South Africa 1960 – 1994

a) Political, economic and social factors contributing to the end of apartheid

The policy of total strategy or counter-revolution as it became known did not stop the anti-apartheid groups such as the ANC, PAC and UDF (United Democratic Front) from protesting for political and social equality for all races in South Africa. Poverty for blacks continued in the townships and homelands. Unemployment was on the rise due to sanctions, and education and housing were still of a third world standard.

The state of emergency failed to make South Africa safer for whites. Many whites were suffering loss of liberties under the censorship and rigid laws of the military state. Moreover, the ANC in exile continued to attack ‘soft targets’ in South Africa including shopping centres and post offices. Many whites were becoming disillusioned with apartheid and feeling the rejection of their society and culture by the rest of the world. Many Coloureds and Indians were becoming openly defiant of the white state demanding nothing short of full democracy for South Africa.

The United Democratic Front (UDF)

In 1983 a multi-racial party, the United Democratic Front was formed with the aim of uniting all resistance groups in the fight against apartheid. The UDF was highly successful because its members became a uniting force and it had many high profile members, including church leaders such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The UDF supporters also include ANC members such as Winnie Mandela. By 1985 the UDF gained over two million members and was a powerful force in demanding the immediate end to apartheid.

The gradual reforms of the Botha government, delivered no real change in South Africa, only cosmetic changes. South Africa could not change and embrace the modern world while apartheid existed. Many white South Africans and politicians began to feel that apartheid was like ‘living on the back of a tiger and they needed to find a way off without being eaten’.1

b) International factors contributing to the end of apartheid

By 1988 the cost of running the military state was staggering and the economic performance of South Africa was poor. Sanctions had driven the economy into recession; ‘sanction busting’ was failing to fix the problem. South Africa was unable to obtain foreign loans or foreign investment. 2

The impact of the Free Mandela Campaign, sporting sanctions, severe international criticism, military and technical equipment embargos and isolation by other African nations in the OAU (Organisation of African Unity) was crippling South Africa. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 removed the Communist threat which underpinned the existence of apartheid since the end of the Second World War. Festering social, political and economic grievances in all sectors of the South African population left the preservation of apartheid completely untenable by the start of 1990s.

c) Problems facing the National Party and the ANC in the transition to democracy in South Africa

In 1984 during townships riots, P.W. Botha declared, ‘I’m giving you a final warning; one man, one vote in this country is out-that is never!”.3 In 1989 after a mild stroke and the failure of Total Strategy, he resigned as President of South Africa. Botha was replaced by F.W.de Klerk.

On 2 February 1990, de Klerk opened Parliament, and in his maiden speech as President began dismantling the apartheid state. He rescinded the ban on the ANC, the PAC, the South African Communist Party and thirty other political organizations. He freed political prisoners and suspended the death sentence. On the 11 of November de Klerk released Nelson Mandela from prison4. South Africa would have one man one vote.

The transition to democracy was a challenging task. Some historians have called it a ‘miracle’. Both the National Party and the ANC struggled to keep South Africa from sliding into civil war in the early 1990s. Meetings were held to lay out South Africa’s new Democracy entitled A Convention for Democratic South Africa (CODESSA). It was in the CODESSA meetings, that the National Party and the ANC debated their differing visions of democracy. CODESSA 1 ended when the ANC walked out of negotiations5. Finally CODESSA II was able to pave the way for a new constitution and a national election.

Problems facing the National Party

• The traditional rulers of South Africa wanted to hold to power as long as possible. They wanted ‘one man, one vote’ to eventuate slowly to protect the white minority.
  
  
• Right Wing extremists’ elements including the AWB (Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging) vowed to prevent free elections and assassinate Nelson Mandela. They also wanted to create an Afrikaner homeland.
  
  
• Other white extremists were also letting off bombs and interrupting official democracy meetings such as CODESSA.

Problems facing the ANC

The ANC faced a number of difficulties:

• First in dealing with the National Party and with other anti-apartheid parties, especially Inkatha (a political organisation made up of Zulus from the Natal Province)
  
  
• The ANC wanted one person, one vote multiracial democracy immediately, and many of its members were understandably anxious to embrace democracy for the first time.
  
