exploited.
“Chris Hani’s assassination was aimed at spilling more blood by plunging South Africa into civil war,” the Alliance said.
“The assassins were defending apartheid when they virtually succeeded in plunging South Africa into civil war by assassinating Chris Hani.
“They wanted apartheid the crime against humanity to continue in perpetuity.
“The assassins were acting in opposition to our transition to a non-racial democracy without the oppression of one person or group by another.
“Ignoring the gravity of the assassination of Chris Hani and the threat unleashing an assassin poses to societal stability and peace is reckless and cannot be accepted as justice.
“We demand a response and action as a matter of urgency.”
