Limpho Hani
{{Short description|South African activist and widow of Chris Hani (born 1948)}}
{{Infobox office holder
| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1948|01|31|df=yes}}
| birth_place = Maseru, Basutoland
| citizenship = South Africa
| party = African National Congress
| spouse = {{marriage|Chris Hani|1973|10 April 1993|end=d.}}
| birth_name = Limpho Sekamane
| office = Member of the National Assembly
| termstart = May 1994
| termend = August 1999
| successor = Kay Moonsamy
}}
Limpho Hani ({{Nee|Sekamane}}; born 31 January 1948) is a Mosotho–South African activist who is the widow of anti-apartheid activist Chris Hani. After her husband was assassinated in 1993, she had her own brief political career in the post-apartheid government, representing the African National Congress (ANC) in the National Assembly from May 1994 to August 1999. She also served on the ANC's National Executive Committee during that period. She has since remained in the public eye, partly because of the national symbolic importance of her husband's murder and partly because of her own activism in seeking to oppose parole for the killers.{{Cite web |date=2017-04-20 |title=Prosaic – until Hani's assassins |url=https://mg.co.za/article/2017-04-20-00-prosaic-until-hanis-assassins/ |access-date=2023-04-07 |website=The Mail & Guardian |language=en-ZA}}{{Cite news |last=Msimang |first=Sisonke |date=2016-03-11 |title=You may free apartheid killers but you can't force their victims to forgive |language=en-GB |work=The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/11/chris-hani-apartheid-killers-cant-force-victims-to-forgive |access-date=2023-04-07 |issn=0261-3077}}
Early life
She was born Limpho Sekamane on 31 January 1948{{cite magazine |date=11 June 1999 |title=General Notice: Notice 1319 of 1999 – Electoral Commission: Representatives Elected to the Various Legislatures |url=https://gazettes.africa/archive/za/1999/za-government-gazette-dated-1999-06-11-no-20203.pdf |magazine=Government Gazette of South Africa |location=Pretoria, South Africa |publisher=Government of South Africa |volume=408 |issue=20203 |pages= |access-date=26 March 2021}} and is from Sea Point in Maseru, the capital of Lesotho.{{Cite web |date=10 April 2013 |title=He was more than just a freedom fighter |url=https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/2013-04-10-he-was-more-than-just-a-freedom-fighter/ |access-date=2023-04-07 |website=Sowetan |language=en-ZA}}{{Cite book |last=Macmillan |first=Hugh |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wV4XEAAAQBAJ |title=Chris Hani |date=2021-02-15 |publisher=Ohio University Press |isbn=978-0-8214-4740-6 |language=en}}{{Cite web |last=Letsie |first=Mahlomola |date=2022-04-10 |title=The death of apartheid fighter |url=https://lesothotribune.co.ls/6725-2/ |access-date=2023-04-07 |website=Lesotho Tribune |language=en-US}}
Life with Chris Hani: 1973–1993
She married Chris Hani in 1974 at a magistrate's court in Lusaka, Zambia; they had a celebratory wedding lunch at Wimpy.{{Cite web |date=2020-04-26 |title=Celebrating the Life and Times of Chris Hani |url=https://www.ekurhuleni.gov.za/press-releases/chris-hani/celebrating-the-life-and-times-of-chris-hani/,%20https://www.ekurhuleni.gov.za/press-releases/chris-hani/celebrating-the-life-and-times-of-chris-hani/ |access-date=2023-04-07 |website=City of Ekurhuleni |language=en-ZA}} After her wedding, Hani spent time studying overseas in Yugoslavia, but upon her return to Southern Africa in late 1975, she and her husband moved into a house in Lithabaneng in the suburbs of Maseru; the house came to be known to ANC members as "Moscow House". The couple had three daughters together: Neo (born 1973), Nomakhwezi (born 1978, died 2001),{{Cite web |date=11 March 2001 |title=Hani daughter's mystery death |url=https://www.news24.com/news24/hani-daughters-mystery-death-20010310 |access-date=2023-04-07 |website=News24 |language=en-US}}{{Cite web |last=Mboyane |first=Sphiwe |date=17 March 2001 |title=Royal send-off for Nomakhwezi Hani |url=https://www.news24.com/news24/royal-send-off-for-nomakhwezi-hani-20010317 |access-date=2023-04-07 |website=News24 |language=en-US}} and Lindiwe (born 1981).{{Cite web |date=3 April 2011 |title=Thembisile Chris Hani Timeline 1942 – 2003 |url=https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/thembisile-chris-hani-timeline-1942-2003 |access-date=2023-04-07 |website=South African History Online}}
Hani's husband was a senior leader in Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC), and the South African Communist Party (SACP); the organisations were at that time operating in exile in Southern Africa – primarily out of Lusaka – because they were banned by the apartheid government in South Africa. Hani herself worked for the Lesotho Tourism Board, but she also became increasingly involved in MK operations;{{Cite book |last1=Smith |first1=Janet |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wCGrEAAAQBAJ&q=limpho+hani |title=Hani: A Life too Short |last2=Tromp |first2=Beauregard |date=2023 |publisher=Jonathan Ball Publishers |isbn=978-1-77619-276-2 |language=en}} after the 1976 Soweto Uprising swelled the ANC's numbers, she was personally involved in smuggling new MK recruits across the South African border and through Swaziland. She was detained by the South African authorities for several months in 1977–1978 and during that time, according to her husband's biographer Hugh Macmillan, she gave evidence for the apartheid state against Mountain Qumbela, a former ANC leader in the Cape.
