About Chris Hani
Who was Chris Hani?
Chris Hani (1942-1993) was a South African revolutionary leader whose political vision and military tactics helped bring about the end of the apartheid system.
Member of the National Executive Committee of the African National Congress, General Secretary of the South African Communist Party, and - as former chief of Staff o fthe ANC's army, Umkhonto we Sizwe - experienced leader of guerilla operations and training camps - Hani was hated by the racist regime but respected and admired by the people.
Along with Nelson Mandela and Winnie Mandela, Hani was a popular speaker at rallies all over South Africa, calling for unity and "a form of society in which people can live in equality, without poverty. "He especially encouraged women in the movement to prepare to lead that new society.
Hani was also known internationally for promoting solidarity among movements of the poor, workers and the oppressed worldwide. Key Martin (1943-2000), co-founder of the Peoples Video Network and the Chris Hani Viva! film project, met with Hani at a conference in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Hani's assassination by pro-apartheid forces sparked such outrage and grassroots activism that within days, the regime had to concede to "one person, one vote" elections.
Why this story must be told!
George Bush and Tony Blair shed crocodile tears over Africa. But the banks still bleed the continent of $30 billion in interest payments every year. This huge debt must be abolished”reparations are owed Africa instead.
Over 25 million Africans have AIDS, including five million in South Africa alone. South Africa was the first government to stand up to the World Trade Organization and big drug companies deadly price fixing. It was Chris Hani who pointed out at a 1990 Mozambique health conference that we cannot afford to allow the AIDS epidemic to ruin the realization of our dreams.
Chris Hani, Africa MAYIBUYE! will remind the world of the victories and sacrifices of our sisters and brothers in South Africa, of whom Chris Hani is a shining example. While the New York Times (July 3, 2005) calls for a benevolent imperialism to intervene in Congo, this film will promote solidarity with all of Africa.
An autobiography written in 1991
Chris Hani, born on 28 June 1942, in Cofimvaba, Transkei. General-Secretary of the SACP since December 1991 and ANC NEC member since 1974. Matriculated at Lovedale, 1958; Universities Rhodes and Fort Hare - 1959/61, BA Latin and English. Joined ANC Youth League 1957. Active in Eastern and Western Cape ANC before leaving SA in 1962. Commissar in the Luthuli Detachment joint ANC/ZAPU military campaign 1967, escaped to Botswana, returned from Botswana to Zambia 1968, infiltrated SA in 1973 and then based in Lesotho. Left Maseru for Lusaka in 1982 after several unsuccessful assassination attempts. Commissar and Deputy Commander of Umkhonto we Sizwe, armed wing of ANC. Chief of Staff, MK 1987.
The following brief autobiographical account was written by comrade Chris Hani in February 1991:
I was born in a small rural town in the Transkei called Cofimvaba. This town is almost 200 kilometres from East London. I am the fifth child in a family of six. Only three of us are still surviving, the other three died in their infancy. My mother is completely illiterate and my father semi-literate. My father was a migrant worker in the mines in the Transvaal, but he subsequently became an unskilled worker in the building industry.
Life was quite harsh for us and we went through some hard times as our mother had to supplement the family budget through subsistence farming; had to bring us up with very little assistance from my father who was always away working for the white capitalists.
I had to walk twenty kilometres to school every five days and then walk the same distance to church every Sunday. At the age of eight I was already an altar boy in the Catholic church and was quite devout.
After finishing my primary school education I had a burning desire to become a priest but this was vetoed by my father.
In 1954, while I was doing my secondary education, the apartheid regime introduced Bantu Educaiton which was desighend to indoctrinate Black pupils to accept and recognise the supremacy of the white man over the blacks in all spheres. This angered and outraged us and paved the way for my involvement in the struggle.
The arraignment for Treason of the ANC leaders in 1956 convinced me to join the ANC and participate in the struggle for freedom. In 1957 I made up my mind and joined the ANC Youth League. I was fifteen then, and since politics was proscribed at African schools our activities were clandestine. In 1959 I went over to university at Fort Hare where I became openly involved in the struggle, as Fort Hare was a liberal campus. It was here that I got exposed to Marxist ideas and the scope and nature of the racist capitalist system. My conversion to Marxism also deepended my non-racial perspective.
