I was there the day Chris Hani was shot

Community members and soldiers line the road outside Chris Hani's home in Dawn Park, Boksburg as a police van prepares to take the body of the South African Communist Party leader away on April 10, 1993 — PICTURE: HERBERT MABUZA

I arrived at the scene of the murder just after 10.40 on that fateful day — April 10, 1993.

Chris Hani, secretary general of the SA Communist Party — better known as a revolutionary turned peacemaker — was lying in a pool of his own blood on the front stoep of his Boksburg home.

He’d been shot, we later learned, by anti communist right-winger, Janusz Walus — who is to be released on parole within days, having served 23 years in jail.

We were the first news crew on the scene, only because photographer Herbert Mabuza lived in Hani’s neighbourhood, Dawn Park, and had been alerted to the murder by a friend.

We stood in the front garden, Herbert shooting spools of film, me watching as shocked neighbours stood, heads bowed, weeping; the women keening. It’s haunting, this sound of lament, of grief, of sorrow.

Some broke into a dirge that went on and on, gathering momentum as more people joined the growing crowd.

This was a time for sadness. The ever-increasing gathering would grow angry and more militant, with the threat of violence ever present, as the day progressed.

By midday, the place was thick with the world’s media — cameras and tripods and film crews and microphones and dictaphones and note pads.

Everyone clamoured for a sound-bite from Winnie Mandela, from Oliver Tambo from Walter Sizulu, from Tokyo Sexwale — one of the first on the scene and the man who controlled access and called for peace from the increasingly hostile crowd.

And still the body lay there, a grim reminder of the price this man paid for advocating peace. Eventually, almost four hours after the shooting, the mortuary van — a dented yellow bakkie with a canopy — arrived to remove the body.

I can scarcely believe that more than two decades have passed since that day in the early chapter of our democracy, a day that threatened to derail our road to peace and unity.

Last week, as news of killer Walus’s imminent release on parole was announced, the Sunday Times reported that Chris Hani’s younger daughter, Lindiwe, has asked for a meeting with her father’s killer.

I was surprised, but only because her mother Limpho and sister Nomakhwezi have persistently refused to accept or acknowledge any apology from Walus.

The story reports that Lindiwe has asked for a “victim-offender dialogue.” It doesn’t say why she wants to meet the man who murdered her father.

It could just be that she wants to look into the eyes of the man responsible for making her grow up without a dad; to find the monster.

Or she might be looking for a way to find peace, to let it all go, to move on.

I hope it’s the second, that Lindiwe is taking a step towards forgiving him — not for him, but for herself.

There are many precedents that highlight the healing quality of forgiveness, dating back to biblical times.

The Lord’s Prayer says: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” It’s a philosophy that underpins all religions.

I was reminded of how big you have to be to forgive someone who has wronged you, and hurt you, in the reading at Mass last Sunday, the fourth Sunday of Lent in the lead up to Easter.

It’s the tale of the prodigal son who demands his inheritance from his father, squanders it and lives a life of penury before returning home to beg his father’s forgiveness. And the father forgives him — puts new robes on his back and a ring on his finger; calls for the fatted calf to be killed for a feast to welcome home his son “who was lost, and is found.” We all hope that our transgressions have such a happy ending.

Closer to home, there’s the story of Linda and Peter Biehl…

In the August of 1993, the Biehl’s 26-year-old daughter, Amy, was murdered in Gugulethu township by four black men, part of a mob chanting “one Settler, one Bullet”.

Her parents stunned the nation when they announced that they had forgiven their daughter Amy’s killers. It was such an act of grace, of spiritual generosity, of goodness that we, South Africans were left reeling — in awe and confused in the same moment.

What parent forgives the murderers of their child?

The Biehl’s  went even further, helping absolve Amy’s killers (sentenced to 18 years for Amy's murder), when they supported their application for amnesty at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

It was extraordinarily symbolic at a time when extraordinary symbolism was needed. Our country plummeted into turmoil when Chris Hani died.

The country was on a tight rope as racial tension threatened to, and did, result in violence. The Biehl gesture seemed like a healing salve put on a burn, an indication of restorative justice that acknowledged some of the underlying causes of their daughter’s murder.

Forgiving those who have trespassed against you is not easy. A good friend was eight when he witnessed his 18-year-old half brother hack his mother to death. Fifty years later, he has still not recovered from the sight of his lifeless mum being rolled into a carpet.

The brother, sentenced to life in prison but released early, was utterly remorseful and tried over and over to make amends to my friend, who rebuffed his every attempt.

But he said that one morning he woke up and decided he’d carried around the burden of anger that bordered on hatred for too long. He began a process that ended with him meeting with his half brother, and forgiving him — even though he made it clear that he never wanted to see or hear from him again.

Janusz Walus made several attempts to apologise, in person and through a letter, to the Hani family for what he did. Who knows whether his intention was sincere or merely a means to secure an early release for himself. I’m not sure if it matters.

What does matter is that Lindiwe, by asking for a face to face meeting, has moved into a zone where she could — if she so wished — neutralise him in her own mind. And that, the lessons of those who have forgiven their trespassers tell us, is profoundly healing.