Chris Hani

Idag är det en speciell dag i Sydafrika. Det är 20 år sedan mordet på Chris Hani. Hade han levt, tror många att han efterträtt Nelson Mandela som president.  För att förklara hans betydelse, gör jag det enkelt för mig och kopierar en del av det som skrivs om honom på wikipedia:

"Chris Hani was assassinated on 10 April 1993 outside his home in Dawn Park, a racially mixed suburb of Boksburg. He was accosted by a Polish far-right immigrant named Janusz Waluś, who shot him in the head and at the back as he stepped out of his car. Waluś fled the scene, but was arrested soon afterwards after Hani's neighbour, a white Afrikaner woman, called the police. Clive Derby-Lewis, a senior South African Conservative Party M.P. and Shadow Minister for Economic Affairs at the time, who had lent Waluś his pistol, was also arrested for complicity in Hani's murder. The Conservative Party of South Africa (Konserwatiewe Party van Suid-Afrika) has broken away from the ruling National Party out of opposition to the reforms of PW Botha. After the elections of 1989, it was the second-strongest party in the House of Assembly, after the NP, and opposed FW de Klerk's dismantling of apartheid.

Historically, the assassination is seen as a turning point. Serious tensions followed the assassination, with fears that the country would erupt in violence. Nelson Mandela addressed the nation appealing for calm, in a speech regarded as 'presidential' even though he was not yet president of the country: 

Tonight I am reaching out to every single South African, black and white, from the very depths of my being. A white man, full of prejudice and hate, came to our country and committed a deed so foul that our whole nation now teeters on the brink of disaster. A white woman, of Afrikaner origin, risked her life so that we may know, and bring to justice, this assassin. The cold-blooded murder of Chris Hani has sent shock waves throughout the country and the world. ... Now is the time for all South Africans to stand together against those who, from any quarter, wish to destroy what Chris Hani gave his life for – the freedom of all of us.

While riots did follow the assassination, the two sides of the negotiation process were galvanised into action, and they soon agreed that democratic elections should take place on 27 April 1994, just over a year after Hani's assassination."

En fråga som nu diskuteras i Sydafrika är om hjärnan bakom mordet, Clive Derby-Lewis, som är sjuk, ska släppas efter 20 år i fängelse. Meningarna går isär. Vissa tycker att försoningen även borde gälla honom. Andra inte. Hanis familj och kommunistpartiet menar att Derby-Lewis sitter inne med kunskaper om vilka andra som var involverade. Om han kommer fram med dessa namn, kanske det går att diskutera frigivning.

Vem har sagt att försoning skulle vara enkelt?