By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The African National Congress (ANC) has called for an inquest to be opened into the assassination of South African Communist Party (SACP) Chris Hani.
Hani was assassinated 30 years ago on April 10 1993.
“We reiterated on April 10, 2025, that the inquest on the death of Chris Hani must also be opened as the African National Congress (ANC).”
“We believe that it is imperative, that if we are to have full closure to this matter, that such inquest is equally important,” ANC secretary general Fikile Mbalula said during a media briefing Thursday in Sandton, as he delivered a statement commemorating Hani.
The SACP has also called for the government to establish an inquest into the death of Hani.
Limpho Hani and members of the SACP led a wreath-laying ceremony at the South Park Cemetery in Boksburg on Monday.
Hani slammed the country’s justice system for having granted an “unremorseful”, Janusz Walus parole last year.
Last December, the South African government confirmed through minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni that Walus, convicted for the 1993 assassination of the former SACP Secretary-General, would be deported to Poland following the completion of his parole.
Mbalula’s comments follow the announcement earlier this week that inquests into the deaths of Chief Albert Luthuli and Griffiths Mxenge will begin Monday at the Pietermaritzburg High Court.
A goods train struck and killed Chief Luthuli, as local and international communities called him, on 21 July 1967.
An inquest into his death was presided over by Magistrate C.I. Boswell on 19 September 1967. According to the court, there was no proof that any South African Railways employees or anybody else had criminal responsibility.
Mxenge was brutally stabbed 45 times, and his throat was slit in Umlazi near Durban in November 1981.
The inquest into his death on 15 July 1982 did not initially reveal his perpetrators. They revealed themselves nine years after Mxenge’s death through a confession drafted by Butana Almond Nofemela.
In 1997, Nofemela, David Tshikalange and Dirk Coetzee were found guilty of Mxenge’s murder; however, they were granted amnesty by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) before they could be sentenced by the High Court sitting in Durban. This resulted in the discontinuation of the trial proceedings.
Justice and Constitutional Development Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi reopened the inquests after recommendations from the National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP).
The Director of Public Prosecutions in KwaZulu-Natal, Advocate Elaine Harrison said, the opening came following the collaboration between the NPA KZN TRC Unit and the NPA TRC Unit at the national office, the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (DPCI) and the National Archives.
“The purpose of inquests is to determine how a person died and if anyone should be held responsible for their death, Harrison said.”
For the first time, the SACP held its annual Chris Hani commemoration outside of Gauteng with the event taking place on Thursday in Cofimvaba, in the Eastern Cape.
Deputy president Paul Mashatile described Hani as a fearless leader, intellectual strategist of the liberation movement that left a task to continue building an economically liberated country.
Mashatile also highlighted the ANC’s decision to reconfigure the alliance, a move intended to bring more parties into the fold to strengthen the Government of National Unity (GNU).
“The leadership of the ANC, after what has happened recently, decided that we are going to reconfigure the alliance.
“We are going to reconfigure the GNU to ensure that we bring other parties on board, work with us, but also to ensure that we discuss this properly with all the parties,” Mashatile said.