Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 11, 1993 TAG: 9304110018
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: BOKSBURG, SOUTH AFRICA LENGTH: Medium
BLACK SOUTH AFRICAN LEADER SHOT TO DEATH
Chris Hani, who headed the armed resistance against apartheid and led South Africa's influential Communist Party, was assassinated outside his home Saturday by a white gunman, witnesses said.The killing shocked many blacks, who Hani revered militant opposition to white minority rule, and raised fears of a setback in negotiations to end apartheid.
Police arrested a white suspect, Januzu Jakub Wallus, 40, shortly after the shooting. Wallus, a Polish-born South African who lives in a suburb of Pretoria, was found with two pistols in his car, said Police Brig. Frans Malherbe.
Police offered no immediate motive, but suspicion centered on extremist white supremacy groups that have made death threats against black leaders.
Hani, 50, was the most senior black leader assassinated in South Africa in decades and perhaps the most popular African National Congress official after the group's president, Nelson Mandela, who advocates more moderate policies.
He had been a target of assassins before, escaping car-bombing attempts in 1980 and 1981 in Lesotho.
President F.W. de Klerk condemned Hani's killing, as did black and white leaders across the political spectrum.
"I think that somebody or some group is hellbent on sabotaging the negotiation process," said Desmond Tutu, the Anglican archbishop whose fight against apartheid won him the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize. "Someone doesn't want us to have a new South Africa."
In Washington, the State Department called the killing "a deplorable and troubling event" that underscored the need to proceed with negotiations on ending apartheid.
The government and the ANC are close to agreement on a plan for a multiracial interim government. But the negotiations have been derailed previously by violence, and Hani's death could add another snag, especially if militant blacks react violently.
Neighbors said Hani was gunned down in the driveway of his modest red brick home in the racially integrated suburb of Boksburg, southeast of Johannesburg. Seconds after Hani returned from an errand, a white man drove into the driveway and shot him four or five times at point-blank range, they said.
Hani, like most senior ANC leaders, had bodyguards, but they apparently were absent Saturday. ANC officials refused to answer questions about security.
Hani had a powerful following among militants who oppose power sharing with de Klerk's white government.
Hani had often preached confrontation, sometimes seeming at odds with Mandela. Recently, however, Hani called for reconciliation, saying days ago that violence was hampering efforts to arrange the country's first election that would include blacks.
Keywords:
FATALITY