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The dawn of Thursday, 10 April 2025, marked 32 years since Comrade Chris Hani, our SACP General Secretary, was assassinated in cold blood. Hani, the communist revolutionary, was a husband, a father, an uncle – everything that aligns with our African structures of family and relatives. His assassination permanently deprived his wife, Comrade Limpho, of a husband, and their children of a father. It robbed his entire family of a brother and an uncle, and the community and nation of a leader.

We highlight these facts because, in 2022, we argued at the Constitutional Court, as we did before at the Supreme Court of Appeal and the High Court, that Janusz Waluś, the man who pulled the trigger, was unrepentant and remained unremorseful. He stated that he had no regrets about assassinating Hani the communist but regretted assassinating Hani the husband and father. However, Hani the communist and Hani the husband and father were one and the same, an indivisible person. The assassination of Hani the communist was simultaneously the assassination of Hani the husband and father.

Despite this, the Constitutional Court accepted and went further to impose a non-existent remorse from the assassin on Hani’s family. Waluś confirmed his lack of remorse in an interview after his release at the end of 2024, following the November 2022 Constitutional Court judgment ordering his parole within ten days. The judgment remains a source of deep disappointment and has exposed the Constitutional Court’s standard of evidence to legitimate criticism. 

We applied to the Constitutional Court for the rescission of the judgment, but our application was dismissed. The facts, particularly the truth we have consistently stated, are now evident for all to see. This matter cannot be left unattended, forgotten, or abandoned. It is a fundamental challenge to our democratic dispensation. It demands an answer: What is to be done?

The SACP and the family of the late Chris Hani, represented by Comrade Limpho Hani, have formally requested the urgent institution of an inquest into his assassination. While two individuals, Janusz Waluś and his co-assassin, Clive Derby-Lewis, were convicted for their direct roles, numerous critical questions remain unanswered about the full extent of the plot behind this heinous crime. Evidence suggests that Waluś and Derby-Lewis did not act alone. 

It is imperative that all those involved in the planning and execution of the assassination – including those who orchestrated, facilitated, or enabled it, or were aware of it but failed to report it – be identified and held accountable. We firmly believe there is overwhelming justification for an inquest, particularly in light of the following outstanding matters.

The murder weapon

The firearm used in the assassination was obtained from a military armoury. To date, no disclosure has been made regarding who took the murder weapon from the military armoury, nor have those responsible been held accountable.

The silencer

The murder weapon was tested with a silencer through what Waluś described as “backyard engineering”. However, those responsible for manufacturing, sourcing, fitting and testing the silencer remain unidentified and unaccountable. Waluś cannot claim “backyard engineering” without knowledge of those involved. This underscores his lack of remorse, as a truly remorseful individual would fully co-operate in disclosing the truth to the full extent.

The assassination hit list

Evidence shows that Chris Hani was the third target on an assassination hit list. The identities of those who compiled and authorised the list, as well as those who provided security details of the targets’ homes, remain undisclosed and have not faced legal consequences.

It was Derby-Lewis who co-ordinated the acquisition of the murder weapon after it was taken from the military armoury. Through his wife, Gaye, he also obtained the hit list, which included the home addresses of Hani, Comrades Nelson Mandela, Joe Slovo and other comrades. Gaye’s role must be re-examined in its entirety as part of the inquest.

The handling of the crime scene

There are serious concerns about how the apartheid police handled the assassination crime scene, including the neglect of crucial evidence that could have led to further investigations and the identification of additional conspirators.

Truth and Reconciliation Commission findings

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission rightfully denied Waluś and Derby-Lewis amnesty on the grounds that they failed to make full disclosure of the truth about the assassination. This alone underscores the need for a thorough and transparent judicial inquiry.

Our repeated calls for an inquest

Despite repeated demands by the Hani family and the SACP for an inquest over the years, the state has taken no substantive action to ensure all those involved in this assassination are brought to justice. This matter has remained unresolved for decades.

The assassination of Comrade Chris Hani was not merely an attack on an individual but an attack on our struggle for liberation and democracy. It was an attack on the ideals Hani dedicated his life to achieve. The pursuit of truth and justice in Hani’s assassination case is not only about accountability but is also essential for national healing and closure for Hani’s family, comrades and the broader South African society, of which the working class is the majority.

We therefore reiterate our call for the relevant state institutions to institute a formal judicial inquest as a matter of urgency. A thorough and transparent inquiry will uncover the full extent of the assassination plot and ensure all those responsible are held accountable.

The multiple indications that additional individuals were involved in orchestrating Hani’s assassination cannot be ignored. The conviction of Waluś and Derby-Lewis alone does not equate to full justice being served, given the scale and implications of this crime.

