File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/marxism-international.9708, message 163


Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 14:37:57 +1000
From: Rob Schaap <rws-AT-comserver.canberra.edu.au>
Subject: Re: M-I: Chris Hani's murder


G'day Louis,

You wrote:

>A report in today's *Financial Times* suggests "new evidence" that "senior
>members" of the African National Congress may have been involved in the
>April 1993 slaying of Chris Hani, former leader of Umkhonto We Sizwe, and
>the South African Communist Party.  A report last month out of Norway hinted
>at much the same thing.
>
>Anyone know anything about this?

I don't 'know', and I shall never pretend that I do - but I do know of one
interesting take on Hani and his killing.  It came out immediately after
Hani was assassinated in 1993, and it's by Baruch Hirson - no friend of
Chris Hani.  We shall have to make up our own minds about this.  I lifted
it from the *Radical Chains* web site -
http://www.hrc.wmin.ac.uk/guest/radical/RADCHAIN.HTM - not consistently a
space designed to fill you with serenity and nodding agreement, I suspect,
but one that might help, indirectly:

'Hani became a figure of interest to the left on two particular accounts.
Firstly, by virtue of his involvement as an executioner in the mutiny of
1984 in Umkhonto we Sizwe. Secondly, because of his closeness to General
Bantu Holomisa, the man who toppled the corrupt government of the Transkei
and took control of the region.

Hani's position in the mutiny is of major interest. The events that led to
the uprising, which involved the vast majority of troops arose from a
number of interconnecting factors. The troops of Umkhonto we Sizwe in the
Angolan camps
were dispirited. They claimed that there was no democracy in the ANC and
that the leaders were self appointed. Secondly, they said that their task
was not to fight the Angolan opposition army, Unita, but to move into
action against the South African government. For this they demanded that
they be led in battle inside South Africa.

Thirdly, they objected to being used in the many smuggling ventures in
which their leaders (although, it appears, not Hani) were involved.

After a number of smaller upheavals there was a rising of considerable
numbers, at Viana camp in Angola. In this case there was an additional
factor. The troops were sickened by the torture and the treatment of
dissidents in the army.

       The mutiny was suppressed when the Angolan army was summoned and, at a
       tribunal, men accused of being the ring-leaders, were sentenced to
death. It has been claimed by former mutineers that Hani was on the
tribunal and/or witnessed the executions. The evidence is not clear cut,
but Hani was in the camp when this occurred. His own claim, published in
the South African journal Work in Progress, is that he opposed the
executions and flew to Lusaka to get the ANC leaders to stop the killing.
This is ingenuous. Hani, as army commissar was the senior Umkhonto man
present and could have ordered an end to the brutality. He did not.

       Hani did nothing to redress the wrongs of 1984 and, when the inmates
of an ANC camp in east Africa elected a majority of ex-mutineers to the
camp committee, Hani travelled there post haste to oversee the dissolution
of the democratically elected committee.

       When next heard of, after the unbanning of the ANC and other
organisations, Hani was installed in the nominally independent Transkei.
Once again the details are blurred but there were reports which indicated
that Hani and his army comrades were installed in the presidential
residence and that they had assisted Holomisa in putting down a local
strike. All in the best of Stalinist traditions, even if our man in the
Transkei had not read his Stalin.

       In the Commissions of Enquiry, of which there have been three, the
facts of the mutiny, the repression and the tortures, are now well
established. Details of this are carried in Searchlight South Africa No 10,
April 1993. What was not disclosed is the names of all those responsible
for the tortures and executions. It seems certain that Hani bears direct
responsibility for the latter. But even if he did not give the orders, his
position in the ANC army makes him culpable. It is possible that his
martyrdom at the hand of an assassin will allow the investigators to draw a
veil over his guilt.

       The assassination must also draw attention to the circumstances
under which Hani was shot. It is hardly necessary to state that Hani's lack
of security, which included the dismissing of his bodyguard over the Easter
weekend, was not the action of a man with military experience. Obviously, a
determined assassin can always strike, but to offer an opportunity such as
Hani did on that fatal morning is beyond understanding.

       The second fact was the use by the conspirators of a Pole. It is a
telling indictment of the former Stalinist countries that in their long
period of control of the states in Eastern Europe, they reared so many
people who opposed the existing regimes and that so many have appeared in
recent years as skinheads, racists, fascists, or generally members of
extreme right-wing gangs. The forces of reaction to the Stalinist states,
so obviously widespread, were both positive and negative, but little was
said about them by those who were one-time admirers of these states in the
Communist Party in South Africa. However, the crucial factor in this case
was the eagerness with which the South African government went out to
recruit such personnel to bolster their white supremacy policy. Such
people, added to hardened racists from Zimbabwe and Mozambique and
extremists from within the local population, provide the membership for
right wing groups and parties. These are men and women dedicated to race
supremacy who will use every method to maintain their privileged position.

       Behind them stand the elements of South Africa's Military
Intelligence which have been responsible for the wave of killings in the
country over the past decade. This body, which has been allowed, or
encouraged, by the government to remove opposition leaders is still intact.
It is a force with a public presence but a covert set of operations that
will persist in its destabilising course until forcibly broken up.

       The continued killings, although less dramatic than assassination,
are not the work of white racists alone. The spectre of terror has gripped
the country, embracing murder in the black townships, (black) taxi-rank
war, white vigilante sniping, random sectarian attacks and pitched battles
between the Inkatha Freedom Party,the ANC, the Pan-Africanist Congress, and
other smaller groups. Some of these bodies are more horrible than others,
none offer the hope of social change and democratic rights.

       There was a time when revolutionaries called for the arming of the
people in order to usher in a new society. It is doubtful whether this
would be an appropriate solution for South Africa today. It could be more
useful to call for the disarming of the population, except for the obvious
conclusion that this would leave the state police and army as arbiters of
the country's fate and that opens the way to political suicide. Quite
obviously, however, a disciplined armed force under trade union (or
similar) control would be an answer, if it was achievable. Given the
political climate in the country today, this does not seem possible.'
__________

Cheers,
Rob.





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