  
• In Natal/KwaZulu Province Chief Buthelezi of Inkatha refused to have anything to do with constitutional negotiations and savage violence between ANC members and Inkatha broke out. This included the assassination of Chris Hani, a national hero of the ANC and member of the South Africa Communist Party. Only a prompt appeal to the nation by Mandela averted a massive reaction.

• The ANC seemed to be losing control of its political base. Many feared that extremist whites were supplying Inkatha with weapons and instigating the fighting between rival black political groups, to prevent South Africa’s march towards democracy.

South Africa’s first democratic Election 27th April 1994

South Africans of all races turned out determined to vote in their first non-racial election on the 27th of April 1994. People lined up in long queues which stretched for miles to cast their historic ballot. The ANC won the election and Nelson Mandela, after spending almost three decades in jail, became President of a free South Africa, F.W. de Klerk became the Deputy President.

At his inauguration as President on the vast lawn of the Union Building in Pretoria Mandela said:

‘Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another… The sun will never set on so glorious a human achievement. Let freedom reign. God bless Africa’.6

Source: NSW HSC Online http://hsc.csu.edu.au © NSW Department of Education and Communities, and Charles Sturt University, 2011

YCL concerned about Derby-Lewis release

The Young Communist League is appalled by attempts at securing parole for Clive Derby-Lewis, who was jailed for the murder of its general secretary Chris Hani. "We re-iterate that Clive Derby-Lewis' release will be a travesty to justice and the end of any possibility of unfolding the truth about the death of [comrade] Chris Hani," it said in statement on Monday. It was responding to a weekend report that Derby-Lewis could be released.

The YCL's statement joins that of the Congress of SA Trade Unions which said it was concerned about the report in the Saturday Star headlined: "Hani Killer to walk free". Hani was shot in the head as he climbed out of his car outside his home in Dawn Park, Boksburg, on April 10, 1993 by Polish immigrant Janusz Walus, using a pistol leant to him by Conservative Party MP Derby-Lewis. Six months later, Walus and Derby-Lewis were convicted of murder and conspiracy to commit murder and were sentenced to death. However this was commuted to life imprisonment in 1995, when capital punishment was abolished.

The publication reported that the parole board had recommended for a second time that Derby-Lewis be freed, and with a decision expected next month, he could be out by Christmas. His last application for parole was dismissed by the High Court in Pretoria in March last year. Cosatu said it backed the SA Communist Party's view that Derby-Lewis should not be paroled unless and until he had fully disclosed the identities of all those involved in Hani's murder.

In 1996, Derby-Lewis and Walus applied to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) for amnesty for the murder. On April 7, 1999, the TRC's amnesty committee rejected the application on the basis that they had failed to prove the killing was politically motivated, and had failed to make a full disclosure, another prerequisite for amnesty.

The correctional services department dismissed as "false" the Saturday Star's claim that a decision on parole would be made next month. "It is also false to say that he [Derby-Lewis] will be out by Christmas," ministerial spokesman Sonwabo Mbananga said.

In determining whether parole was granted to a prisoner serving a life sentence, the parole board first made a recommendation to the National Council on Correctional Services (NCCS), which then made a recommendation to the minister of correctional services, who in turn made a decision based on these recommendations, he said. The parole board had made a recommendation regarding Derby-Lewis, but this information had not yet reached the NCCS. Its next sitting would be at the end of October, when Derby-Lewis's case might be tabled, said Mbananga.

Source: Times Live

Kill the boer not part of ANC Heritage

Is the controversial song urging the killing of “Boers” truly part of the ANC’s liberation struggle heritage, or are such claims simply an ingenuous, or perhaps sinister, attempt by the ANC leadership to defend its Youth League leader Julius Malema by distorting the historical truth? Or is the ANC itself trying to rewrite history after it accused the courts of doing so when two successive court rulings found the song to incite racial hatred – findings in line with one already made by the Human Rights Commission (HRC) as long ago as 2003? These are questions that come to the fore from an investigation into the origins of the controversial song, "Dubula iBhunu".

