Polish immigrant and convicted killer Janusz Walus has been released on parole after serving 29 years in prison for killing Struggle stalwart Chris Hani. File picture
MADAME Defarge was tweeting up a storm this week, Capitalised First Letters And All, on the global social media network now owned by the most famous old boy of the school her twin brother Duduzane once attended.
“The Release Of That Racist Within 10 Days Is Because The Handlers Know That Akabuyi Whoever Is Working On The Paperwork Of The Release Of That Assassin It Is Your Patriotic Duty To Leak That Information So We Can Organize A Welcome Team So That We Can Take Him Out,” she wrote.
Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla was reacting to the Constitutional Court’s instruction to Justice Minister Ronald Lamola to free on parole, Janusz Walus who was jailed for life for the 1993 assassination of the beloved Chris Hani.
Walus, in terms of our law, was eligible for parole 15 years ago, but every minister of justice since has blocked him at every turn. Even so, the court decision is a bitter pill for most South Africans to swallow, even if it is the correct one; because the assassination brought this country closer to the brink of racial conflagration than any other single act – and there were many acts of terror in those final months to democracy.
But you have to ask if there isn’t some deeper motivation for SA’s home-grown conspiracy theory about who the killers’ handlers were; a theory that rivals Donald Trump’s election denialism in its implausibility. There are other apartheid criminals who have done far worse than Walus in scope and scale; Eugene “Prime Evil” de Kock was released on parole in 2015 where he had been serving a 212-year prison sentence plus two life sentences literally for crimes against humanity.
Zuma-Sambudla’s dad was president when the State Security Agency was instructed to spend R200,000 a month on De Kock’s subsequent upkeep, including a R40,000 ‘salary’. South Africa only heard of all this during the Zondo commission of inquiry into state capture, set up to investigate the kleptocracy that became institutionalised during the time of “the people’s president”.
If Walus could never get parole – irrespective of how egregious his act or the fact that killers of all hues and political persuasions remain at large, living their best lives, what of her father? Baba ka D is in a pickle this week; not only did the Supreme Court of Appeal find that he should never have been released on medical parole; he has also been telling all and sundry that he is in perfect health to compete for top office at the ANC’s elective conference next month.
It’s not a good look, irrespective of what MK Barbie, the Pepstore Revolutionary and all the other Trumpian RET-istas say. “Oksalayo!” tweeted Madame Defarge this week when her dad’s parole judgment was read out. “We are not going back!”
And for once she was right. None of us are going back to those dark days. But her dad is ultimately going to jail, whether for contempt, corruption or state capture – or all three.
And if she keeps on tweeting like she is, she might end up in the same cell block for incitement.
* Kevin Ritchie is a seasoned former newspaper editor and current media consultant.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of the DFA.