Around 7 January 1969, Chris Hani and six other Comrades signed a document, later known as the “Hani Memorandum”, that accused the African National Congress (ANC) in exile of being in a deep crisis as a result of the rot that had set in. After 18 frustrating months in jail, Hani would be a son for Livingstone and Nzimazana Mqotsi, in Woodlands, Lusaka.
When Hani and his company had returned to Lusaka from jail in Botswana, a party was thrown for them at the home of the South African Communist Party (SACP) couple, Jack and Ray Simons. Ben Magubane threw a party, too. However, surprisingly, and disturbingly, there was no other official welcome.
On their return from war (the Wankie Campaign) and prison, the Luthuli Detachment had been all but ignored by the ANC leadership. There were no ceremonies and no medals, no special briefings. The silence from the leadership began to eat at Hani. Within months, his confusion turned into a desperate kind of fury.
Finally, he put his name at the top of a list of seven signatures in the Memorandum, the signatories, included two former cellmates in Gaborone, gathered in Mqotsi’s home in Lusaka. According to Hani, “I felt that we did not get proper support, a proper follow-up. And I didn’t think that when we came back there was an interest in our experience, and what we had done, and what was the next step… We were in that state of limbo, state of suspense; and I and others could not stomach it.”
The Umkhonto we Sizwe
I remember that I had suggested something like this and you kept as it was already there. I was lazy to flow the link that expanded on the story. Good work my brother