VORSTER’S NEW NEIGHBOUR FUTURE OF MOZAMBIQUE AND WHITE-RULED SOUTH AFRICA

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33873, 19 June 1975, Page 16

VORSTER’S NEW NEIGHBOUR FUTURE OF MOZAMBIQUE AND WHITE-RULED SOUTH AFRICA

(By

CHARLES BLOOMBURG.

in Laurenco Marques, for the Observer Foreign Neus Service.)

John Orr’s department store — visible symbol of Soutii African affluence in the fashionable Avenida da. Republica — displays a photograph of a smiling bearded black man in its window. The face has not been seen here for 12 years. Until recently, his name was completely unknown. The caption: “Comrade Samora Maehel, President-Elect of Mozambique.”

All shops carry this benign photograph, together with Pre.imos colours: green for agriculture: gold for mineral wealth; white for peace; black for the power of the people: and red for blood. Of all these. ti,e bloodshed of the last 11 years seems least mentioned.

[ The emphasis is on the re- [ conciliation of all races, tribes, and creeds, among [Mozambique’s 10 million people. As an "act of clei mency,” Maehel has just re- [ taxed restrictions of 360 convicted “traitors.” "Unity, I work and vigilance” is FreI limo’s slogan. Symbolically [ the postage stamp of the transitional regime shows a j peace dove clutching a levlelled spear, below the crossed flags of Portugal and Frelimo.

On June 25, the Portuguese flag will be finally furled, as Maehel, 42, the one-time male nurse who became liberation army commander, returns in triumph. He slipped out of Lourenco Marques, in 1962, making his way, by way of South Africa, to the Frelimo headquarters in Tanzania. He led the first guerrilla incursions into northern Mozambique, but has always been a shadowy figure in the south. Under him. Mozambique, only one day’s drive from Pretoria, and traditional fun-and-sin playground of white South Africans, will become quite unlike any other black State on the South African Republic’s borders. As independence day approaches, Frelimo has stepped up campaigns for “the abolition of racism throughout Africa,” and against “militarism, tribalism and regionalism.” But this does not presage an impending head-on military or economic confrontation with South Africa. All indications are that Frelimo will concentrate on domestic reconstruction: eliminating the Portguese legacy of a staggering 90 per cent illiteracy rate, welding a new nation out of the 42 tribes, restoring the war-ravaged and partially famine-stricken countryside, developing agriculture and rejuvenating the country’s run-down industry. Mine labour

Seventy-five per cent of this impoverished country’s foreign currency comes from South Africa. Fearing that the Republic’s “neo-colonial-ism” will turn it into an economic satellite, Frelimo is making efforts to reduce the South African presence. South Africa has been banned from the September international trade fair and new sources of foreign development aid are being probed. But it is likely that Frelimo will maintain Mozambique’s existing economic agreements on the Republic’s use of its rail and ports, migrant labour and Cabora Bassa Dam power, though it is reported to be attempting to negotiate certain revisions.

High on the agenda is the question of Mozambique’s 100,000 to 120,000 miners in South Africa, 60 per cent of whose wages have traditionally been paid direct to Lisbon in gold. South Africa’s mines urgently need this migrant labour, and for-eign-exchange starved Frelimo would welcome a switch of gold payments (worth £4O million annually). Unconfirmed reports from well-informed sources say that the South African Reserve Bank has already made three-quarters of its gold payments for the current year to Mozambique. Frelimo is, however, unhappy about the miners’ wages and conditions, and is under

pressure to reduce the flow of workers by 25 per cent. Maehel has attacked the system; his elder brother died in a South African mine. Observers believe that Frelimo is trying to renegotiate the terms of Mozambique’s economic agreements with South Africa. The Prime Minister, Mr John Vorster, has already stated, however, that his Government has “satisfactory” assurances that Beira and Lourenco Marques will remain open to South African goods, that Mozambique railways will continue to carry them, and that the Cabora Bassa Dam — for whose cheap electricity South Africa will pay about £4O million annually — will be successfully completed in 1980.

Significantly, Frelimo continually cautions against “exulting in victory” — a plea for calm during the independence celebrations: it is playing down euphoric expectations (especially among slum dwellers) of an instant earthly kingdom. “We are not gods,” says Joachim Chissano, the caretaker Prime Minister. Everything depended on organisation, sacrifice, unity and work. “You must not think that Frelimo will drop like a god from the sky to solve all our problems.” There are unmistakable hints of austerity. The new society, says Chissano, will abolish the “colonialist” idea that a man’s value depended on “his money”; in future a man’s worth will be measured by "what he contributes to society, be that ideas or physical labour. A man who does not create has no value." Low profile

Keeping a low profile, the interim Government (in which a white lawyer, Dr Rui Baltazar, 40, is Frelimo’s Minister of Justice) has revealed relatively few important details of how Frelimo will run the sprawling country Certainly there will be no armed collision with South Africa, no interference in the Republic’s internal politics, no springboard for black insurgents. But the new anti-racist, socialiststyle society envisaged, must change South Africa’s view of black Africa. Already a note of alarm has crept into South African press reports about the “Marxist Mozambique,” with whom it shares hundreds of miles of border.

