Assassination of Chris Hani

Chris Hani, General-Secretary of the South African Communist Party (SACP) and a senior figure in the African National Congress's military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe, was shot and killed outside his home in Dawn Park, Boksburg, on the morning of 10 April 1993. Hani had joined the ANC Youth League as a teenager, studied at the University of Fort Hare and Rhodes University, and became a prominent anti-apartheid military and political leader after returning to South Africa following the ANC's unbanning in 1990. He had previously survived a 1981 assassination attempt and had led a march at Bisho Stadium in September 1992 during which 28 people were killed by gunfire, an event known as the Bisho Massacre.

The assassination occurred as Hani stepped out of his car; he was shot at approximately 10:20am and died at the scene from two bullets to the chest and two additional bullets to the head. His fifteen-year-old daughter, Nomakhwezi, was present. A neighbor, Margaretha Harmse, identified the shooter and his vehicle and alerted police, leading to the arrest of Janusz Waluś, a Polish-born South African immigrant associated with far-right groups including the National Party and the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging. Waluś was interrogated by police the same day.

Clive Derby-Lewis, at the time Shadow Minister for Economic Affairs for the Conservative Party of South Africa, was subsequently arrested for his role in supplying the modified pistol used in the killing, which had been stolen from the military. Derby-Lewis's wife, Gaye Derby-Lewis, was tried in connection with the case but was acquitted. Investigators recovered a list of assassination targets compiled by Waluś and Derby-Lewis that included other prominent anti-apartheid figures.

Waluś and Derby-Lewis were convicted and initially sentenced to death; following a constitutional ruling in 1995, their sentences were commuted to life imprisonment. In 1997 both applied for amnesty before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, arguing the killing was politically motivated and carried out on orders from the Conservative Party; the commission rejected their claims after inconsistencies emerged in their testimony.

The assassination triggered riots in Cape Town, Durban and Port Elizabeth, resulting in seven deaths, including three from police gunfire, and an estimated six million workers took part in a one-day strike on 15 April 1993 in commemoration of Hani. Nelson Mandela addressed the nation on 14 April 1993 calling for calm. The unrest is widely cited as accelerating negotiations toward South Africa's first fully democratic election, held in April 1994. Derby-Lewis was granted parole in 2015 due to terminal lung cancer and died on 3 November 2016. Waluś was repeatedly denied parole over the following years before being granted parole in December 2022 and was reportedly scheduled for deportation to Poland in December 2024. Various conspiracy theories regarding wider political involvement in the assassination have circulated but have not been formally investigated or substantiated.