The Extension of University Education Act (1959) had put an end to black students attending white universities (mainly the universities of Cape Town and Witwatersrand) and created separate tertiary institutions for whites, Coloured, blacks, and Asians. Hani was active in campus protests over the takeover of Fort Hare by the Department of Bantu Education. During his years in the Western Cape Hani participated in protests against the takeover of the university by the Department of Bantu Education and came into contact with the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU). This increased his awareness of the workers' struggle.

Hani's uncle had been active in the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA), an organisation founded in 1921 but which had dissolved itself in response to the Suppression of Communism Act (1950). Ex-Communist Party members had to operate in secret, and had re-formed themselves as the underground South African Communist Party (SACP) in 1953. Hani's frustration with the apartheid system and the influence of leaders such as Govan Mbeki, Braam Fischer, JB Marks, Moses Kotane and Ray Simons, led him to join the underground South African Communist Party in 1961 and Umkhonto We Sizwe ( military wing of the ANC) in 1962. Hani went on to become a member of the MK's Western Cape leadership dubbed the 'Committee of Seven'. His encounters with the law began with his arrest at a police roadblock in 1962. He was found to be in possession of pamphlets containing objections to the government's notorious policy of detention without trial. He was subsequently charged under the Suppression of Communism Act and held in jail. He was granted bail of R500.00, and during this period entered Botswana to attend the 1962 ANC Conference in Lobatsi. On his return to South Africa, he was arrested at the border. He was tried and given an 18-month jail sentence. In 1963, while out on bail pending an appeal, Hani went underground on the advice of the ANC leadership. He remained underground in Cape Town for about four months and in May proceeded to Johannesburg where he was instructed toleave South Africa to undergo military training.

Hani left South Africa for the then Soviet Union, and returned in 1967 to take an active role in the Rhodesian bush war, acting as a Political Commissar in the Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA). ZIPRA, under the command of Joshua Nkomo, operated out of Zambia. Hani was present for three battles during the 'Wankie Campaign' (fought in the Wankie Game Reserve against Rhodesian forces) as part of the Luthuli Detachment of combined ANC and Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) forces. Although the campaign provided much-needed propaganda for the struggle in Rhodesia and South Africa, in military terms it was a failure. Far too often the local population informed on guerrilla groups to the police. Click here to read our feature on the Wankie Campaign.

In early 1967 Hani narrowly escaped into Botswana, only to be arrested and detained in prison for two years for weapons possession. Hani returned to Zambia at the end of 1968 to continue his work with ZIPRA. His imprisonment left him critical of the failure of the ANC leadership to to assist him whilst he was in prison and he demanded a conference of all ANC members in exile. The Morogoro Conference took place in 1969. The decision was made to allow white and other 'non-Africans' to become members of the ANC, and to ensure that political policy should guide military action, and not vice versa. As a result, The Revolutionary Council, which included whites and coloureds, was set up.

In 1974 Hani was instructed Hani re-entered South Africa to establish an underground infrastructure for the ANC in the Western Cape. He entered the country from Botswana on foot and spent four months in the country, based in Johannesburg. He helped set-up underground units and a communications system. In addition, various routes through the country were established.

Hani then moved to Lesotho where he remained for about seven years. Here he organised units of the MK for guerrilla operations in South Africa. By 1982, Hani had become prominent enough in the ANC to be the focus of several assassination attempts, including at least one car bomb. He was transferred from the Lesotho capital, Maseru, to the centre of the ANC political leadership in Lusaka, Zambia. That year he was elected to the membership of the ANC National Executive Committee, and by 1983 he had been promoted to Political Commissar of the MK, working with student recruits who joined the ANC in exile after the 1976 student uprising.

When dissident ANC members, who were being held in detention camps in Angola, mutinied against their harsh treatment in 1983–4, Hani played a key role in the uprisings' suppression – although he denied any involvement in the subsequent torture and murders. Hani continued to rise through the ANC ranks and in 1987 he became the Chief of Staff of the MK. During the same period he rose to senior membership of the SACP.

After the unbanning of ANC and SACP on 2 February 1990 Hani returned to South Africa and became a charismatic and popular speaker in townships. By 1990 he was known to be a close associate of Joe Slovo, the General-Secretary of the SACP and both Slovo and Hani were considered fearful figures in the eyes of South Africa's extreme right: the Afrikaner Weerstandsbewging (AWB, Afrikaner Resistance Movement) and the Conservative Party (CP). When Slovo announced that he had cancer in 1991, Hani took over as General-Secretary.

In 1992 Hani stepped down as Chief of Staff of Umkhonto we Sizwe to devote more time to the organisation of the SACP. Communists were prominent in the ANC and the Council of South African Trade Unions, but were under threat - the collapse of Marxism in Europe had discredited the movement world wide, and the policy of infiltrating other anti-Apartheid groups rather than making an independent stand was being questioned.

Hani campaigned for the SACP in townships around South Africa, seeking to redefine its place as a national political party. It was soon doing well - better than the ANC in fact – especially amongst the young who had no real experiences of the pre-Apartheid era and no commitment to the democratic ideals of the more moderate Mandela et al.

Hani is described as charming, passionate and charismatic, and soon attracted a cult-like following. He was the only political leader who seemed to have influence over the radical township self-defence groups that had parted from the authority of the ANC. Hani's SACP would have proved a serious match for the ANC in the 1994 elections.

Assassination:
On 10 April 1993, as he returned home to the racially mixed suburb of Dawn Park, Boksberg (Johannesburg), Hani was assassinated by Januzs Walus, an anti-Communist Polish refugee who had close links to the white nationalist AWB. With him was his daughter, Nomakhwezi, then 15 years old. His wife, Limpho, and two other daughters, Neo (then 20 years old) and Lindiwe (then 12 years old) were away at the time. Also implicated in the assassination was Conservative Party MP Clive Derby-Lewis, and strangely a theory based largely on documents given to the Mail & Guardian point to a conspiracy beyond the right wing, linking the assassination to the ANC (click here to read more).

Hani's death came at a critical time for South Africa. The SACP was on the brink of becoming a significant status as an independent political party – it now found itself bereft of funds (due to collapse in Europe) and without a strong leader – and the democratic process was faltering. The assassination helped persuade the bickering negotiators of the Multi-Party Negotiating Forum to finally set a date for South Africa's first democratic election.

Walus and Derby-Lewis were captured, sentenced and jailed within an incredibly short period (only six months) of the assassination. Both were sentenced to death. In a peculiar twist, the new government (and constitution) they had actively fought against, caused in their sentences being commuted to life imprisonment – the death penalty having been ruled 'unconstitutional'. In 1997 Walus and Derby-Lewis applied for amnesty through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) hearings. Despite claims that they were working for the Conservative Party, and therefore the assassination had been a political act, the TRC effectively ruled that Hani had been assassinated by right-wing extremists who were apparently acting independently. Walus and Derby-Lewis are currently serving their sentence in a maximum security prison near Pretoria.

This year (2008) marks the fifteenth year since Hani's assassination.

- South African History Online -