S.A. admits breaking Mozambique treaty

Press, 20 September 1985, Page 6

S.A. admits breaking Mozambique treaty

NZPA-AP Johannesburg South Africa’s Foreign Minister, Mr Roelof Botha, admitted yesterday that South Africa had violated a peace accord with Mozambique, signed last year, including setting up communications for rebels fighting that country’s Marxist Government. Mr Botha admitted the violation of the Nkomati accord after being summoned to Mozambique and confronted with evidence from the diary of a rebel commander, which was found by Mozambique’s forces when they overran the insurgents’ headquarters last week.

“On the face of it, the Nkomati accord was violated,” he told a news conference for South African journalists in the capital, Pretoria.

“But it is important that President Samora Machel did not allege the South African Government contravened it (the accord),” Mr Botha said. Mr Machel will meet the President of the United States, Mr Ronald Reagan, in Washington today. Under the accord, signed

in March, 1984, South Africa promised to stop supporting Mozambique’s National Resistance Army guerrillas fighting to oust Mr Machel. In return, Mr Machel pledged to stop allowing the outlawed African National Congress guerrillas to use his country as a base in their violent struggle to overthrow the South African Government. Mr Botha’s admission that South Africa has not stuck to its treaty with Mozambique was made at an early evening news conference, to which foreign journalists were not invited. The South African Press Association said that it had been given permission to release details of Mr Botha’s remarks early yesterday (local time). Mr Botha, accompanied at the news conference by the Defence Minister, General Magnus Malan, said that the violations had been what he called “technical and aimed at promoting talks” between Mr Machel and the rebels. Mr Machel had confronted Mr Botha with the diary of the rebel commander at a meeting on Monday at the Mozambique leader’s official residence in Maputo,

the country’s capital. The diary of the rebel commander, identified only as J. Vaz, had given details of contacts with South Africa from before the accord was signed until July this year.

The rebels’ headquarters were at Gorongoza, in Mozambique’s Sofala Province. South African officials acknowledged that the diary had showed that Mr Botha’s then deputy, Louis Nel, had paid three clandestine visits to the Gorongoza headquarters between June and October last year. Mr Botha confirmed the diary’s revelations that radio contacts had been set up between the Mozambican rebels and the South African Army and that South Africa had helped the rebels build an airstrip. Mr Botha said that the contacts were “humanitarian aid” to the rebels. Rebel commanders had once been taken to the Mozambique coast by a South African submarine. The diary, South African officials said, also had referred to South African arms supplies to the rebels. The officials did not confirm whether that was true.