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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Aug. 28, 1997
issue of Workers World newspaper
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Chris Hani's family demands: "No amnesty for fascist assassins"

By Monica Moorehead

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa has recently been listening to testimony by white supremacists Janusz Walusz and Clive Derby-Lewis--who were sentenced in 1994 to life in prison for the brutal assassination of Chris Hani.

Hani, the secretary-general of the South African Communist Party, was shot four times in front of his home outside Johannesburg on April 10, 1993. Thousands of Black people throughout South Africa rebelled in protest following this heinous, cowardly act.

At the time of his assassination, polls showed Hani to be the second most popular Black leader, after Nelson Mandela. Hani was generally viewed as more popular among young Black South Africans.

He succeeded Joe Slovo as the head of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the military wing of the African National Congress, and at the helm of the SACP. For decades the SACP and Hani worked hand in hand with the ANC to force a negotiated settlement with the apartheid regime, which led to Nelson Mandela being elected the first Black president of South Africa.

TRUTH & RECONCILIATION COMMISSION

The TRC was established last year by the unity coalition government headed by Mandela. Its purpose was to allow the victims to publicly talk about the atrocities they suffered under the apartheid regime, and to allow former officials of the apartheid government to expose any crimes they committed against the anti-apartheid movement.

Upon hearing testimony, the TRC has the authority to recommend whether amnesty should be granted to those who admit to having committed such political crimes and are willing to disclose further details on such crimes. The TRC is made up of "impartial" governmental and civic figures.

The TRC has been the subject of controversy for even considering granting amnesty to former police and military figures who have become synonymous with crimes against the anti-apartheid movement. But by far the most controversial of these hearings have involved Walusz and Lewis.

These two are hoping to reverse life sentences and be granted amnesty. Their tactic is to try to prove that they acted alone in the Hani murder rather than carrying out the orders of the ultra-right-wing, virulently anti-communist Conservative Party.

Yet Walusz and Lewis also feel they are candidates for amnesty because there was a `war'-type situation with the anti-apartheid forces--and so they were justified in carrying out the "political act" of killing Chris Hani.

The hearing's main focal point is whether Walusz and Lewis really did mastermind the Hani assassination as individuals, or whether his murder was part and parcel of a much broader conspiracy spearheaded by the apartheid regime. Walusz and Lewis claim the police used torture to coerce them to make a statement of guilt. Their admission of guilt should therefore be viewed as `inadmissable,' the two say.

Lawyer Bizos is telling the TRC a totally different story.

Hani family lawyer George Bizos is trying to keep these two fascist murderers from getting amnesty by arguing that the Conservative Party did not officially order the assassination of Chris Hani and therefore the murder of Hani was "not a legimate political act" as defined by the TRC guidelines.

Bizos said Walusz and Lewis fully cooperated with the police--even writing them a thank-you note for treating the two killers so well during the interrogation. The note, addressed to Police Col. Adriaan van Niekerk, says in part, "I also wish to congratulate you on a very good team and I would like to request you to give my good wishes to one and all and good luck for the future."

Bizos read the letter at the hearing to suggest that Walusz and Lewis had the blessings of the police for the murder of Hani--not just in words but also in deed. These same two men had also contemplated assassinating Nelson Mandela and Joe Slovo, who were numbers one and two on their hit list. Hani was number three.

An SACP news release issued on Jan. 31 of this year welcomed the anticipated hearings on Walusz and Lewis to allow full disclosure of all the reactionary forces behind the Hani assassination. The statement points out that months before Hani was killed a story in the Mail and Guardian newspaper referred to a London Sunday Times piece by Richard Ellis. The Ellis piece claimed Hani was involved in "an anti-ANC plot" as a ploy to derail the negotiated peace settlement with the apartheid regime and to break the more than 70-year ANC-SACP political alliance.

The SACP statement said: "We are convinced that this kind of innuendo, appearing a few weeks before the assassination, was designed to throw suspicion away from the apartheid intelligence networks. The claims were forcefully denied by Hani in the media at the time. ... Ellis' activities in South Africa and his contacts need to be one of the many aspects of the Hani case that the TRC takes into account."

The Hani family and many anti-apartheid activists are opposing any kind of amnesty for Walusz and Lewis. There have been daily demonstrations held outside the hearings in the administrative capital of Pretoria to demand that Walusz and Lewis remain behind bars forever.

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