Mozambique choice brings relief

Press, 6 November 1986, Page 8

Mozambique choice brings relief

NZPA-Reuter Harare

Joaquim Chissano’s quick appointment as President of Mozambique signals no early policy changes and ends a tragic chapter in Mozambique’s young history. Regional diplomats and commentators said the selection of the Foreign Minister, aged 47, while widely expected, would be greeted with relief in Western capitals.

He was selected unanimously by the 130member Central Committee of the ruling Frelimo party on Tuesday on the first day of a meeting many officials had expected to be still in session until at least today.

Two weeks ago President Samora Machel was killed in a plane crash in

South Africa. In his first address, Mr Chissano pledged to be guided by Mr Machel’s policies, vowed to improve the tottering economy and pledged to fight to end the guerrilla war that has wreaked havoc for years.

“We will continue with war in order to finish with the war. We will restore peace and tranquillity to all citizens,” he said. Foreign policy would remain unchanged. Mozambique has taken on a significantly more proWestern and less proSoviet stance in the last four years, a shift widely attributed to the moderate, pragmatic Chissano. Western relief at his appointment, rather than his hardline Marxist rival, Marcelino dos Santos, was made clear by a prompt

expression of congratulations from the United States.

Mr Chissano urbane and multi-lingual, had been Foreign Minister since independence in 1975, gaining the widest international experience of any senior Government official.

At the same time, he maintained grass-roots popularity dating from the guerrilla struggle agaihst Portuguese colonial rule during which he rose to the rank of Major-Gen-eral.

He was bom in the same southern area of Chibuto that Mr Machel came from, resembling his diminutive predecessor in his immaculate clothes and trimmed beard.

But, unlike the ebullient Mr Machel, he is softly-

spoken and his mannerisms are tightly controlled. He has inherited a country virtually in collapse

Mr Chissano’s reiterated commitment to the war effort was not new and he is as opposed to calls for peace negotiations with Right-wing rebels, known here as “armed bandits,” as Mr Machel was.

“We have made it clear to the South Africans and other people who are interested in Mozambique, we do not have a political opposition and therefore are not going to undertake any political negotiations or talks with the bandits who represent nothing of Mozambique’s opinion and who are a product of outside forces.”