WARSAW — Long before the SAA plane carrying President Cyril Ramaphosa landed in Warsaw this week, relations between South Africa and Poland were already strained over the continued incarceration of Janusz Walus.
Senior Polish officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Warsaw wanted Chris Hani’s Polish-born killer to be repatriated — and they dismissed the Ukraine peace mission as a waste of time.
The Polish are also said to be unhappy with South Africa’s professed non-aligned stance on the war, and to be convinced that Pretoria supports Moscow.
A highly placed Polish government official told the Sunday Times that the country had made requests to Pretoria for Walus’s release but to no avail.
We think that this person committed his crimes, he spent enough time in prison for over 30 years, he’s old
— Polish government official
Warsaw believed Walus, who was arrested shortly after murdering Hani in 1993, had served enough time in prison and should be allowed to spend his final years in his home country with his daughter.
“We think that this person committed his crimes, he spent enough time in prison for over 30 years, he’s old,” the official said. “I don’t think he will hurt anybody else, also he hurt only Chris Hani; he’s a political murderer not the normal one. We think that maybe one day he will leave South Africa and spend the rest of his time with his daughter here in Poland.”
Walus was originally sentenced to death for killing Hani in an attempt to derail the transition to democracy, but the sentence was commuted to life. In December last year he was given a restricted form of parole.
The Polish official said Walus had now spent more time in detention than Nelson Mandela.
The official said diplomatic tensions would have deteriorated further if Walus had died in the prison attack on him late last year, carried out by a fellow inmate shortly before he was moved out of the jail on parole.
Chrispin Phiri, spokesperson for the department of justice & correctional services, said Walus was still effectively serving his sentence, albeit in designated, non-jail premises.
“It means at any random time a correctional service officer can come to a residence, which we have provided, and inspect whether you are there and complying with certain conditions,” he said.
Phiri said the present government administration had not received any requests for the release of Walus, though such an approach might have been made to previous administrations.
“The nature of the crime we’re dealing with here is equivalent to killing a Martin Luther King, an important political figure in the struggle for our liberation, so it is important that justice is seen to be done.”
The nature of the crime we’re dealing with here is equivalent to killing a Martin Luther King, an important political figure in the struggle for our liberation
— Chrispin Phiri
In Poland, Walus has become a cause célèbre for the far-Right, and his portrait is sometimes displayed by football supporters.
The Polish government official poured cold water on the African peace mission, saying many similar attempts in the past — including one by UN secretary-general António Guterres — had achieved nothing.
“There was a mission very similar to this with other sub-Saharan states; the Arab League went to Moscow on two Gulfstream planes, they made such trips and nothing happened. António Guterres made such trips to Moscow and Kyiv and also it didn’t help,” the official said.
Łukasz Jasina, spokesperson for the Polish foreign ministry, said Warsaw supported Ramaphosa’s efforts.
“The South African president has a better way to [President Vladimir] Putin’s heart than other presidents … [This] would be a very big sign of interest from your part of the world, which we need,” he said.
“We need the Republic of South Africa in our politics too, that’s a very important state, a member of the economic alliance with Russia [Brics]. And when South African politicians travel to Kyiv it is also a very big sign that they are not only on one side of the conflict.”
Jędrzej Czerep, programme co-ordinator for the Middle East and Africa at a Warsaw think-tank, the Polish Institute of International Affairs, said Pretoria’s non-aligned stance was a charade and it had already picked sides in the war.
Ukrainian leaders went into meetings with the African heads of state without any delusions about South Africa’s “neutrality”, Czerep said.
“Ukraine doesn’t really consider [South Africa] as a credible mediator; the rule of mediation is that both parties see the mediator as independent, neutral and trustworthy,” he said.
“You can say that you want to be mediator but if the party doesn’t really trust your intentions then you will never be a successful mediator.”
Czerep said Ramaphosa’s frequent contacts with Putin were instructive.
“Saying you are non-aligned or neutral can represent a genuine stance or it can serve as a kind of mask which hides other intentions, and it’s more the latter than the former [in South Africa’s case],” he said.
The biggest concern, he said, was the joint military exercise that South Africa undertook with Russia and China in February on the eve of the anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine.
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