File spoon-archives/aut-op-sy.archive/aut-op-sy_1997/97-03-10.164, message 46


From: "FRANCO BARCHIESI" <029FRB-AT-cosmos.wits.ac.za>
Date:          Fri, 28 Feb 1997 16:20:21 GMT + 2:00
Subject:       Who Killed Chris Hani?


Dear comrades,

Here is the information requested by Adam and JohnH on recent 
developments on the investigation on Chris Hani's murder.

>From the "Mail & Guardian" (Johannesburg), January 31 - February 6, 
1997:

"NEW EVIDENCE IN HANI DEATH PLOT"
by Stefaans Brummer and Hazel Friedman

"Secret Military Intelligence reports warning of Chris Hani's 
impending assassination have raised the startling possibility of a 
wider plot to kill the popular South African communist party leader 
before the 1994 elections. The Mail & Guardian is in possession of 
two documents, at least one wchih appears certain to have been 
delivered to the old South African Defence Force's Department of 
Military Intelligence (MI) before the assassination. Julie Wilken, 
long-time girlfriend of MI agent Eugene Riley , says in a sworn 
statement that she typed the documents, which Riley had composed for 
his MI handlers (...). Riley died of a single gunshot wound to his 
head on January 31, 1994. His death remains a mistery. The document 
raised the question hy MI, pre-warned, had done nothing to prevent 
Hani's death (...). Key to the mistery is an apparent ANC-MI double 
agent codenamed "Ramon" - described in the document as the source of 
the information on the impending assassination. Wilken names "Ramon" 
as Mohammed Amin Laher, whom the M&G knows independently to have co-
operated with Riley (...). Wilken says in her affidavit: "I found out 
Laher was a member of the ANC's Department of Intelligence and 
Security (DIS) when I typed a number of reports over a period of 
several months - reposrt which Riley made to his handler at MI after 
debriefing Laher... The reports contained sensitive information on 
ANC matters". About two weeks before Hani's assassination, Laher 
started giving Riley information on an assassination attempt that 
would be launched against an unnamed "prominent political figure". In 
follow-up meetings, Laher gave more detailed information, including 
that Hani would be the target. Wilken states she was present at some 
of the earlier meetings. Her affidavit says she recognizes the two 
documents in M&G's possession (...) as the true copies of the 
documents she typed. The first document wavers between whether it 
would be an actual assassination or an attempt to "frighten" Hani. 
The later document confirms the intent to kill - and even talks of a 
"Polish member of the 'strike unit'" (...). A number of weeks after 
Riley's own death, Laher told her the plot to kill Hani had come from 
a small group within the DIS which had found out that the 
rightwingers were planning the assassination already. Laher told her 
the DIS members' role had been to "facilitate" the rightwing attempt 
and mentioned "something about" Hani's bodyguards (who were absent at 
the time of the assassination) (...). Among a number of explanations 
for the contents of the reports is that it was a conscious 
disinformation attempt against the ANC by "Ramon". But the question 
remains how he could have had foreknowledge of the assassination, 
which still indicates at least acquiescence on the part of the agency 
- ANC or the government - where he gleaned his information. But (...) 
there are some in the ANC who believe ANC members had something to do 
with Hani's assassination. Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was reported in 
the London "Sunday Times", a week after the assassination, to have 
told confidants she believed moderate ANC leaders had "conspired" 
with the National Party government to eliminate Hani. the report 
said: "according to her, details of Hani's movements, including 
critical information about when his bodyguards would be absent, were 
passed to government security agents, who in turn made this known to 
Waluz [Hani's killer, FB]". (...) Indications in support of this 
thesis include:
- Both MI documents state that the planned assassination would be 
moved from April 11 to April 10 "since no access could be obtained to 
Hani on 1993/04/11" (...). A previously unpublished fact is that Hani 
had secretely spent the final hours of his last night at a 
Johannesburg hotel. He might have had reason to send his bodyguards 
home because of the clandestine nature of the hotel visit. Few people 
would have had that intimate a knowledge of Hani's movements to feed 
to Waluz.
(...)
- The first MI document says "Ramon" claims Hani's "own agenda has 
become a big headache for the MK [Umkhonto we Sizwe, ANC's armed 
structure, FB]/DIS hierarchy". This may well be true. Hani, never one 
to be dictated to, first came into conflict with his ANC seniors as 
far back as the ANC's 1969 Morogoro conference, when he was suspended 
for his militant approach. And in 1991, when the ANC had its first 
National Executive Committee leadership elections in South Africa, 
Hani's immense popularity led him to challenge Thabo Mbeki [currently 
SA's vice-president and Mandela's designated successor, FB] for the 
party's deputy presidency. Many in the ANC disapproved as the ANC at 
the time wanted to project a more moderate image. After intense 
behind-the-scenes jockeying, both Hani and Mbeki agreed to stand down 
in favour of Walter Sisulu as compromise candidate. A few months 
before his death, Hani said in a foreign newspaper interview that he 
was thinking of starting an outside communist/labour organisation to 
act as a check on the ANC in the government (...)".

A weel later, Mohammed Amin Laher released an interview to the "Mail 
& Guardian" saying that he was not "Ramon", but that the 
documents involving him in this whole story had a "shred 
of truth". He then said that Hani's assassination was a "conspiracy 
on both sides of the spectrum", and that ANC security members were 
involved in the plot to kill Hani. Laher confirmed to have been 
associated with Riley in the past. Associated with Riley was also 
Ricky Nkondo, former ANC Dept. of Intelligence and Security member, 
and now head of division in the National Intelligence Agency (NIA: 
incidentally the same NIA whose agents have been caught by comrades 
in identifying student and staff activists at universities such as 
here at Wits, Pretoria, and Durban-Westville) in the office of the 
Deputy Intelligence Minister. 
Is it just the beginning?

Hasta siempre

Franco

Franco Barchiesi
Sociology of Work Unit
Dept of Sociology
Private Bag 3
University of the Witwatersrand
PO Wits 2050
Johannesburg
South Africa
Tel. (++27 11) 716.3290
Fax  (++27 11) 716.3781
E-Mail 029frb-AT-cosmos.wits.ac.za
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/aut_html
http://pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il/~mshalev/direct.htm

Home:
98 6th Avenue
Melville 2092
Johannesburg
South Africa
Tel. (++27 11) 482.5011


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