The truth seems to be that words to the same effect first were chanted in Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) circles in the early 1990s along with their infamous slogan of “one settler, one bullet”. Shortly thereafter, the late ANC youth leader Peter Mokaba borrowed the slogan and began chanting his “kill the Boer, kill the farmer” version in 1993 after the murder of ANC and Communist Party leader, Chris Hani.

In none of the sources on the origins of the song which could be identified, could any indication be found that the song has ever been part of the ANC repertoire of songs during the struggle days. Although the controversial song sung by Malema is claimed now to be a historical liberation struggle song, it was not included in a 2-CD history and recording of 25 freedom songs released in 2002. Senior ANC and former Umkhonto we Sizwe leaders, including Ronnie Kasrils, Baleka Mbete and Pallo Jordan among others, had collaborated in the production of the collection.

At the time of its release, the CD set was described as a collection of field recordings of songs and chants used in the liberation struggle, complemented by a radio documentary providing an overview of the songs, their history and context in the struggle. These songs were sung in ANC camps, at meetings, mass rallies, demonstrations and other gatherings. The set, it was said, was designed as an archival and historical document. Nowhere did it mention “kill the Boer, kill the farmer” or “shoot the Boer”.

All indications are that the slogan or chant and the song, or even songs that developed from it, originated with the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC). In August 1999, Thomas Ramaila told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that he had been a PAC operative and had been influenced by what he called a PAC slogan, namely “kill the farmer, kill the Boer” to kill a farmer, Neville Rudman. Most of Ramaila’s testimony and his amnesty application were rejected, but his reference to the slogan was not. The slogan/song in any version was used first in circles associated with the PAC in the early 1990s, although the PAC never officially took ownership of it and, after the first democratic elections of 1994, distanced itself from it. At almost the same time, the ANC’s Mokaba began using the slogan in 1993 when the armed struggle for all intents and purposes was a thing of the past.

In that same year, a large crowd of PAC supporters marched through Cape Town’s Kenilworth and Claremont suburbs, demanding the release of PAC members who had been arrested in connection with the massacre of 11 churchgoers at the St. James Church and chanted “kill the Boer, kill the farmer”, “one settler, one bullet” and “one church, one bomb”. Also in 1993, at a rally in Tembisa near Johannesburg, both Mokaba and a PAC representative used these or similar words in speeches to the large crowd. Mokaba reportedly also urged the crowd to direct their “bullets” at then president FW de Klerk, declaring that he hated De Klerk. To which the PAC representative added, “war against the enemy... kill them”.

In March this year, a former participant in an August 1993 march (called “Operation Barcelona”) against increased exam fees in Cape Town, wrote in a comment to an article on the Internet, that he was among PASO (PAC student wing) students in the march who chanted “kill the Boer, kill the farmer” immediately before American student Amy Biehl was killed by members of that mob.

In 2002, then president Thabo Mbeki, as president of the ANC, and in 2003 then ANC secretary-general Kgalema Motlanthe - who is now ANC deputy president - firmly and unambiguously distanced the ANC from any such song or slogan, saying it had never been, and would never be, a part of the ANC. No claim was made then that it – in any form - ever had been an ANC liberation struggle song. That is until now, when, in March this year, Malema began singing a generic version of Mokaba’s chant. Suddenly senior ANC leaders, among them secretary-general Gwede Mantashe, are claiming this to be an old ANC liberation struggle song that apparently never was sung to incite violence against white farmers or whites in general, but was aimed against the apartheid regime.

Mcebisi Ndletyana, senior researcher at the Human Science Research Council - in another defence of the song and attack on the judges who ruled against its use in an article in "The Sunday Independent" - claims the song embodies black hatred of “whiteness”, but not of people of European descent... with a very wooly explaination of what the difference is intended to be.

No documentary or other evidence could be found that the chant or related songs were indeed ANC liberation songs before 1993, when the liberation struggle was practically over and constitutional negotiations in full swing. The Mokaba chant of “kill the farmer, kill the Boer” was next heard in June 2002 at an ANC Youth League meeting in Kimberley, and at Mokaba’s funeral in Limpopo. The funeral was attended by prominent ANC leaders, including Nelson Mandela and Mbeki, and the chanting was stopped immediately.

