A Black Leader in South Africa Is Slain and a White Is Arrested

Chris Hani, the leader of the South African Communist Party and the most popular militant in the African National Congress, was shot and killed in the driveway of his home today, casting another anxious gloom over the country's transition to majority rule. The police said they had arrested a 40-year-old white man, identified as Januzu Jakub Waluz, whose car license number was taken down by Mr. Hani's neighbors as he fled the racially mixed neighborhood. They declined to say if he was known to have any political affiliation. The Sunday Times of Johannesburg, in a story prepared for its Sunday issue, said the suspect was a Polish immigrant with violently anti-Communist views and "close links" to a militant white nationalist group, the Afrikaner Resistance Movement. Blow to Negotiations

The assassination of Mr. Hani is a staggering blow to the African National Congress as it tries to negotiate the end of white rule. With his credentials as an anti-apartheid guerrilla leader and his charismatic appeal to angry young blacks, Mr. Hani gave the congress credibility among its most disaffected constituents. Before being elected General Secretary of the Communist Party in 1991, Mr. Hani was the chief of staff of the congress's military wing, Spear of the Nation. He remained on the congress's governing board, and took part in the political negotiations on the transition to majority rule as part of a congress-led alliance. Judging by public opinion polls and by votes at congress conventions, Mr. Hani, 50, was second only to Nelson Mandela in popularity among blacks, and he was on most short lists of candidates to eventually succeed Mr. Mandela, the 74-year-old president of the congress. Without Mr. Hani, it will be harder to sell any compromise in the black townships and to galvanize young voters for the first all-race elections, expected to take place in about a year. Call for Suspension of Talks One congress militant, Harry Gwala, called tonight for suspension of the talks in which the country's political factions are trying to agree on the mechanics of a new democracy. But his demand was not echoed by more mainstream congress leaders.

Mr. Mandela issued a statement full of grief but containing no hint of recrimination. He appealed "with all the authority at my command" for followers to remain calm and forgo reprisals. Tonight, state television interrupted its programming for Mr. Mandela's brief tribute to Mr. Hani, an unprecedented move that underscored the Government's eagerness to defuse tensions from the killing. To many white South Africans, Mr. Hani has long symbolized the militant Bolshevism they feared would come to power on Mr. Mandela's coattails.

President F. W. de Klerk, who has often used Mr. Hani and the Communist Party as favorite bogies, said the killing would "undermine the work of people of good will from all political persuasions who strove for a peaceful future." "He and I were at opposite poles of the political debate," Mr. de Klerk said. "But we were both prepared to resolve the problems of our country through the process of peaceful negotiations." The campaign for black equality in South Africa has left a trail of carnage, including the deaths of several anti-apartheid campaigners under suspicious circumstances. But this was the first assassination of a black leader of such popular standing.

The killing appeared to leave the Communist Party bereft. No other black Communist has Mr. Hani's stature, and among the party's white leaders only Joe Slovo, 66, and ailing, is so widely respected. Mr. Slovo, who holds the largely ceremonial post of party chairman, has been an important member of the A.N.C. negotiating team, where he has developed a reputation as a master of compromise. The Communist Party has an emotional cachet, especially among young blacks who enjoy the horror the party causes among whites, but it has little organization and, since the demise of Communism in Europe, almost no financial backing. Mr. Hani had said the party would campaign in the coming elections as part of a bloc with the African National Congress and other allies, not as an independent party.

Some moderates had suggested that if an African National Congress government had run into trouble, Mr. Hani might ultimately have been tempted to lead the disgruntled against it. But in recent months he worked to shore up the congress's fractious militant wing, and set out to assert control over so-called self-defense units, armed gangs that have often run riot under the banner of the African National Congress. In the last week Mr. Hani had been promoting the creation of a township "peace corps" to curb violence in the townships. "He had the credibility among the young to rein in the radicals," Archbishop Desmond Tutu said.

Mr. Hani was killed when he returned to his home in a racially mixed subdivision of the predominantly white suburb of Boksburg, southeast of Johannesburg, after driving to buy newspapers. The African National Congress said he had given his two bodyguards the day off. Fired Four Shots According to a neighbor who watched the killing, interviewed by The Sunday Times, the killer emerged from a red Ford, walked up to Mr. Hani as he locked his car, and fired two shots into his chest. He then leaned over the body and fired two more shots into Mr. Hani before fleeing. The neighbor memorized the license number and called the police, who stopped the car and found the suspect with two pistols.

Mr. Hani had survived two assassination attempts in the early 1980's, when he was a top official in the congress's underground anti-apartheid army. Mr. Hani was born Martin Thembisile Hani on June 28, 1942, in the black homeland of Transkei. Studied Classical Literature He studied classical literature, and contemplated becoming either a Roman Catholic priest or a lawyer before turning to the anti-apartheid struggle. He joined the African National Congress Youth League in 1957, and two years after the congress was banned in 1960, Mr. Hani slipped out of the country to enlist in its armed wing. He served as chief of staff, the No. 2 post in the organization, from 1987 until 1992. In 1983 he took part in the suppression of a mutiny by guerrilla dissidents in training camps, but denied in later years that he joined in the arrests, killings and torture that followed. He also fought alongside black rebels against white rule in what was then Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe.

Mr. Hani had been a member of the congress's governing National Executive Committee since 1975. When the congress voted in July 1991 to renew the executive committee, Mr. Hani drew more votes from the party's local leaders than anyone else. Mr. Mandela, as president, was automatically on the committee and was not on the ballot. Mr. Hani's near cult following among the poorest blacks is demonstrated by the fact that several squatter camps have been named in his honor. Along with Cyril Ramaphosa, the secretary general of the congress, and Thabo Mbeki, the head of the international department, Mr. Hani was considered a leading candidate to take over eventually from Mr. Mandela. Mr. Mandela himself, in an interview this year, included Mr. Hani among those he considered qualified to preside over the congress.

But when Mr. Hani agreed in December 1991 to replace Mr. Slovo, who has cancer, as leader of the Communist Party, many in the A.N.C. felt he had ruled himself out for the top job. Although Communists have always been prominent in the congress, no Communist has ever held the top job. Mr. Hani knew that the Communist Party alarmed white South Africans, but he reveled in the notoriety. "Every time they bash us, we get more and more support among the workers and the poor in this country, especially among the black population," he said in an interview last year. He is survived by his wife, Limpho, and three children.

WASHINGTON, April 10 (Reuters) -- The State Department deplored the killing of Mr. Hani today, saying it showed the need to move ahead with multiparty talks in South Africa.

"The assassination of Chris Hani is a deplorable and troubling event," the State Department spokesman, Richard A. Boucher, said in a statement. "It underscores the urgent need to end violence in the country and to push ahead with the negotiations which will create a democratic South Africa."

Source: New York Times