Johannesburg - Cleopatra Hani, slain SACP stalwart Chris Hani’s eldest daughter, says it’s time to stop the grandstanding and rhetoric and knuckle down to community outreach projects.
Instead of attending Saturday’s main commemorative event at Thomas Nkobi Memorial Park Cemetery in Boksburg, Cleopatra said she would be showcasing her community project at an informal settlement in Etwatwa near Daveyton in Ekurhuleni.
“My father is dead, he’ll never come back. It’s good to visit the graveside, but what will it solve? How will that solve the problems of this country?” Cleopatra asked on Thursday.
President Jacob Zuma and his counterparts in the ANC-led tripartite alliance – SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande and Cosatu president S’dumo Dlamini – were due to address Friday’s commemorative event at the cemetery.
Zuma is expected to declare Hani’s grave a heritage site and unveil the Chris Hani Memorial and Wall of Remembrance Monument.
Cleopatra said: “I don’t believe the best way to honour him should be to talk and talk about the same thing every year. How much is a T-shirt? Why not spend the money on solving problems through projects? People should fold their T-shirts and go out to communities to help.”
She said people should prioritise education.
“If a child stays in an informal settlement with his family and we educate him, we will also be helping to take his family out of poverty. We will also have fewer squatter camps.”
She threw down the gauntlet at her stepmother, Limpho Hani, who has repeatedly demanded paternity tests to prove that she and her younger sister, Vanessa, are Hani’s legitimate daughters.
“I believe… that I need to answer my stepmom about (her demand for) DNA tests. It’s the right time tomorrow (on Saturday) to get the DNA.
“She must come (to (Etwatwa). She is welcome because what I will be doing will exactly be the DNA (tests). She must come and be accompanied by the (tripartite) alliance to come and see the real DNA.”
Last September, Limpho said she had asked the Home Affairs Department to investigate Cleopatra and Vanessa’s claims.
The department’s director-general, Mkhuseli Apleni, reportedly said in a letter to Limpho that it was investigating the two women’s claims.
Apleni said the department’s records showed the two women were not related to Hani.
“This is based on documentary evidence they submitted to the department, which does not indicate Mr Chris Hani as their father,” he reportedly said in the letter.
Cleopatra was fuming on Thursday.
“If I have to go to Home Affairs, I am waiting. It must never end where he (Apleni) said I’m not Hani’s daughter.
“If he doesn’t come to me, I will go to him. He said it in the papers (that I’m not Hani’s daughter). I am still waiting for him to tell me what he wants. He must do the right thing.”
She added that no blood samples had been taken.
“Nobody will do that. Limpho is just a visitor in my family, a foreigner. It’s been 22 years since my father died. And now she is asking for my blood tests? For what? My grandfather knows me. What else does she want?
“If she was really that woman who cares about her children, she will visit Cofimvaba, where my father was born and meet the grandparents and hear who this is,” she said, pointing to herself.
Limpho and Apleni could not be reached for comment.
Hani was shot and killed in the driveway of his Boksburg, East Rand, home on April 10, 1993 – exactly 22 years ago.
The Star