The Freedom Front lodged a complaint of hate speech with the HRC, which subsequently rejected it. However Mbeki, as president of the ANC and the country at the time, on 19 June of that year told Parliament: “Nobody in our country has a right to call for the killing of any South African, whatever the colour, race, ethnic origin, gender or health condition of the intended victim. Those farmers and boers are as much South African and African as I am...”

In June 2003, the HRC, chaired by Professor Karthy Govender, assisted by Professor Henk Botha and Mr Khashane Manamela, heard an appeal by the Freedom Front against the earlier HRC ruling. In their decision, delivered on 15 July, they overturned the earlier HRC ruling and found that the slogan "Kill the farmer, kill the boer" as chanted at the ANC youth rally in Kimberley and at the funeral of Mokaba constituted hate speech as defined in section 16(2)(c) of the Constitution.

What is even more interesting is that part of the record of submissions made to the HRC at the time contains a letter from Motlanthe, then ANC secretary-general, stating that the ‘’utterance has never been, cannot and will never be a slogan of the ANC, not used by the ANC at all.’’ The logical assumption then is that, according to Motlanthe, it was not part of the ANC’s liberation struggle heritage.

Source: Leadership online

Hit squad whistleblower still in jail

The man who exposed the apartheid security force hit squads is trying to get out of jail - but Minister of Correctional Services Ngconde Balfour is ignoring him. Butana Almond Nofemela is in Pretoria Central Prison and has spent 21 years behind bars for a non-politically related murder. His request for parole was approved months ago and the documents were sent to Balfour, as legally required, in March.

Balfour has still not made a decision, Nofemela said in papers filed with the Pretoria High Court, citing the minister. Correctional Services is opposing Nofemela's application, although the court action is a demand for a decision from Balfour, not for parole." The department will defend the case although we have thus far received only a letter of demand," said Correctional Services Ministry spokesperson Manelisi Wolela. He did not respond to requests for further comment. Nofemela has been trying to secure parole for a year. "During November 2007 I was seen by the case management committee of the Pretoria Local Prison, who recommended my placement on parole," Nofemela said in an affidavit supporting his application. The request was then approved by the parole board, then forwarded to the National Council for Correctional Services which is headed by Judge Siraj Desai. The council's recommendation to grant parole was forwarded to Balfour in March, but Balfour had "failed, neglected and/or refused to consider" it, said Nofemela.

Nofemela's lawyer, Julian Knight, wrote to Balfour's office asking for a decision but received no response. Knight said it was "completely unacceptable" that the minister would neglect since March to make a decision, not just for Nofemela but for an unknown number of other parole applicants. "It displays callous disregard for the constitutional rights of prisoners," he said.

Judge Desai confirmed having dealt with Nofemela's case, but would not say what the decision was. It's not known how many other prisoners serving life sentences are also still waiting for decisions by the minister. It's understood that usually the parole board makes the decision, which is then endorsed by the minister. Judge Desai said his 20-member council had met three times this year and dealt with "30 or 40 cases". Another 20 are due to be discussed next month. Once the cases are referred to the minister, the council doesn't see them again as the minister refers his decisions to the department to implement. Judge Desai said there was an increase in parole applications by life-sentence prisoners because the death penalty was abolished about 20 years ago.

Democratic Alliance MP and party spokesperson on correctional services James Selfe said that in terms of the law, an inmate sentenced to life imprisonment could not get parole until he had served at least 25 years, or 15 years if he was over 65 years old. However, he said the act had been amended, which could affect Nofemela's case, or he could have qualified for "special or meritorious remission of sentence. Decisions about releasing inmates on parole should be taken by independent parole boards (or, in serious offenders' cases, by the Parole Review Board) after they have satisfied themselves that the inmate has corrected his behaviour and is rehabilitated," said Selfe. "Such decisions should not be made by any politician, particularly one as inefficient as Ngconde Balfour."

Nofemela was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in September 1987 for the murder of farmer Johannes Hendrik Lourens at Skeerpoort near Brits in September 1986.