Advance and intensify the struggle for a socialist transition across all key fronts of class contestation

In memory of Chris Hani, the working class must unite and move beyond being a class in itself to act as a class for itself, to advance its own interests. The exploitative capitalist system – responsible for the entrenched crisis of mass unemployment, poverty and inequality in our country – is the principal enemy confronting the working class. To secure a decisive breakthrough, the working class must forge the widest possible unity in struggle, not only to confront the effects of the crisis but to uproot its systemic cause.

Only by achieving policy change can we begin to address the crisis-high levels of unemployment, poverty and inequality. This requires confronting the interrelated crisis of working-class representation that has emerged in our country. It is within this context, and the imperative to advance and intensify the struggle for a socialist transition across all key fronts of class contestation, that the SACP resolved to contest the 2026 local government elections. The SACP is forging ahead with this decision.

We still say NO to VAT increases

Our SACP Central Committee met from 4 to 6 April 2025. We reaffirmed our Party’s strong opposition to a VAT increase. Let us all recall. Upon becoming aware of the intention to raise VAT, revealed through media coverage ahead of the aborted budget presentation in February 2025, the SACP issued a statement rejecting the regressive VAT hike even before the National Treasury could unveil it in Parliament. 

Even if the proposed VAT increase has been reduced from two per cent to 0.5 per cent in the 2025/2026 and 2026/2027 financial years, respectively, any VAT hike will still negatively impact the workers and poor. Therefore, the SACP reiterates its call on the government to honour its commitment to find alternative sources of funding to replace the proposed VAT hike within 30 days.

National Health Insurance 

In memory of Chris Hani, recalling his leadership in the Healthcare, Hunger Eradication and Housing Campaign, also known as the Tripple-H Campaign, the SACP reiterates its stance. In defence of the National Health Insurance (NHI), we call for its urgent and full implementation towards the provision of quality healthcare for all. 

The government, especially the Presidency, must not abstain from the court process to defend the NHI. 

In addition, the SACP calls for provincial and academic hospitals to be empowered, including in terms of financial delegation, to deliver quality healthcare.

South Africa–United States trade relations

The SACP calls on our government to urgently review the full implications of the “reciprocal tariffs” imposed by the United States on 2 April 2025. Should the United States go ahead to impose the irrational tariffs, this will effectively remove the trade benefits that South Africa accessed under AGOA.

In the interest of protecting and creating domestic employment to overcome the unemployment crisis and tackle poverty, the SACP further calls for the immediate withdrawal of all concessions that South Africa granted the United States in exchange for AGOA access since its inception in 2000 – if the United States proceeds to revoke that access by imposing the so-called reciprocal tariffs. We say this while noting the temporary pause by the US in implementing the maximum rate of the so-called reciprocal tariffs.

It is important to recall that the concessions South Africa made to the United States, notably in 2015 for US imports of poultry “spare parts”, beef and pork, were conditional on continued access to AGOA. To the extent that these concessions harmed local poultry, beef and pork production, they came at the expense of domestic industries, workers and their families. Therefore, maintaining the concessions if the United States removes AGOA benefits for South Africa will further damage local production, postpone industrialisation and accelerate retrenchments – all of which will harm the working class.

Every policy decision must contribute to the national imperative to overcome the crisis-levels of unemployment, poverty and inequality, and to eliminate the legacy of historical underdevelopment – which continues to affect the formerly oppressed most severely, with the workers and poor forming the majority.

Against gender-based violence

In memory of Chris Hani, we reiterate a call by our Central Committee on this occasion. We call on law enforcement authorities to act decisively against all forms of gender-based violence and child abuse.

Our country continues to be gripped by a deep and violent crisis of gender-based violence, with rape rates among the highest in the world. The persistent brutality against women and children, both girls and boys, is a stain on the conscience of our society. This is a glaring indictment of our state institutions.

The slow pace of investigations, the constant re-traumatisation of survivors, and the gross mishandling of cases by some within our law enforcement authorities reflect a systemic failure that reinforces patriarchal violence rather than uprooting it. Nowhere is this more evident than in the lack of progress in investigating the rape of a minor and in the shameful acquittal of Timothy Omotoso – a man accused by multiple survivors of heinous sexual abuse, in a case where a key whistle-blower has now been shot dead.

International solidarity 

In memory of Chris Hani the internationalist, the SACP reaffirms its unwavering solidarity with the people of the world in their struggles against imperialist aggression, domination and exploitation. 

We stand with the people of Swaziland in their fight for democracy, the people of Western Sahara against occupation by Morocco, and the people of Palestine resisting occupation and genocide by the apartheid Israeli settler regime. 

We stand with the people of Cuba against the criminal blockade and the continued occupation of Guantanamo Bay by the United States. 

We also stand with the people of Syria, Iran, Lebanon and others in the axis of resistance against aggression by the apartheid Israeli settler regime and the United States. 

We stand with the people of Venezuela against imperialist aggression and the destabilising machinations by the United States.

Issued by the South African Communist Party