You Are No T Dead Because We Have Assumed Your Responsibilities And
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Number Four 1\N Call The newsletter of the STATE-WIDE ANTI-APARTHEID NETWORKS of Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Colorado " ... you are no t dead because we have assumed your responsibilities and they live 1.,n us ... The blood you shed 1.,S bu t a sma II drop 1.,n the flood we have already given and still have to give." -from a poem by Samora Machel to his wife Josina Machel, after her death in 1971 Machel's Death Hits Mozambique [AN] When Mozambican President Samora contracts expire. The Mozambican news agency Machel and other key members of his govern AI M reports that 61,500 Mozambicans were em ment died in an Oct. 19 plane crash over South ployed in 51 South African mines as of July 31. Africa, Mozambique's troubles had already Their remittances of about $90 million annually reached alarming proportions. With his leader make up one third of Mozambique's foreign ex shi p lost, the country faces an even more uncertain change income. future. - South Africa also retaliated, according to Mo The crash occurred about three miles from the zambique's charges, by massing troops along the town of Namaacha, just inside South African ter border. Pretoria dismissed that accusation as ritory near the border with both Mozambique and "nonsense." Swaziland. According to a list released last week - Many of the recent RENAMO attacks have by the Mozambican government (see box), ap been concentrated in the northwestern region of proximately 35 people were killed and 10 survived. the country, near the Malawian border. Machel, Among the casualties were one Cabinet minister Kaunda, and Zimbabwe Prime Minister Robert and several key presidential aides.Aninternational Mugabe travelled last month to Malawi to warn inquiry into the cause of the crash has begun. Malawi's aging president, Kamuzu Hastings When he died, Machel was returning from a Banda that he faced severe reprisals from his meeting with other African presidents in Zambia. neighbors if he did not curb the use of his nation's It was one of a series of emergency sessions, territory by RENAMO. Malawi responded by beginning with a frontline state summit in Angola promising to expel the rebels and by handing back in August, called in response to the rapidly dete a reported 1500 Mozambican soldiers who had riorating security situation in the region. fled into Malawi during heavy fighting. Mozambique, hardest hit of all, has been suffer The meeting Machel attended in Zambia just ing from a number of severe problems: before his death had a similar purpose. The Mo - The South African-supported insurgents, the zambican leader, along with his Zambian and Mozambican National Resistance (RENAMO), Angolan counterparts, Kenneth Kaunda and Jose have crippled most of the country's communica Eduardo dos Santos, had summoned President tions and transport facilities, destroying much of Mobutu Sese Seko from Zaire to discuss plans for the economic and productive capacity. As a result, reducing their nations' dependence on South Af a third of the country's popUlation of 12 million is rican transport routes. The key to resisting South currently at risk from drought and famine and Africa's attempts to transfer to them the cost of most of the key rail lines are not able to reliabh international anti-apartheid sanctions, the leaders handle the movement of crucial goods either int~ reportedly told Mobutu, is the strengthening of the interior of the country or to-and-from neigh the available transport outlets that provide an al boring states. ternative to South African ports for landlocked The Mozambicans estimate that attacks by the Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Zaire. rebels and South Africa have cost the country $4 However, these outlets running through Angola billion, twice the national debt and far greater to the west and Mozambique to the east have than annual government revenues of$500 million been made virtually unusable by South African a year. supported insurgents- UNITA and the Mozam -Amid increasing bilateral tensions, South Africa bique National Resistance (RENAMO). responded to a land mine explosion on the Mo Mobutu was reportedly warned to end his zambican border three weeks ago with a crack government's cooperation with UN ITA, which in down on Mozambican miners employed in South recent months has been receiving covert U.S. Africa. Pretoria banned recruitment of additional assistance in addition to continuing South African miners and announced that currently-employed support. And he was urged to join with the front migrant laborers will be sent home when their line states in seeking to reduce their vulnerabilit\' to South Africa. Ii 2 Reprinted by permission from "AFRICA NEWS" MACHEL'S STRUGGLE FOR AN CHISSANO ELECTED PRESIDENT INDEPENDENT MOZAMBIQUE The elections of Joaquim