Nelson Mandela’s speech after the death of Chris Hani

“On 10 April 1993, the leader of the South African Communist Party (SACP) and chief of staff of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC) Chris Hani was assassinated outside his home in Boksburg. His murder was a near breaking point which could have resulted in a civil or rather race war and halt the process for reconciliation and the quest for a united democratic South Africa. The assassin Janusz WaluÅ› and his accomplice Clive Derby-Lewis admitted during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) that they murdered Hani and their intent was to provoke a race war and derail the negotiation process that would inevitably lead to the end of white minority rule.”

As I campaigned in NZ against the scourge of apartheid I came to admire the uncompromising leadership and courage of the chief of staff of Umkhonto we Sizwe Chris Hani.  Chris would have gone on, in my opinion to lead South Africa and it would have been a much different place today had that been allowed to happen.

There is a direct correlation with what has transpired in both South Africa and Ireland.  In Ireland the forces of empire assassinated many of our leaders, Ta Power, Mairead Farrell and Ronnie Bunting to name a few and effectively chose leaders that they suspected, rightly, that they could turn and manipulate.  As a result of murdering Chris Hani, neo-liberalism in S.A. is inflicted on the people by a black elite in conjunction with the same corporations that controlled the Apartheid State.

In Ireland the same is happening and instead of honouring our fallen volunteers Sinn Fein has been co-opted into an oppressive government with no intention to peruse the reunification of the country that my and untold other families have fought for, for nearly 100 years.  To date we have been out-manoeuvred by a cunning edifice constructed over many centuries designed to oppress the working people and to exploit the living planet.

We have come to a deadly juncture in history where we have psychopaths at the helm of our planetary survival system which is in deadly peril from runaway abrupt climate change. The Anglo Zionist empire stalks Syria, Iran, Russia and China with the ever present threat of nuclear war.

Recently I was interviewed by Eric Draitser from Stop Imperialism for a podcast that will be uploaded any day now at Counterpunch where I discuss the possibility of these same psychopaths unleashing a nuclear winter to slow down the runaway nature of our climate predicament.  Hopefully I will be wrong.

See more at, South African History online, here.