In 1989, the night before he was due to be executed, Nofemela got an urgent application to stay the execution when he confessed to being an askari - a turned guerrilla working for the police - involved in a security police hit squad which operated from Vlakplaas near Pretoria. This was the first confirmation of a security force hit squad, and Nofemela's execution was put on hold while his claims were investigated.

Nofemela's story was supported by his former Vlakplaas police commander Captain Dirk Coetzee and fellow askari David Tshikalanga. Their story was also told to the Harms Commission of inquiry into hit squads, which ultimately did not confirm that there were any hit squads. In September 1994 Nofemela's death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment but he remained in jail due to his conviction for Lourens' murder, as this was not politically related but a robbery. Nofemela and Coetzee were later granted amnesty for killing human rights lawyer Griffiths Mxenge in Durban in November 1981. Nofemela was refused amnesty for Lourens' killing.

Last month Clive Derby-Lewis, jailed for killing SACP leader Chris Hani in 1993, brought an application in the Pretoria High Court to demand parole. The matter has been postponed. Derby-Lewis, 72, has been in jail for 15 years and is eligible to apply for parole because of his age.

Source: IoL

Three Businessmen Accused of Plot to Oust South African President

After weeks of whispers about political jousting and maneuvering within the governing African National Congress, the minister of safety and security has accused three leading members of the party of plotting to oust President Thabo Mbeki. The announcement that the three, Cyril Ramaphosa, Tokyo Sexwale and Matthews Phosa, all prominent businessmen, were under investigation was front-page news today and it left some government officials reeling. All three were fighters for liberation during the apartheid regime.

Mr. Ramaphosa and Mr. Sexwale have long been viewed as potential rivals to Mr. Mbeki although both men have left politics to pursue lucrative careers in business. Opposition politicians quickly condemned the investigation as an attempt by Mr. Mbeki to neutralize opponents who might be tempted to deny his hopes for a second term. A.N.C. officials denied that the probe was politically motivated.

The investigation became public on Tuesday night when Steve Tshwete, minister of safety and security, announced on national television that the three men were believed to be running a disinformation campaign against the president. Of particular concern, Mr. Tshwete said, were rumors charging Mr. Mbeki with orchestrating the assassination in 1993 of Chris Hani, the revered South African Communist Party leader. Two right-wing whites were convicted of killing Mr. Hani, who was one of Mr. Mbeki's rivals for the position of deputy president to Nelson R. Mandela.

Mr. Tshwete said rumors linking President Mbeki to the death of Mr. Hani might have led Mr. Hani's supporters to turn on the president. ''There are sworn affidavits of a plot and disinformation campaign and we have to investigate to see to what extent does it compromise the safety of the president so that we can take the necessary precautions,'' Andre Martin, a spokesman for Mr. Tshwete, said in an interview this afternoon. Officials refused to divulge further details of the reported plot today, but Mr. Tshwete said that the government was bolstering Mr. Mbeki's personal security.

The allegations are the most recent hint of factional fighting within the party. Mr. Mbeki, who succeeded Mr. Mandela in 1999, has been viewed as increasingly vulnerable in A.N.C. circles. Polls indicate that his popularity has slipped, and he has stumbled in his handling of the AIDS epidemic and some other issues. In a surprise public statement earlier this month, Deputy President Jacob Zuma unexpectedly denied rumors and ''unverified, so-called intelligence reports'' that he might stand for the position of A.N.C. president. Earlier this year, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, president of the African National Congress Women's League, denied that she was spreading malicious rumors about Mr. Mbeki. Mr. Sexwale and Mr. Phosa vehemently denied today that they were plotting against the president.

Mr. Ramaphosa, who was once the A.N.C.'s secretary general and is now chairman of a powerful media and telecommunications company, helped lead the negotiations that brought an end to all white rule and was Mr. Mandela's first choice as a successor. Mr. Sexwale, who was imprisoned by the apartheid government and later ran the provincial government that includes Johannesburg, ''is more than satisfied'' with running a black empowerment company with interests in diamond and platinum mines, his family said. ''Our country faces real and serious socio-economic problems, most of all poverty,'' the family said in its statement. ''It is an unwarranted, precious time-wasting exercise to be diverted by gossip and rumor-mongering based on cooked-up stories.''

