A week after the contentious news of the early release of his killer, anti-apartheid activist Chris Hani’s tomb in South Africa was destroyed, according to sources from the municipality of Ekurhuleni where the monument honouring his memory is located (November 29).
“Between Saturday and Sunday, there was nocturnal vandalism to the monument. A pillar is seriously damaged. Both the lighting system and one side collapsed, “Zweli Dlamini, a spokesperson for the city east of Johannesburg, talked to AFP. Theft and vandalism were the subjects of an investigation.
The African National Congress (ANC), which has been in power since democracy’s inception in 1994, is represented by the monument’s four marble columns, which stand in for the cornerstones of the fight against white power.
On Saturday, the ANC organised a protest against the release of Chris Hani’s killer, who is imprisoned in the Hall of Heroes of the Anti-Apartheid Struggle and whose disappearance is remembered every year in South Africa.
In a statement, the ANC expressed its “great sadness” over the monument’s damage and defilement.
Chris Hani, a 50-year-old senior member of the armed wing of the Liberation Party and a communist commander, was shot and assassinated by Janusz Walus, a Polish immigrant associated with the far-right white Afrikaner, in his driveway on April 10, 1993.
Delicate negotiations with the white power were being conducted at the time in anticipation of the nation’s first democratic elections.
The murder fuels violent rioting in the townships of South Africa, which have already been rattled by the racist regime’s final throes.
Nelson Mandela urges calm in an animated speech that was broadcast on television.
The new government repealed the death penalty in 1994, and Janusz Walus, aged 69, got his death sentence reduced to life in prison.
On November 21, the judge granted him conditional freedom after multiple rejections.
He must be out from jail by December 1st at the latest.
The widow of Chris Hani has blasted the decision as “diabolical.”