My early Catholicism led to my fascination with Latin studies and English literature. These studies in these two course were gobbled up by me and I became an ardent lover of English, Latin and Greek literature, both modern and classical. My studies of literature futher strengthened my hatred of all forms of oppression, persecution and obscurantism. The action of tyrants as portrayed in various literary works also made me hate tyranny and institutionalised oppression.
In 1961 I joined the underground South African Communist Party as I realised that national liberation, though essential, would not bring about total economic liberation. My decision to join the Party was influenced by such greats of our struggle like Govan Mbeki, Braam Fischer, JB Marks, Moses Kotane, Ray Simons, etc.
In 1962, having recognised the intranisgence of the racist regime, I joined the fledgling MK. This was the beginning of my long road in the armed struggle in which there have been three abortive assassination attempts against me personally. The armed struggle, which we never regarded as exclusive, as we combined it with other forms of struggle, has brought about the present crisis of apartheid.
In 1967 I fought together with Zipra forces in Zimbabwe as political commissar. In 1974 I went back to South Africa to build the underground and I subsequently left for Lesotho where I operated underground and contributed in the building of the ANC underground inside our country.
The four pillars underpinning our struggle have brought about the present crisis of the apartheid regime. The racist regime has reluctantly recognised the legitimacy of our struggle by agreeing to sit down with us to discuss how to begin the negotiations process.
In the current political situation, the decision by our organisation to suspend armed action is correct and is an important contribution in maintaining the momentum of negotiation.
Chris Hani,
February 1991
Chris Hani’s 1993 assassination by right-wing racists connected with the apartheid security agencies sparked a massive outpouring of grief and anger in the streets, a national crisis and the pivotal event that marked the end of the apartheid regime and the emergence of the African National Congress and Nelson Mandela as the leaders of the nation. Within days of Chris Hani’s funeral the racist regime conceded to "one person, one vote" elections that would end the racist apartheid government forever . . . but the struggle had sacrificed one of its most brilliant leaders.
Chris Hani was one of the most popular leaders of the ANC, particularly among the poorest communities. He was known as the tireless and fearless organizer of the ANC underground during the darkest years of resistance and the leader of the Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the ANC whose presence and struggle brought the apartheid regime to the negotiating table. Chris Hani was also the dynamic leader of the South African Communist Party and active in the struggles of the workers and the oppressed, from the mines and factories to the townships and the rural poor, where he spread his gospel of organization and struggle that so frightened the apartheid government and ruling class.
The policy of the United States towards Africa for four decades was marked by tragic violence, from the support for Unita in the Angolan civil war that left that country, which could be the breadbasket of Africa, laced with so many land mines that the people cannot sow crops, to having its intelligence agencies destroy any leadership that could bring Africa together. Patrice Lumumba’s body was found in the trunk of a CIA car in the Congo. Edwardo Mondlane and Amilcar Cabral were cut down by assassins bullets. Samora Machel’s plane crash was not an accident, the list is long.
So many leaders have been lost to the assassins in Africa, just as with the African-American community here losing Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Fred Hampton, and so many others. Chris Hani Viva! probes the role of Western intelligence agencies in generating and sustaining the wave of political violence and death squads that swept through South Africa in an attempt to cut down the ANC and prevent grass roots leadership from emerging, a desperate move to keep the apartheid regime.
HIV/AIDS is Africa’s greatest threat ever with over 32 million infected people. From the high profits of the drug companies to the huge international debt and impoverishment of the African countries Aids has found a home in Africa. The need for Chris Hani’s style of leadership, with mass mobilization that was not afraid to speak truth to power, has never been more necessary.
The story of this youth from a poor village in the rural former Transkei, who grew up with no water or electricity but worked his way to Fort Hare University and into the ANC student underground after the organization was banned in 1960 will inspire and energize you. His comrades tell his story and give their appreciation of this remarkable leader who, more than any other single person, was blamed by the apartheid regime, which never understood the collective million-fold character of the struggle against it, for its demise.