On Sunday 22 June 2014 Willie Cloete and Wessel Basson from Front National had the opportunity of visiting Clive Derby-Lewis in the Eugene Marais Hospital in Pretoria.
Derby-Lewis is currently serving a life-sentence for his part in the assassination of the former leader of the South African Communist Party, Chris Hani. He is terminally ill, suffering from, amongst others, lung cancer.
This is the report of their visit.
When one speaks of a political assassin, you kind of get this picture of a bulky man dressed in a black suit with a black shirt and a black tie wearing expensive black Italian shoes and hiding behind a hedge sporting a pair of aviator sunglasses and a huge pistol with a huge silencer on it.
The very last thing you really expect to find is a friendly, light hearted 78 year old man with salt-n-pepper in his moustache and a light in his eyes, despite his failing health. Equally unexpected is the heartfelt welcome into his hospital room, that being the circumference of his entire existence.
One hardly finds any sign of the fact that you are in the presence of a man who hasn’t had a breath of free air for 21 years. He has an easy way about him when talking to the warders in the room, not as if they are aliens in his own space.
He accepts them there, treats them with courtesy and mutual respect and when one of them offers him the Sunday newspaper, he acknowledges it politely.
Clive does not attempt to deny his guilt.
He immediately admits to it, speaking of how he helped to plan the deed. But after a moment of contemplation he says: “But now I want to go home.” He feels that he paid his due now, he served his time.
The price is paid. Not for a moment does he try to argue his health as a reason for his freedom. Maybe he is too proud, maybe because he knows that the time served was payment enough. In fact, it almost seems as if he regards his illness simply as part of the tribulations of age.
He speaks of his experiences in jail. Tale upon tale. Without any bitterness. He tells of how he took the initiative to arrange video shows to keep the inmates occupied and how the level of violence decreased in jail after that. He speaks of the recreation committee which he set up whereby family groups could visit inmates to assist in their rehabilitation.
He relates his action to negotiate with Correctional Services to obtain computers to assist inmates in their studies and how this prompted him to pursue his own studies and interest in anthropology.
He speaks with urgency, as if he wants to delay the end of the interview, as though there is so much still to be said before the winter’s day comes to an end. As if, indeed, he finds a deep sense of security in the presence of two of his own people from a world out there of which he has not been part for so long.
A world to which he cannot return with them, at the end of this day. He speaks in haste and with a tone of nervousness. He is positive, he admits to his faith in his God and declares that he accepts the will of God in all this. Yet, he does so with the hope that it is the will of God for him to go home to his family now.
When silence falls for a moment and the movement of a shadow against the wall reveals that the sun is tilting towards the afternoon, one suddenly realises : it is but an old man with his fears and his hopes.
He is tired, the available energy insufficient for the willpower still present. That same willpower and drive which he became so well-known for as Conservative Party MP…so long, so very long ago.
And you suddenly feel the urge to protect him against the coldness of a world devoid of empathy. It is time to go. His handshake is firm and he emphasises the request, made a number of times this afternoon, that his personal gratitude must be given to every person and every organisation involved in his cause.
With a tone of urgency in his voice he says: “Please don’t stop. Don’t leave me now. Please carry on.” The corridor is long behind and only a little way to go when Willie Cloete softly says: “Anyone can but wish for a grandfather such as this….”
Daniël Lötter Front National
South Africa Today – South Africa News
