South Africa’s late Communist Party (SACP) leader, Chris Hani, was “a unifier and a champion of non-racialism,” President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Saturday.
Ramaphosa said this when he commemorated the late secretary general of the Communist Party who was shot dead outside his home on 10thApril 1993 as he picked up his morning newspaper by a Polish immigrant Janus Walus, who is currently serving a life sentence for the assassination.
The president said: “Comrade Chris was a unifier. But above all else, he was a nation builder. Even as a communist, he was a quintessential nation builder.”
“He was a champion of non-racialism. He put the interest of the people above his own,” Ramaphosa said after laying a wreath at the Thomas Titus Nkobi Memorial Park in Ekurhuleni, a Johannesburg suburb.
He added: “He was always clear, forthright, honest and articulate. He did so precisely so that we can correct our errors.”
Praising the fallen leader, whose Communist Party is in a governing alliance with his ruling African National Congress, the president the ANC to follow in his footsteps following his unifying message.
“We can only advance the interests of the people of South Africa as a whole when the African National Congress itself is united, when the alliance is united, and are working together” in the national interest, the president said.
Ramaphosa was accompanied, among others, by Limpho, Hani’s widow, to the commemoration which has become an annual event.
NM/as/APA