Today in History: One killed in Chris Hani assassination attempt
The assassination attempt came just under 11 years before Hani was eventually assassinated.
Due to his prominent position as leader of the South African Communist Party and chief of staff of uMkhonto we Sizwe, the ANC’s military wing, numerous unsuccessful attempts on Chris Hani’s life were made.
Hani was a man who would die for the cause he believed in and fought for, and nearly did a number of times before he was eventually assassinated in 1993.
On 2 August 1982, an unnamed person was killed in a car bomb explosion at Hani’s home in Lesotho.
Eben Frederick Coetzee, a department head of the Police Security Branch in the then Orange Free State, later testified that he was given orders by senior members of the security branch to kill Hani in 1980, because of Hani’s perceived growing influence in the ANC–SACP alliance.
Hani would of course survive a large number of attempts on his life before he was assassinated 11 years later by a Polish far-right anti-communist immigrant named Janusz Walus, who shot him in the head and back as he stepped out of his car.
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