Mr. Phosa, who served as an A.N.C. legal adviser under apartheid and led the province of Mpumalanga before moving into business, described the allegations as ''insulting the intelligence of ordinary South Africans.'' Leaders of the opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, describing the investigation as an abuse of government powers. Mr. Mbeki declined to discuss the issue today, but in a TV interview on Tuesday, he urged the so-called conspirators to abandon their plotting and to declare their ambitions.

Source: New York Times

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

The Bhisho Massacre: the day 29 people died

Bhisho, the administrative capital of the Eastern Cape, was once the capital of the Ciskei, a so-called homeland of South Africa. It gave its name to a massacre that happened there on September 7 1992 when Ciskei strongman Oupa Gqozo's troops opened fire on an ANC march heading into the capital. Twenty-eight protesters and one soldier died. Hundreds of others were injured.

At that time, negotiations for South Africa's non-racial constitution had broken down amid accusations that the ruling National Party was fomenting "third force" violence in black townships. Another stumbling block was the refusal of Gqozo to participate in negotiations and undertake to give up the homeland's "independence". The meeting at the stadium in Bhisho was organised by the ANC to protest this, to demand free political activity and an end to state violence and repression in the Ciskei.

About 80 000 people - including Chris Hani, Cyril Ramaphosa, Steve Tshwete and Harry Gwala - marched from King William's Town to Bhisho, chanting "no more slavery".

Disastrous miscalculation

Determined to peacefully occupy Bhisho and force Gqozo's resignation, Ronnie Kasrils, a stalwart of ANC protests, led a section of the marchers through a gap in the razor wire erected to contain them. In his autobiography Armed and Dangerous: My Undercover Struggle with Apartheid, Kasrils writes: "By not charging in their [soldiers] direction, by giving them a wide berth, we would avoid confrontation." The organisers and the demonstrators believed that with the eyes of the world on them, Gqozo's troops would not dare open fire.

But this was a disastrous miscalculation. Ciskei troops opened fire, ostensibly on the orders of Gqozo.

Recounting it later, Kasrils writes: "One moment I was running, my comrades with me. The next instant, without warning, the soldiers opened fire." Kasrils hit the ground, but bullets cut into the crowd following him. Petros Vantyu, his bodyguard, was one of those hit by the gunfire. "As I began to crawl towards him, the gunfire broke out again, as angry and prolonged as before, and I froze where I lay. The sinister whirr of projectiles overhead, followed by four dull thuds, made me realise with horror that they were firing grenades as well."

Deadlock breaker

An official investigation revealed that the first fusillade lasted one-and-a-half minutes, while the second lasted a minute. More than 425 rounds were fired. At the end, bodies lay scattered in pools of blood along the line of razor wire erected to contain the marchers.

Gqozo denied giving the order to fire. He accused ANC demonstrators of opening fire first, killing a soldier. He said his troops had acted with restraint. Then-president FW de Klerk said at the time that the massacre resulted from the ANC's failure to observe march conditions agreed with Ciskei authorities. "I did not start mass action, the ANC did. It is a fallacy, an unsubstantiated lie, that my government was involved," he said.

But Nelson Mandela differed with him. "The creation of a climate for free political activity, including in the homelands, is an important condition for us to return to the negotiating table. An enormous responsibility rests with the South African government to create that climate."

In the end, massacres in Bhisho and Boipatong, where 49 people were killed, acted as deadlock-breaking mechanisms. Key players in the negotiation process were forced to rethink their strategies and options. The spiral of violence gave way to the reopening of talks and South Africa once again resumed its journey towards democracy and freedom, which culminated in the country's first democratic elections in 1994.

Source: Buffalo City Metro

South Africa Talks in Deadlock; De Klerk Confers With Mandela

Negotiations on South Africa's future deadlocked today, prompting President F. W. de Klerk and Nelson Mandela, president of the African National Congress, to meet to try to devise a solution. After the two leaders met with their advisers and then for more than an hour with each other, Mr. Mandela said they would report the outcome on Saturday. He described their meeting as "substantial," the South Africa Press Association reported, but did not say what they had decided. A resolution of the impasse would pave the way for the creation of a transitional government that would draft a new constitution extending political equality to blacks.

