Known for her sharp tongue, Chris Hani’s widow has shown environmentalist Nicole Barlow the middle finger after she insinuated that Energy and Mineral Resource Minister Gwede Mantashe deserves to die the way Chris Hani was killed. Barlow was responding to an article about Mantashe snubbing President Cyril Ramaphosa’s event with the Danish government to promote renewable energy.

THE OUTRAGEOUS REMARKS 

Barlow tweeted: "We missed an opportunity to do a Chris Hani on him....".  Barlow is known for her outrageous tweets often aimed at politicians. Her vile tweet which seemingly came to Ramaphosa’s defence has seen her being reported to the police by the South African Communist Party (SAPC) for promoting violence against Mantashe.  SACP general-secretary Solly Mapaila said they were not taking Barlow’s remarks lightly given what happened to Chris Hani. "Nicole Barlow implicated herself in what happened to Chris Hani, the SACP general secretary who was assassinated in cold blood on April 10, 1993," Mapaila said

SHE HAS SINCE APOLOGISED

Barlow has since written a long letter to Hani’s widow apologising. "For any pain and suffering, this has caused you and your family, I am deeply sorry. We have vastly different experiences of the same country. Yours, and that of your family, would’ve been moulded by living under the oppressive yoke and mine has been moulded by living under the vengeful malevolence of the ANC. Tragically the trajectory of yours changed in an instant, when your husband, the man that much of the nation looked upon to lead them out of oppression and into a new dawn, was murdered before you. It would be disingenuous to even suggest I know how you feel or the indelible mark his murder would’ve left on your life and that of your family," she said in the letter. Speaking to ZiMoja through Bongani Mbindwane, a known Hani family friend, Limpho said she didn’t have much to say to Barlow. "She said she must go to hell and f**k off,". 

TODAY WOULD HAVE BEEN HANI’S 81ST BIRTHDAY 

Today would have been Chris Hani’s 81st birthday, he was born on 28 June 1942. The family spent time by his gravesite cleaning and laying fresh flowers. Hani was assassinated by Janusz Waluś, a Polish immigrant. Hani was chief of general staff of ANC’s Umkhonto WeSizwe military wing and the leader of the SACP. The South African Human Rights Commission is investigating Barlow’s tweet as hate speech.