Chris hani biography

Anti-apartheid activist

For the district in Eastern Cape, see Chris Hani District Municipality. For the settlement in Western Cape, see Chris Hani, Western Cape.

Chris Hani (28 June 1942 – 10 April 1993),^[1] born Martin Thembisile HaniSSA, SBS, CLS, DMG, MMS, was the leader of the South African Communist Party and chief of staff of uMkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC).

He was a fierce opponent of the apartheid government, and was assassinated by Janusz Waluś, a Polish immigrant and sympathiser of the Conservative opposition on 10 April 1993, during the unrest preceding the transition to democracy.^[2]

Early life

Martin Thembisile Hani was born on 28 June 1942^[1] in the Xhosa village in Cofimvaba, Transkei.

His father Gilbert Hani was a mine union worker and political activist who left the country to go into exile in 1962 and returned to South Africa