Chissano as the Samora Moises Mochel was born September 29, new FRELIMO head came as no surprise. He 1933, the third son of a peasant farmer in the had long been viewed as the man most likely to Chokwe District of Goza Province in occupied succeed President Mochel. Apparently, there Mozambique. His home district was one was no other candidate, and the selection was designated for reserved labor in the South by acclamation. African mines, where his father worked and his older brother was to die. In the 1940s forced Chissano has been a member of the cotton cultivation was introduced and necessary FRELIMO central committee since 1963. He food production was reduced, causing was secretary to Mondlane until the latter was widespread hunger; then forced labor to build murdered in 1969. From .1965 he was also irrigation systems, in preparation for reponsible for the FRELllvlO security Portuguese settlers; and finally these schemes department, and in 1969 he became a member led to dispossession of the land, and forced of what was then the movement's most powerful removal of the Africans. body, the politico-military committee. After completing grade four at age 17, young Samora Mochel applied to the official President Mochel appointed Chissano state system and was turned down. He trained prime minister in the transitional government instead to be a nurse. F rom the money he that ran Mozambique under an agreement with earned, he continued his studies but was never Portugal from September 1974 until full able to advance very for within the formal independence in June 1975. system. He was self-taught in the fire of the national liberation struggle. Chissano became foreign minister in the The Portuguese colonialists, having first Mozambican Cabinet in July 1975, and has silenced the original armed resistance of the held that post since. As the country's top Mozambican people in the mid-I 890s, were diplomat, he has met frequently with Western never able to silence the old battle-scarred leaders, leading to speculation in the U.S. that veterans. Their stories kept alive the spirit of he is "pro-western." To such remarks, the resistance to foreign occupation. This spirit FRELIMO leadership retorts that it is neither was to be rekindled when the young boys and "pro-western" nor "pro-soviet," but pro girls who heard them grew to be men and Mozambican. women. The boy Samora Mochel was to grow into WA YS WE CAN GET INVOLVED: the man who would train the guerrilla army of the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique for the decade of war which would defeat the Portuguese army in the field. * Write your congressperson - In 1960 a free and independent Renamo is a contra group of Mozambique seemed an impossible dream. However, in many young men and women in rebels that do not deserve U.S. Mozambique the storm had already begun to support. The U.S. should deal gather, and in ten short years the world would directly with the govenment of hear their thunder. tvlozambique. These young men and women, first under the leadership of Eduardo Mondlane, then Samora Mochel, were to build an organization - * Support the material aids FRELlMO, the Front for the Liberation of campaigns for Mozambique. Mozambique - and develop a view that allowed Currently an appeal is being made them to distinguish between their friend and their enemy. for: clothes, fabric, seeds, books, On Sept. I I, 1974, a ceasefire was monetary contributions. called, and independence was affirmed on June 25, 1975. Samora Mochel became the first Subscribe to Mozambican Notes president of the independent Peoples Republic * of Mozambique. c/o Mozambique Resource Center P.O. Box 2006, New York, NY 3 10159 SHAM DIVESTMENT: A NEW PHASE IN RESISTANCE TO ECONOMIC DISENGAGEMENT On 19 November, we asked Tandi Gcabashe, national coordinator for the Coca-Cola divestment campaign, to address the confusion about the so called "divestment" of Coca-Cola and other corporations. SWAAN: Are these companies really "out" In the 1960s, faced with the demand of South Africa? for withdrawal, the companies' response was flat denial and refusal. By 1970, the Gcabashe: Absolutely not. True disin pressure was taking its toll. This was vestment means four things: closing (not Phase Two, when the companies hired Leon just selling) plants; ceasing to make the Sullivan [then a GM board member] to product available--for example, supplying invent excuses for their presence in South no more syrup to make Coke; selling no Africa. When the Sullivan Principles were franchises; and withdrawing their exposed by the movement as irrelevant trademarks from use in South Africa. excuses, Phase Three began, marked by Coca-Cola has not satisfied any of justifications such as Coca-Cola's $10 these requirements. The other companies million "equal opportunity funds." look very much the same. Certainly, it's Constant pressure from the movement "business as usual" for IBM.