S.A. and Mozambican Presidents to meet

Press, 13 September 1988, Page 8

S.A. and Mozambican Presidents to meet

NZPA-Reuter Harare South Africa’s President, P. W. Botha, will fly to Mozambique to discuss new proposals for peaceful co-existence and economic co-operation between his racially-divided country and its Marxist neighbour. Mozambique, which views a 1984 peace accord it signed with South Africa as a failure, questions whether Pretoria is now sincere in offering the hand of friendship. “There are forces in South Africa who see in this kind of top-level diplomacy a slow weakening of the militarist option,” the official Mozambique News Agency (A.1.M.) said in a commentary. Mr Botha, making his first official visit to a black-ruled State since he came to power 10 years ago, is due to meet the Mozambican President, Joaquim Chissano, at Songo, a small town in northern Mozambique, before flying on to Malawi, where he will meet President Kamuzu Banda.

Songo was chosen as the venue for the summit apparently because it overlooks the mighty Cahora Bassa dam, which was built while Mozambique was still a Portuguese colony to provide cheap electricity for South Africa. Cahora Bassa has never supplied power regularly

since it was completed in 1979, four years after Mozambique’s independence, because the 1400 km power line which links it to South Africa has been repeatedly sabotaged by Mozambican rebels.

Officially, the summit meeting has been convened to ratify an agreement reached in May to repair the power line and resume electricity sales to South Africa next year. In order for the agreement to work, however, the two countries will have to revive the spirit of the 1984 Nkomati Accord, which pledged both countries to maintain peaceful relations and refrain from interfering in each other’s internal affairs.

Mozambique and Western diplomats based in Maputo accuse South Africa of violating the agreement by giving continued support to the rebel Mozambique National Resistance, a charge which Pretoria denies.

Mozambique, whose economy has been wrecked by rebel sabotage, is willing to put South Africa’s latest professions of good intentions to the test.

“Mozambique hopes that the Songo meeting will be a decisive step in rescuing the Nkomati Accord,” the A.I.M. commentary said.