As a prelude to independence, Frelimo has set up a country-wide network of “dynamic activist committees,” some multi-racial, to deal with local health, hygiene, education, women's emancipation, social services, and to mobilise public opinion. Polite, immaculate Frelimo soldiers stop us at road blocks, and make impromptu speeches saying whites are welcome and that races should get to know the

other better. “We want to live in friendship with you," said a hitch-hiking Frelimo medical orderly. He was trained as a soldier in Tanzania. and as a nurse in the Soviet Union.

Frelimo troops already occupy all the border garrisons, and are gradually moving into Lourenco Marques as the remaining 2000 Portuguese troops are phased out. Outwardly, the atmosphere is casual, relaxed, even carefree. Dolce vita sunbathers line the Polana Hotel pool. Chattering crowds gather nightly at pavement cafes. But tourists are few: one rarely sees a South African car registration.

And in Lourenco Marques’ wealthy suburbs many unlit houses at night are a reminder of the 50,000 whites who have left, most after last autumn’s abortive Movement I for - a Free Mozambique I coup. This exodus represents 'about a quarter of the white | population. i Still, one hears of refugees [ from South Africa quietly j filtering back, who mingle with newly-arrived whites from the north, drawn to Lourenco Marques by a sense of greater security By contrast, about 800,000 blacks live squashed in ramshackle huts in the margin of the capital’s industrial areas. Frelimo’s headquarters are here, and militancy is high. A spate of illustrated teach-yourself and simple do-it-yourself books have appeared in bookstores. So, for the first time, are Portuguese translations of Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Che Guevara; and works about Cuba and Chile. Girlie magazines and pornographic pulp are now hard to come by in an atmosphere which stresses the “dignity of woman.” Skills needed

Frelimo desperately needs skills — at present the virtual monopoly of the educated whites — to keep essential services running; it needs technicians, economists, engineers, doctors, financial experts, nurses, teachers. Arrangements have been made to recruit some from Portugal itself, and to keep on some of the former regime’s civil servants. There are less than 100 doctors in the country. Chinese and Soviet diplomatic missions — probably at embassy level — are expected to open in Mozambique. Frelimo will retain diplomatic links with the 11 countries which already have consular representation. But the South African Consulate-General — whose size even dwarfs that of the United States — may be downgraded to a trade mission. The Rhodesian mission will be closed down. An immediate exchange of diplomats with the new Vietcong government of South Vietnam will be effected on June 25. — O.F.N.S. Copyright.

Across 4— Mother’s wise to tone up the body. (7) 8 — Board of Trade gets the girl in perplexity. (6) 9— Set a scheme before Edward. (7) 10— Unseated, we hear, from an exalted perch. (6) 11— Valuing the metal in the scrap. (6) 12— Enlarging on classical language in archaeological activity. (8) 18— Trading establishment run by a fat friar? (4-4) 20— Notice nothing inside is decrepit. (6) 21— To suffer deprivation could put five in tears. (6) 22— Pelmets restyled for sectarian establishments. (7) 23— One’s progress in life will produce anxiety and a bit of hesitation. (6) 24— Expresses preference for the Spanish in religious denominations. (7) Down 1— The current recession (3-4) 2— Producing nothing in Manchester, I left. (7) 3— When this is shelled, the fruit is found with the vegetable. (6) 5— Being hypersensitive shows an unusually ill grace. (8) 6— It’s not madness to speak about money being raised. (6) 7— Picks up bits from different angles. (6) 13— See 17 Down. 14— Had to pay for being loaded. (7) 15— Is seen disguised as a sapper. (7) 16— Withdraw from the south-east and then surrender. (6) 17 and 13 Down — Guileless attention that the capital may attract. (6, 8) 19— This will carry equipment when Christopher gets the sack. (3-3) (Solution tomorrow) Yesterday’s solution Across: 1, Unfortunate; 9, End; 10, Denigrate; 11, Paddy; 13, Elevens; 14, Reason; 16, Stamps; 18, Measure; 19, Mince; 20, Noisiness; 21, Arc; 22, State secret. Down; 2, Nod; 3, Oddly; 4, Tender; 5, Neglect; 6, Tradesman; 7. Temperament; 8, Persistence; 12, Dramatist; 15, Oculist; 17, Recess; 19, Music; 21, Age.