Cleopatra Hani, the daughter of the late Chris Hani, has described his widow as an old and bitter woman.
This is after Limpho Hani accused Cleopatra of being a fraud and an imposter, saying that she failed to take a DNA test to prove her allegations.
Cleopatra said Limpho was the last person to be asking for a DNA from her, as she was not her family.
“Limpho is bitter and angry, hence she’s lying this much. She married my father, knowing that I existed. Now I don’t understand the spectacle she’s (making),” she said.
Cleopatra said that when her father was shot dead, Limpho was no longer living with him. She had been in Lesotho.
On Limpho’s nephew Mphatali Hani, Cleopatra questioned on whose behalf he had been speaking because he was not the oldest in the family.
In a scathing letter Limpho issued through her lawyers, she said Kubukeli Pumlani, the uMkhonto weSizwe party convenor in the Eastern Cape, was on a desperate mission to gain political relevance at the expense of the rich legacy of Chris Hani’s legacy.
Cleopatra made waves when she was announced as one of the prominent figures to join the new political party, endorsed by former president Jacob Zuma.
In 2013, Limpho challenged Cleopatra to undergo a DNA test to prove that she was the legitimate daughter of the late SACP secretary general.
That came as Limpho penned a letter distancing herself and her family from the MK party.
She said her husband’s political discipline was accurately documented in the history of the ANC and the SACP.
“The MK party and its members and/or agents are specifically not allowed anywhere near the gravesite of Chris Thembisile Hani nor is the said party allowed to use any symbols but not limited to pictures, names or apparel that Chris stood for,” she said through the lawyers later.
The widower said she stood and supported Mphatali Hani’s statement that the MK party should refrain from abusing and misusing the Hani name.
She said she would neither join MK nor be associated with it.
“For the record, I, Limpho Hani, will not join and or be associated with a political party that hosts or tolerates corrupt, fraudsters, imposters, and effective criminals like the MK party appears to do,” added Hani.
Speaking to The Star on Tuesday, its interim secretary-general Thanduxolo Jodo said the party didn’t have a comment on Limpho’s statement.
“We can’t comment on everything people say, even on this matter. We don’t have a comment, ”Jodo said.
At the time of his assassination in 1993, Chris Hani was the secretary general of the SACP and chief of staff of the ANC military wing, uMkhonto weSizwe.
MK president Jabulani Khumalo registered the party with the Electoral Commission of South Africa late last year.
The Star
Sipho Jack
sipho.jack@inl.co.za