Hani's husband was subject to an assassination attempt in 1982, and in the aftermath she left her job at the Lesotho Tourism Board to move with him to Lusaka.{{Cite book |last=Sellström |first=Tor |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uXiyy74NQnoC&q=limpho+hani |title=Sweden and National Liberation in Southern Africa: Solidarity and assistance, 1970-1994 |date=1999 |publisher=Nordic Africa Institute |isbn=978-91-7106-448-6 |pages=407 |language=en}} She returned to Maseru in 1984 and took up employment with the local office of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency and then, from 1985, at the Swedish Embassy in Maseru. Hani and her family moved to South Africa in 1990 after the ANC was unbanned during the negotiations to end apartheid. During an advanced stage of the negotiations, on 10 April 1993, Chris Hani was assassinated outside their home in Dawn Park in Boksburg; his teenage daughter Nomakhwezi was with him.{{Cite web |date=19 April 2011 |title=Chris Hani |url=https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/chris-hani |access-date=2023-04-07 |website=South African History Online}}
Political career: 1994–1999
In South Africa's first post-apartheid elections in April 1994, Hani was elected to represent the ANC as a Member of the National Assembly, the lower house of the new South African Parliament.{{Cite web |date=24 May 1994 |title=Minutes of proceedings of the Constitutional Assembly |url=https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/history/MINUTES/CA24054.PDF |access-date=2 April 2023 |publisher=Department of Justice and Constitutional Development}}{{Cite news |date=10 May 1994 |title=It's Official: President Mandela |work=Christian Science Monitor |url=https://www.csmonitor.com/1994/0510/10011.html |access-date=2023-04-07 |issn=0882-7729}} She was re-elected in the next general election in June 1999, but she resigned from her seat on 17 August 1999; her seat was filled by Kay Moonsamy.{{Cite web |date=2002-06-02 |title=The National Assembly List of Resinations and Nominations |url=http://parliament.gov.za/na/resign.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020602095739/http://parliament.gov.za/na/resign.htm |archive-date=2 June 2002 |access-date=2023-04-07 |website=Parliament of South Africa}} At the same time, she served on the National Executive Committee of the ANC: she was first elected onto the body at the ANC's 49th National Conference in Bloemfontein in December 1994{{Cite web |date=20 December 1994 |title=49th National Conference: National Executive Committee as elected at Conference |url=https://www.anc1912.org.za/49th-national-conference-national-executive-committee-as-elected-at-conference/ |url-status= |access-date=2021-12-04 |website=African National Congress |language=en-US}} and she was re-elected in December 1997, but she resigned during her second term "due to other commitments".{{Cite web |date=16 December 2002 |title=49th National Conference: National Executive Committee as elected at Conference |url=https://www.anc1912.org.za/49th-national-conference-national-executive-committee-as-elected-at-conference/ |url-status= |access-date=2021-12-04 |website=African National Congress |language=en-US}}
TRC and widowhood
In the immediate and long-term aftermath of her husband's murder, Hani did not abide sentiments of forgiveness towards the killers, leading Sisonke Msimang to describe "her public refusal to forgive" as "almost heretical" given the conciliatory nation-building narrative exemplified by Nelson Mandela, South Africa's first post-apartheid president.{{Cite web |last=Msimang |first=Sisonke |date=2014-06-10 |title=Limpho Hani, Clive Derby-Lewis and the power of refusing to forgive |url=https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2014-06-11-limpho-hani-clive-derby-lewis-and-the-power-of-refusing-to-forgive/ |access-date=2023-04-07 |website=Daily Maverick |language=en}} During the post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission, two right-wing extremists, assassin Janusz Waluś and accomplice Clive Derby-Lewis, expressed regret to the family and applied for amnesty for their role in the murder, but Hani and her family – represented by George Bizos – vociferously, and successfully, opposed amnesty.