Chris Hani was assassinated outside his home in a small town near Johannesburg on April 10th of this year. He was a nationalist leader, secretary of the South African Communist Party and one time Chief of Staff of Umkhonto we Sizwe (the ANC armed force). He was born in 1942 in Cofimvaba, Transkei. He was educated in the Eastern Cape at Lovedale and then Fort Hare, both segregated institutions in the Transkei. Lovedale was one of the better schools for Africans, and Fort Hare was designated a University for Xhosa-speaking students after strict Apartheid was introduced in 1959. He did a Bachelor of Arts degree in the humanities and then left the country to join Umkhonto we Sizwe. In 1967 Hani was part of a group of guerillas involved in a disastrous incursion into Rhodesia (now called Zimbabwe) from which few emerged alive. Hani escaped and was soon posted to Lesotho, in charge of infiltrating men into South Africa on behalf of the ANC. He died while secretary of the South African Communist Party.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has held hearings investigating Hani's assasination.
