20100425
SABC

ANC Youth League leader, Julius Malema came in for criticism in Boksburg, where the SA Communist Party was commemorating the 17th anniversary of Chris Hani's assasination. Malema had earlier this week called BBC journalist Jonah Fisher a "bastard" and an "agent", before booting him out of the briefing. This, after Fisher pointed out that Malema also lived in Sandton an upmarket area in Johannesburg - while the youth leader was chastising Zimbabwe's MDC for operating out of offices there.

Mathews Phosa, the ruling party’s treasure general, says: “We need leaders who will create calm - popularism must be shelved for the self interest of the society.” Phosa struggled to finish his address as some members of the crowd interupted him by singing and jeering.

Phosa's comments were echoed by SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande who urged the judiciary to be more independent and to avoid being used to wipe out the liberation history: “We want to say that our songs are not just about the past they are about our dignity the blood chris hani and all those who fought and died in the struggle.” Nzimande called on political leaders to focus on the immediate crisis of the oppression and racial abuse of black farmworkers and urged them not to fuel racial tensions.

No truth - No forgivness - Limpho Hani
The day was a sombre one for the crowds who gathered to remember Chris Hani – a victim of an assassination outside his home in Dawn Park, a racially-mixed suburb of Boksburg on April 10, 1993. His widow Limpho had a message for his killers. “Until I know all the details around my husband’s death … there will be no forgiveness from me.”

Hani was the then-leader of the SA Communist Party, chief of staff of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the ANC and a fierce opponent of the apartheid government.

He was accosted by a Polish far-right immigrant named Janusz Walu?, who shot him in the head as he stepped out of his car. Walu? fled the scene, but was arrested soon afterwards after Hani's neighbour, a white woman, called the police. Clive Derby-Lewis, a senior South African Conservative Party M.P., who had lent Walu? his pistol, was also arrested for complicity in Hani's murder.

Hani's assassination is widely believed to be part of a plot by the far-right in South Africa to derail the negotiations to end apartheid.