20100425
SABC

The SACP national chairperson and secretary general of the ANC, Gwede Mantashe, says discipline in the structures of the movement is the best way of celebrating the life and times of Chris Hani. Mantashe was delivering the Chris Hani Memorial Lecture at Makwasie near Wolmaraanstad in the North West. He noted the irony of Hani's assassination, at the hands of an Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) right winger in April - the same month that AWB leader Eugene Terre'Blanche was also murdered this year.

Mantashe also appealed to alliance members who are not satisfied with the current leadership of the ANC to use relevant lines of communicating their dissatisfactions rather than use the media.

SACP members and other alliance members from the surrounding areas packed the small local community hall in Lobaleng township, to commemorate their hero of the liberation struggle. Hani was brutally murdered by Yanus Walus in April, seventeen years ago.

"Even if after the regime was giving up and agreeing to negotiate, they protracted the negotiation - it was this man, Martin Chris Thembisile Hani who paid the ultimate price to accelerate that process - because it is only after his death that the election date was set and year later we were free as a country. It is his blood that has strengthened our hand and weakened the hand of the enemy," says Mantashe.

He challenged South Africans to embrace Hani's bravery and refuse to surrender to the challenges of life. He says people must not choose to be helpless and wait for handouts.

Mantashe further called for unity in the fight against corruption, the end product of which he says could be far more serious than anticipated. He says corruption in the country has the potential to collapse the state. He says state tenders should be tools for empowerment and promotion of entrepreneurs and not for the benefit of a privileged few.

Mantashe refused to respond to Cosatu secretary-general Zwelinzima Vavi's criticism of the ANC's alleged lack of decisive leadership.