S. Africa Communists Pick Successor to Hani

The South African Communist Party on Saturday named Charles Nqakula, a former journalist, to succeed assassinated General Secretary Chris Hani.

“The central committee of the SACP, meeting in a plenary session today and in accordance with our constitution, confirmed Comrade Charles Nqakula as the SACP’s new general secretary,” a party statement said.

It gave no details of Nqakula’s party background, promising to respond to questions in due course.

Nqakula worked for the Daily Dispatch newspaper in the Eastern Cape province in the early 1980s before joining the United Democratic Front, an anti-apartheid coalition.

The statement said party leaders agreed that the aim of Hani’s assassins was to delay South Africa’s democracy talks.

A Polish immigrant, Janusz Walus, is accused of firing the shots that killed Hani on April 10. Police said last week that they believed Walus had acted as part of a wider conspiracy, possibly with international links.

Meantime, a black South African television reporter was found hacked to death Saturday, a day after he and his white cameraman were attacked in a black township, police said.

Calvin Thusago, a South African Broadcasting Corp. journalist who disappeared after he and cameraman Dudley Saunders were attacked by about 20 youths Friday, was found on the outskirts of Sharpeville, south of Johannesburg.

Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress said its marshals apprehended three youths after tracing the attackers and handed them over to police.

A police patrol rescued Saunders on Friday after youths surrounded the television crew’s car. He had been stabbed in the head, back and arm and was suffering from a concussion.

Saunders and Thusago were in Sharpeville to report on desecration of black graves by white right-wingers.