{{Cite news |last=Duke |first=Lynne |date=1997-08-22 |title=South African pleads for amnesty in killing |language=en-US |newspaper=Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1997/08/22/south-african-pleads-for-amnesty-in-killing/eee731fb-ea1a-42ed-9258-2e5d26da4d32/ |access-date=2023-04-07 |issn=0190-8286}}{{Cite web |date=20 August 1997 |title=Setting killers free in S. Africa Harmony: To resolve a violent past, South Africa is willing to exchange the truth for the freedom of "political" killers. |url=https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1997-08-20-1997232064-story.html |access-date=2023-04-07 |website=Baltimore Sun}}{{Cite web |date=1997-08-11 |title=Hani's killers confront the truth test |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/hani-s-killers-confront-the-truth-test-1245051.html |access-date=2023-04-07 |website=The Independent |language=en}}
When a court approved medical parole for Derby-Lewis in 2014, Hani expressed outrage, saying that it was "a very sad day in South Africa". In 2022, Waluś was also granted parole, but only after a sustained campaign by Hani and the SACP to block it. Explaining her decision to continue opposing Waluś's parole, Hani told the media:
This chap, whatever his name is, he murdered my husband in cold blood which resulted in my late daughter [Nomakhwezi] attempting to commit suicide twice... this child was going for counseling for six years and then died. In my view, he killed my husband and my daughter... this chap, I won't say his name, 20 years later he says he is sorry. He doesn't say it to me... I will never forgive. He took my husband's life [and] he took my children father... why should I forgive him?... I will never forgive him. All I am asking for is justice nothing more, nothing less.{{Cite web |date=22 February 2022 |title=Hani's widow says she will never forgive his killer |url=https://www.enca.com/news/hanis-widow-says-she-will-never-forgive-his-killer |access-date=2023-04-07 |website=eNCA |language=en}}The case was ultimately arbitrated by the Constitutional Court, which ruled in November 2022 that the Minister of Justice and Correctional Services had been irrational in denying parole to Waluś, who had been eligible for release for more than 15 years. In a widely publicised outburst, Hani stormed out of the court after the verdict and told reporters that the judgement was "diabolical" and that the court and Chief Justice Raymond Zondo had "failed this country completely".{{Cite web |last=Pijoos |first=Iavan |date=21 November 2022 |title='Zondo has failed this country': Limpho Hani slams ConCourt's order to grant parole to Janusz Walus |url=https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/zondo-has-failed-this-country-limpho-hani-slams-concourts-order-to-grant-janusz-walus-parole-20221121 |access-date=2023-04-07 |website=News24 |language=en-US}} She said, "This country is finished. In this country, a foreign white [Polish Waluś] can come into South Africa and kill my husband".{{Cite web |date=2022-11-21 |title='Chief Justice Zondo failed to consider my family in handing down judgment on Janusz Walus' |url=https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/chief-justice-zondo-failed-to-consider-my-family-in-handing-down-judgment-on-janusz-walus/ |access-date=2023-04-07 |website=SABC News |language=en-US}} She also expressed sympathy with the views of Minister Lindiwe Sisulu, who had recently received public attention for attacks on the judiciary and who Hani said was "the only one in this country who saw through these guys".{{Cite web |last=Cotterell |first=Gareth |date=2022-11-21 |title='Karma will deal with them all' – Hani's widow furious with judges after Waluś given parole |url=https://www.citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/hanis-widow-furious-with-judges/ |access-date=2023-04-07 |website=The Citizen |language=en}} A subsequent application by Hani and the SACP for rescission of the court's order was unanimously dismissed.{{Cite web |last=Maughan |first=Karyn |date=9 December 2022 |title=ConCourt dismisses Limpho Hani, SACP's application for reconsideration of Walus release |url=https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/just-in-concourt-dismisses-limpho-hani-sacps-application-for-reconsideration-of-walus-release-20221209 |access-date=2023-04-07 |website=News24 |language=en-US}}