The Congress of South African Trade Unions joins South Africans to commemorate the 27th anniversary of the assassination of late South African Communist Party (SACP) leader and Alliance stalwart Comrade Chris Hani
Cde Hani who was an ANC member and led the SACP and Umkhonto we Sizwe was shot and killed on the 10th of April 1993 by Polish immigrant Janusz Walus working with Clive Derby-Lewis.
He was without doubt a leader committed to his country and to the development of the people and a more just world. He remains a symbol of resistance, determination, and hope for a better world.
We are commemorating Cde Chris Hani in the midst of a Covid-19 pandemic whose impact is being felt by the working class in growing unemployment, a growing precariousness of employment, declining household incomes, reduced pensions, and social services.
This global crisis will predictably see the capitalist class scrambling to claw back its rate of profitability at the expense of the working-class
We are likely to see cuts in social services and increasing privatisation of basic services such as health, education, water and electricity. Already we are seeing a dramatic escalation in food prices and the price of basic services such as water and electricity. Calls for fiscal austerity are already reverberating.
In this volatile and uncertain period, we need to summon from the grave the spirit of Cde Chris Hani as we mobilise to protect workers and poor communities from bearing the cost of this crisis.
The legend of Cde Chris Hani is alive and well in the young people of this country in their unquestionable struggle for equality and economic liberation. It is important that we ensure that the life of Cde Chris Hani and other martyrs of our struggle for liberation were not taken in vain.
Those who thought that they could take away Cde Hani should know that he is alive today. We should work to transform our economy and uproot institutional racism as part of history lessons about his life.
In acknowledgment of his internationalism, we should connect our struggles with those of other vulnerable and oppressed peoples of the world. Cde Hani saw global human rights not as a problem of South Africa but as systems of inequality that needs to be dismantled.
As COSATU, we pledge that we will continue to strive to unite all workers in the struggle against poverty and exploitation, and for safe working conditions, decent and quality jobs, comprehensive social security and comprehensive social services.
Long Live the Spirit of Chris Hani!
Issued by COSATU
Sizwe Pamla (Cosatu National Spokesperson)
Tel: 011 339 4911
Fax: 011 339 5080
Cell: 060 975 6794