The 15th anniversary of the assassination on liberation hero Chris Hani is due to be marked in South Africa Thursday.
Hani was shot dead outside his Johannesburg home on 10 April 1993.
Two men – Janus Waluz and Clive Derby-Lewis – are serving life sentences for his murder.
As part of the events lined up for the day, the development of a National Liberation Heritage Route will be launched at his birth place in Sabalele village of the Eastern Cape.
The public launch will be followed by a memorial lecture in Queenstown.
The project is aimed at preserving and promoting the significant events, people and places which narrate the history of South Africa’s liberation.
The route will be be listed on the world heritage register as the first of its kind to be recognised by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural organisation (UNESCO) World Heritage Committee.
The National Heritage Council of South Africa (NHC) has already commissioned a research in compiling a business case that will forecast the feasibility and economic potential of the route.
The Chris Hani District Municipality in the Eastern Cape has completed the first phase of the pilot research conducted by Rhodes University.
The municipality is also home to leaders, heroes and heroines such as A.B. Xuma, Walter Sisulu, Clarence Makwetu, Bathandwa Ndondo, Matthew Goniwe and Lindiwe Msengana-Ndlela.
The commemoration of Chris Hani’s assassination will therefore be a homecoming that will be one of the strongest evidence and memories to form part of the Liberation Route.
“We are assured by UNESCO’s involvement in the processes of establishing this route that it will become a beacon of pride for all South Africans and the African continent,” said Sonwabile Mancotywa, CEO of the NHC.
“The route will inevitably draw evidence from other countries on the continent where liberation movements were exiled. We wish this to become extended points of the route. The National Liberation Heritage Route will also have a high educational element,” Mancotywa added.
