RELUCTANT COMPROMISE FRELIMO WILL NOW SUPPLY POWER FOR SOUTH AFRICA

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33673, 24 October 1974, Page 16

RELUCTANT COMPROMISE FRELIMO WILL NOW SUPPLY POWER FOR SOUTH AFRICA

(By

JAMES MacMANUS

in the "Guardian")

(Reprinted by arrangement)

An international consortium is rapidly completing the 356-milhon rllar Cabora Bassa Dam in north-west Mozambioue as it becomes cle:-> hat the Frelimo nationalists have reluctantly accepted their future rob as a major supplier of power to South Africa.

The dam, which is wedged in a deep gorge that funnels t! e Zambesi River down to the city of Tete, will virtually have become a South African powerhouse by the time that Mozambique gains independence on June 25 next year.

The waters will begin to build back into a 180-mile-long lake in November. In January the hydro-electric generators will be tested, and early in June two of the five turbines will send the first megawatts down 400 miles of powerlines into the Apollo converter sub-station near Pretoria. It was this tight timetable that faced Frelimo when the Nationalists effectively took power in Mozambique’s transitional Government. The party’s sudden elevation had led to a conflict between a radical ideology that demanded an end to links with the w T hite minority governments in Rhodesia and South Africa and the realities of a bankrupt economy that was heavily dependent on both countries. Cabora Bassa neatly illustrated this conundrum. The dam is geared almost entirely to supply South Africa with electricity. The power supply will provide valuable foreign exchange for Mozambique and it will also open up the whole Zambesi Valley for planned agriculture as the river flow is controlled to meet the needs of irrigation. Major issue But Frelimo had made the project a major propaganda issue during the 10-year war with the Portuguese and had frequently accused the Lisbon Government of tightening commercial links with South Africa through a big business enterprise that would do little for the people of Mozambique. Frelimo delegations have twice visited the dam, the last time early this month when a four-man team from Lourenco Marques let slip the outlines of a compromise that had been evolved to make use of the dam without compromising the political principles of the movement. One of the two military members of the delegation emphasised the need to finish the dam when told that the 3000 Africans in the workforce had been threatening

ito strike. “I have not fought [a war for IQ years to hear complaints about a salary of 12,000 escudos ($356 a | month). The dam must be (finished on time.” j Although the delegation made no public reference to the electricity supply, technicians and executives from the German, French, and Italian companies involved emerged from talks with the delegation confident that they had not been working on a i white elephant for eight years. Likely answer In June Frelimo’s president, Samora Machel, also gave an indication of the dam’s future when he told the French magazine “L’Express”: “We shall be free to sell the energy to whom we want and to negotiate with those who wish to buy it. We shall not force South Africa to change its system, but who says that South Africa and Rhodesia will continue to be the enemies of Mozambique?” Frelimo’s likely answer will be some form of nationalisation of the dam after independence so that the project can be shown to be working for the Mozambique people. Technically, this would pose appalling problems for Portugal which faces heavy penalties if contractual obligations to South Africa and the remainder of the consortium are not honoured. Lisbon financed the dam by raising money from inter-

(national banking concerns [with interests in the four countries which are engaged in the project If ! this circular system of i financing breaks down for lack of profitable electricity ‘sales, it is the Portuguese 'Govememnt which will be floundering to raise the I indemnities. | But the Lusaka agreement 'between Frelimo and the ; Portuguese is widely believed jto be a diplomatic iceberg. Among several secret clauses it is reliably reported that one guarantees the international payments emanating from Cabora Bassa. The only way that Frelimo can uphold this guarantee is by selling the electricity. The 1500 Europeans involved on the site have worked in the primitive conditions of a mining camp that has been untouched by the war that swirled around it and is remote from the politicking in Lourenco Marques. Equally there are what may kindly be called creative tensions within Frelimo as to the direction that an independent Mozambique should take. The political situation in Mozambique remains fluid and the big company men at Cabora Bassa admit that 12hour working days and fourlanguage bingo sessions by night do not make for the kind of political perception required to determine the real intentions of Frelimo. Nevertheless they are confident that in this case at least electricity and politics do not mix.