The cause of the deadlock was the inability of one of five working groups created by the Convention for a Democratic South Africa, as the negotiating forum is called, to agree on one of the proposed guidelines for a new constitution. The disputed point is the size of the legislative margin of approval for constitutional provisions covering regional issues. The dispute, which erupted in invective between the Government and the congress, blocked the presentation of progress reports by the four other working groups on the country's future. But Mr. Mandela told journalists that it would be naive for anybody to think that there would be no deadlocks in the negotiations. "While there is a will to address problems, there is hope those problems will be solved," said Mr. Mandela, who sounded noticeably more relaxed than his subordinates did earlier today. "We are confident that in the weeks or months that lie ahead we will be able to make good progress," Mr. Mandela said before meeting with Mr. de Klerk.

The convention, which opened last December in a mood of enthusiasm, created the working groups to consider aspects of the transition and submit their plans to the current meeting. But as the second full session of the convention confronted real issues today, the good will soured. The Government and the congress accused each other of derailing the talks, and some smaller parties took sides, splitting the convention nearly down the middle. "The Government continues to lack the will to negotiate seriously," charged Chris Hani, the head of the South African Communist Party, a congress ally. Foreign Minister Roelof F. Botha railed against what he called the "A.N.C.-Communist-Marxist school of belief" that "a winner takes all and grabs the power." Cyril Ramaphosa, the secretary general of the African National Congress, said at a news conference that he saw very little chance that agreement would be reached on the convention floor. "We have become convinced that the South African Government didn't come to today's working group meeting with the clear intent of signing an agreement," Mr. Ramaphosa said.

The Government delegation said the failure to agree on one point should not obscure what its negotiator Tertius Delport called "substantial and very important progress" on other fronts. The Government side proposed that the convention consider the reports of the other working groups, leaving the unresolved issue for discussion later. Mr. Delport cautioned against haste. "We're not dealing with the question at which time the Sunday school will start," he said. "We're dealing with the future of our country." But Mr. Ramaphosa rejected a piecemeal approach and said the entire package must be considered. He and other congress officials accused the Government of trying to postpone the eventuality of majority rule. "We do not want to be caught in a position where the transition goes on forever," said Mohammed Valli Moosa, a negotiator for the congress.

The disagreement involved the margin of approval that would be needed for constitutional provisions dealing specifically with regional issues. The African National Congress says it should be 70 percent of the votes in a elected constitution-making legislature; the Government has held out for 75 percent. These two key participants reached virtual consensus on other proposed guidelines, but the 5 percent gap has stalled unrelated issues that were scheduled for discussion and approval at the negotiations. Their inability to close the modest 5 percent difference reflected in part their exasperation after hours of negotiations, and also their unwillingness to appear to their constituencies to be giving too much ground. The regional issue is a delicate one. The governing National Party and some of the other 18 political parties and organizations in the talks believe that the interests of minorities, including whites, can be better protected if power is decentralized down to the regional level, even though whites do not form the majority in any region.

The National Party also wants the new Parliament to have a second chamber, called a Senate, whose members would be elected regionally rather than nationally. The African National Congress and the Government had already compromised on the margin by which a constitution-making body should enact legislation. The congress initially proposed a two-thirds majority, while the Government wanted 75 percent. They agreed upon 70 percent for most constitutional provisions and 75 percent for the bill of rights, but differed over the regional issues. Each side also introduced further conditions. The Government said its proposed Senate should have equal authority in approving the constitution, giving it a potential veto over what the first chamber drafted.

And the African National Congress said that if the constitution-making body could not pass its provisions by a sufficient majority, after six months the unresolved issues should be put to a public referendum. The congress and the Government have agreed that the transition take place in two stages, with an appointed executive council supervising the government during the initial stage. They also agreed that an interim legislature elected by universal franchise should draft the new constitution.

Source: New York Times