Chris Hani succeeds Joe Slovo as Chief of MK

Chris Hani, freedom fighter, political activist and at the time Deputy Commander of uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) in Zambia, was appointed as new chief-of-staff of MK to succeed Joe Slovo, who had been appointed general secretary of the South African Communist Party (SACP). MK was intensifying its struggle against South Africa during the 1980s, a period during which many cadres in the military camps became restless, and found in Hani a strict disciplinarian.