Who Killed Chris Hani?

["FRANCO BARCHIESI" <029FRB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear comrades,

Here is the information requested by Adam and JohnH on recent
developments on the investigation on Chris Hani's murder.

>From the "Mail & Guardian" (Johannesburg), January 31 - February 6,
1997:

"NEW EVIDENCE IN HANI DEATH PLOT"
by Stefaans Brummer and Hazel Friedman

"Secret Military Intelligence reports warning of Chris Hani's
impending assassination have raised the startling possibility of a
wider plot to kill the popular South African communist party leader
before the 1994 elections. The Mail & Guardian is in possession of
two documents, at least one wchih appears certain to have been
delivered to the old South African Defence Force's Department of
Military Intelligence (MI) before the assassination. Julie Wilken,
long-time girlfriend of MI agent Eugene Riley , says in a sworn
statement that she typed the documents, which Riley had composed for
his MI handlers (...). Riley died of a single gunshot wound to his
head on January 31, 1994. His death remains a mistery. The document
raised the question hy MI, pre-warned, had done nothing to prevent
Hani's death (...). Key to the mistery is an apparent ANC-MI double
agent codenamed "Ramon" - described in the document as the source of
the information on the impending assassination. Wilken names "Ramon"
as Mohammed Amin Laher, whom the M&G knows independently to have co-
operated with Riley (...). Wilken says in her affidavit: "I found out
Laher was a member of the ANC's Department of Intelligence and
Security (DIS) when I typed a number of reports over a period of
several months - reposrt which Riley made to his handler at MI after
debriefing Laher... The reports contained sensitive information on
ANC matters". About two weeks before Hani's assassination, Laher
started giving Riley information on an assassination attempt that
would be launched against an unnamed "prominent political figure". In
follow-up meetings, Laher gave more detailed information, including
that Hani would be the target. Wilken states she was present at some
of the earlier meetings. Her affidavit says she recognizes the two
documents in M&G's possession (...) as the true copies of the
documents she typed. The first document wavers between whether it
would be an actual assassination or an attempt to "frighten" Hani.
The later document confirms the intent to kill - and even talks of a
"Polish member of the 'strike unit'" (...). A number of weeks after
Riley's own death, Laher told her the plot to kill Hani had come from
a small group within the DIS which had found out that the
rightwingers were planning the assassination already. Laher told her
the DIS members' role had been to "facilitate" the rightwing attempt
and mentioned "something about" Hani's bodyguards (who were absent at
the time of the assassination) (...). Among a number of explanations
for the contents of the reports is that it was a conscious
disinformation attempt against the ANC by "Ramon". But the question
remains how he could have had foreknowledge of the assassination,
which still indicates at least acquiescence on the part of the agency
- ANC or the government - where he gleaned his information. But (...)
there are some in the ANC who believe ANC members had something to do
with Hani's assassination. Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was reported in
the London "Sunday Times", a week after the assassination, to have
told confidants she believed moderate ANC leaders had "conspired"
with the National Party government to eliminate Hani. the report
said: "according to her, details of Hani's movements, including
critical information about when his bodyguards would be absent, were
passed to government security agents, who in turn made this known to
Waluz [Hani's killer, FB]". (...) Indications in support of this
thesis include:
- Both MI documents state that the planned assassination would be
moved from April 11 to April 10 "since no access could be obtained to
Hani on 1993/04/11" (...). A previously unpublished fact is that Hani
had secretely spent the final hours of his last night at a
Johannesburg hotel. He might have had reason to send his bodyguards
home because of the clandestine nature of the hotel visit. Few people
would have had that intimate a knowledge of Hani's movements to feed
to Waluz.
(...)
- The first MI document says "Ramon" claims Hani's "own agenda has
become a big headache for the MK [Umkhonto we Sizwe, ANC's armed
structure, FB]/DIS hierarchy". This may well be true. Hani, never one
to be dictated to, first came into conflict with his ANC seniors as
far back as the ANC's 1969 Morogoro conference, when he was suspended
for his militant approach. And in 1991, when the ANC had its first
National Executive Committee leadership elections in South Africa,
Hani's immense popularity led him to challenge Thabo Mbeki [currently
SA's vice-president and Mandela's designated successor, FB] for the
party's deputy presidency. Many in the ANC disapproved as the ANC at
the time wanted to project a more moderate image. After intense
behind-the-scenes jockeying, both Hani and Mbeki agreed to stand down
in favour of Walter Sisulu as compromise candidate. A few months
before his death, Hani said in a foreign newspaper interview that he
was thinking of starting an outside communist/labour organisation to
act as a check on the ANC in the government (...)".

A weel later, Mohammed Amin Laher released an interview to the "Mail
& Guardian" saying that he was not "Ramon", but that the
documents involving him in this whole story had a "shred
of truth". He then said that Hani's assassination was a "conspiracy
on both sides of the spectrum", and that ANC security members were
involved in the plot to kill Hani. Laher confirmed to have been
associated with Riley in the past. Associated with Riley was also
Ricky Nkondo, former ANC Dept. of Intelligence and Security member,
and now head of division in the National Intelligence Agency (NIA:
incidentally the same NIA whose agents have been caught by comrades
in identifying student and staff activists at universities such as
here at Wits, Pretoria, and Durban-Westville) in the office of the
Deputy Intelligence Minister.
Is it just the beginning?

Hasta siempre

Franco

Franco Barchiesi
Sociology of Work Unit
Dept of Sociology
Private Bag 3
University of the Witwatersrand
PO Wits 2050
Johannesburg
South Africa
Tel. (++27 11) 716.3290
Fax  (++27 11) 716.3781
E-Mail 029frb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/aut_html
http://pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il/~mshalev/direct.htm

Home:
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