ANC, SACP members try to storm prison, baying for Walus’s blood
THE quick action of correctional services officers prevented Gauteng ANC and SACP supporters from storming the Kgosi Mampuru Correctional Centre with the aim of pouncing on Polish immigrant Janusz Walus – killer of former SACP general secretary Chris Hani.
The drama unfolded yesterday at the main entrance of the maximum security prison, when some of the protesters rushed to the gate with the clear intention to open it and allow fellow protesters to gain access.
They were clearly baying for Walus’s blood, after the Constitutional Court ordered that Minister of Justice and Correctional Services Ronald Lamola release him on parole.
Walus has spent 29 years incarcerated at the centre following his role in the murder of Hani on April 10, 1993.
But their plan was quickly foiled, as correctional services officers overpowered them and closed the gate.
The plot to storm the centre happened despite reports from correctional services that Walus was receiving medical treatment at a government hospital after he was stabbed by a fellow prisoner on Tuesday.
It is not clear if the protesters acted out of instinct – Gauteng ANC leader Panyaza Lesufi seemed to have approved their failed act.
Lesufi told the correctional services officers who stood guard to open the gates and allow them access to Walus.
“We are here for Janusz Walus, and not you. We want to ruffle him up a bit before throwing him up in the air,” he said.
Poland and its football team were also targeted when Lesufi urged SACP and ANC members to support any team playing against the Polish in the soccer World Cup in Qatar.
He made the comments prior to Poland playing against Argentina last night.
“You must favour Argentina like you support Bafana Bafana,” he said.
Lesufi’s comments were supported by thousands of people and some were clearly agitating for a revenge attack, saying the person who stabbed Walus – believed to be a former member of Umkhonto weSizwe – had not completed the job.
The same sentiments were expressed by Lesufi.
The SACP Young Communist League’s Tinyiko Ntini was more blatant, saying that if Walus was in a government hospital, their progressive union members “must do the right thing”.
As if that was not enough, ANC national executive committee member Nomvula Mokonyane indirectly echoed the same views at a separate gathering in Cape Town, saying “Janusz Walus’s bigger things are coming”.
“If Janusz Walus is released on parole, we want Minister of Home Affairs Aaron Motsoaledi to give us his address.
“As neighbours, we want to visit him and ask him who instructed and masterminded the murder of Chris Hani,” Mokonyane said.
Common among these leaders was their condemnation of the Constitutional Court ruling, with them adding that the justices had failed to acknowledge that Hani’s widow, Limpho Hani, was not consulted prior to the decision to release Walus on parole.
SACP general secretary Solly Mapaila reiterated that view, saying his party had also not been consulted.
He added that “even comrade Limpho Hani never received a letter of apology from Walus”.
Mapaila said it was for those reasons that they had filed an application to the Constitutional Court for it to rescind the parole.
Despite opposing the parole, Mapaila endorsed Motsoaledi’s decision to restore Walus’s citizenship, saying the government must ensure that he continued his parole sentence in the country.
It appears that trouble is not looming only for Walus, as ministers and deputy ministers deployed by the Gauteng ANC who were not part of the protest action could be axed as public representatives of the ANC, if Lesufi has his way.
“Those ANC ministers and deputy ministers who were deployed by the Gauteng ANC, we will show them something at the elective conference,” he said.