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Being Chris Hani's Daughter. Ferguson Hani
Читать онлайн.Название Being Chris Hani's Daughter
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9781920601850
Автор произведения Ferguson Hani
Жанр Биографии и Мемуары
Издательство Ingram
As the small group of revolutionaries arrived in Lusaka, Zambia’s capital, they were all arrested. However, unlike his humiliating experience in South Africa, this time the court procedure was brief and soon they were free to travel across the Zambian border to Tanganyika, now Tanzania.
Within six months of arriving, along with 30 other MK cadres, Daddy flew from Dar es Salaam to Moscow, in Russia, which was then known as the USSR, to undergo military training. Out of Africa for the first time in his life, this experience must have been mindblowing and would influence my father deeply, both as a human being and a military man.
In his interview with Luli Callinicos, he explained what a mind shift landing in the USSR was. “I came from a very racial society and therefore the first time most of us as blacks are received as human beings, as equal human beings, we are received by people from the Central Committee who are based in a secret house, and at this time we have these white ladies actually cooking for us and looking after this place. So for us this is a new world. A new world of equality, of people where our colour seems to be of no consequence, where our humanity is recognised. We had not been exposed, we had not been to Britain. We had no comparative experience. So for us this strengthened our feelings, our strong feelings in socialism.”
Meanwhile, back in South Africa, on 11 July 1963 the core of MK, including Daddy’s mentor Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Raymond Mhlaba, Ahmed Kathrada, Lionel (Rusty) Bernstein and Bob Hepple were arrested at Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia, the underground headquarters of the ANC. On hearing the fate of the South Africans back home, it was decided that Daddy and the newly exiled cadres in Russia should intensify their training. So they extended their stay from six months to more than a year.
The time spent in Moscow drastically changed Daddy. Not only was he exposed to military training, the theories of guerrilla warfare and the politics of socialism, but also to the cultural richness of Russia. “We visit(ed) museums … concerts, the Bolshoi theatre … For the first time I actually watched ballet dancing. I mean a new world for us. We never saw it in our country. We begin to appreciate classical music. We moved around in Moscow in buses. Of course these were guided tours, and we don’t see starving people, we don’t see beggars. We’d go to factories and watch the Russian workers. Now of course I know that we were not exposed to everything that was happening, but that partial opening of the window into this new society served to strengthen our strong socialist convictions. I want to say, without reservations, that shaped my outlook, strengthened my politics … For me that was an unforgettable experience.”
Not only was he experiencing a cultural awakening, in Russia Daddy also learned invaluable military skills and his fitness levels peaked.
“Every morning we had to go out … on marches, tactical marches,” he told Luli Callinicos. “We had to go out into the Russian villages, set up camps there in the forests and the marshes around Moscow, and stay there and look at maps, orientate ourselves. We learnt topography, firearms, engineering skills, the manufacture of explosives and the use of standard explosives. So I was fit physically, I was in very good shape.”
In 1964, at the age of 22, along with 30 newly trained cadres, Daddy travelled back from the Soviet Union to Tanzania where they were offered a piece of land at Kongwa, 400 kilometres south of Dar. Daddy was put in charge of the team to set up a military training camp.
As the South African government tightened its grip on anyone who resisted the apartheid government, within a year many exiles had fled South Africa and soon the Kongwa camp grew to more than 500 strong. Daddy’s love for literature and education meant that he was much loved by the new exiles, as he spent many hours teaching adult basic education to counter the high level of illiteracy among the cadres who had all been exposed to the inferior Bantu Education system back home.
In 1966 Daddy was on the move again, this time back to Zambia. His Soviet training had prepared him well and he was put in charge of setting up a joint training programme with the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU), preparing soldiers for a covert operation into Rhodesia. This would later become known as the Wankie Campaign.
But again Daddy came head to head with the law as he was arrested trying to re-enter Botswana. Fortunately, he was detained for only two weeks before being sent back to Lusaka.
On 2 August 1967, less than a week after my father turned 25, he led a group of soldiers across the Zambian border into Rhodesia. They entered the Wankie Game Reserve on their first covert mission and, on 13 August, after a heavy battle with the Rhodesian army, they successfully forced the army to retreat. And then, just 12 days later, they experienced another victory against the Rhodesian Army. Their spirits were high as they marched towards the Botswana border.
But their luck was not to last long. Within a week they were arrested by the Botswana security forces and, after an appearance in court, were each sentenced to six years’ imprisonment for possession of illegal arms. Again my father found himself behind bars.
Daddy eventually had his jail time reduced to two years and, on his release, returned to Zambia in 1969 to live with intellectual and struggle exile Livingstone Mqotsi in Lusaka.
But two years is a long time. Despondent and feeling let down by certain members of the leadership of the ANC who had done little to help them during their time behind bars, my dad and six of the soldiers who had fought in the Wankie Campaign drafted a letter, which become known as the Hani Memorandum. In this document they made explosive allegations against many members of the ANC’s leadership in exile.
We, as genuine revolutionaries, are moved by the frightening depths reached by the rot in the ANC and the disintegration of M.K. accompanying this rot and manifesting itself in the following way: The ANC Leadership in Exile has created machinery which has become an end in itself. It is completely divorced from the situation in South Africa …
We are disturbed by the careerism of the ANC Leadership Abroad who have, in every sense, become professional politicians rather than professional revolutionaries. We have been forced to draw the conclusion that the payment of salaries to people working in offices is very detrimental to the revolutionary outlook of those who receive such monies.
It was a very controversial and highly risky move, which was typical of Daddy’s outspokenness and fearlessness – action that saw him and the six other signatories expelled by the ANC NEC in exile. It would not be the first time my father would be disciplined by those within his organisation. The document furthermore criticised Joe Modise, then Commander-in-Chief of MK. As a result, seeds of bad blood were sown between Daddy and Joe Modise, who was so enraged by the Memorandum that he called for my dad to be executed for treason.
Oliver Tambo, then president of the ANC and supreme commander of MK, was also extremely upset by the Memo, afraid that the sentiments expressed would cause huge distrust in the structures of the ANC in exile. As a result, an urgent gathering was called to discuss the allegations, and the Morogoro Conference took place in Tanzania between 25 April and 1 May 1969. It was a watershed moment, resulting in wide-ranging changes to the political and military structures of the ANC.
At the Morogoro Conference it was recommended that Daddy and the other signatories of the Hani Memorandum be pardoned and reinstated as full members of the ANC and MK. A year later, in 1970, as a result of his uncompromising commitment, Daddy’s influence had substantially grown. He was 28 years old when he was elected to the Central Committee of the SACP.
Over the following four years Daddy would travel a lot overseas, but not the ‘Overseas’ of my childhood imagination; he visited Europe, spreading the ideals of the ANC and SACP while receiving further military training in East Germany. In 1973 he was one of the ANC delegates to the Southern Africa Conference of the United Nations’ Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in Oslo, Sweden. It was the same year he met Mama.
In 1974, along with Thabo Mbeki, Daddy was elected to the ANC’s National Executive Council, the two of them becoming the youngest members ever. Thabo, who was also a June 1942 baby, was just 10 days older than Daddy.
Daddy briefly returned to South Africa that year to help