1 South Africa Backs Renamo

For South Africa it was obvious that the April 1974 coup in Lisbon would pave the way to the independence of the Portuguese colonies. Pretoria moved quickly to ensure that an independent Mozambique would not pose a threat to the apartheid regime. With Zambia's backing, South African Prime Minister John Vorster sought a stable southern African region where economic co-operation, rather than military confrontation, would prevail. For that, he was prepared to go to great lengths: bring about a solution to the Rhodesian dispute, which included sacrificing Ian Smith, settle the Namibian prob- lem, and recognize the independence of Mozambique with Frelimo in power. Zambia, for its part, undertook that there would be no ANC or other insurgent activities directed against South Africa from either Zam- bia, Mozambique, Botswana or Rhodesia.1 The South African and Zambian initiative bore no significant results simply because they had no mandate from the other parties concerned. Frelimo was, perhaps, the main beneficiary in that it felt assured that Pretoria would not prevent it from taking over the government in Mozambique. Despite Frelimo's stand on apartheid and its publicly stated `political and diplomatic support' for the ANC, South Africa felt comfortable to have a Frelimo-ruled Mozambique as its neighbour. Pretoria believed that economic factors would determine the relations between the two countries. South Africa not only allowed bilateral economic relations to continue, but encouraged them to develop. Kobus Loubser, the general manager of the South African Railways (SAR), was among those who were instrumental in furthering that goal. In 1975, he took a delegation of South African businessmen to Mozambique, urging them to make full and effective use of Maputo's railway and

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J. M. Cabrita, Mozambique © João M. Cabrita 2000 180 Mozambique: the Tortuous Road to Democracy port facilities if, as he put it, `an export drive has to get out of South Africa'.2 Frelimo, it appears, resisted Pretoria's overtures. It was as a result of the Frelimo government's policies that economic relations between Mozam- bique and South Africa deteriorated after independence. A case in point was the decline in the number of Mozambican migrant workers employed in South Africa, primarily in the mining sector. Mozambique imposed restrictions on the hiring of its workers by the South African labour bureau, Wenela. It ordered the bureau to close down 17 of its 21 recruiting offices in Mozambique.3 Potential migrant workers were pre- vented from leaving the country because the Mozambican government was reluctant to issue them with travel documents.4 In the last year of Portuguese rule there were 113 405Mozambicans employed in various South African mines. The number dropped to 32 496 in 1976, rising slightly in 1977 to 36 433, and to 37 904 in 1978. There was a marked decline in 1979 to 25090, with no increases above the 1978 mark recorded until 1983.5 Financially, this represented a major loss to Mozambique. Under the Mozambique Convention of 1909, 60 per cent of the work- ers' earnings was retained in South Africa. Portugal, and Mozambique after independence, paid that percentage in Mozambican currency to the miners back home. The workers could draw 40 per cent of their salaries at the mines, which then lodged the deferred pay with the South African Reserve Bank. Roughly every quarter, the pay was converted into gold at the official South African price, and subsequently sold by Mozambique at the market price. In April 1975, for instance, the deferred pay amounted to 33 million rands, or US$37.95million at the then rate of exchange. At the official US$42 gold price, that bought 903 571 ounces of the metal, compared with 246 428 ounces if it had been bought at the market price of US$154 per ounce.6 South Africa's use of the port of Maputo also declined after independ- ence. The port, which in 1975handled 18 per cent of South African freight, contributed 30 per cent of Mozambique's total foreign earnings. In view of a drop in productivity caused by the departure of Portuguese skilled personnel, freight volumes moving from South Africa to Maputo plummeted in the early months of 1976 from 25000 to 18 000 tonnes a day.7 It went down further from June 1977 onwards as most of the remaining Portuguese personnel at the Maputo port and railways did not renew their contracts. Nonetheless, South Africa remained committed to using the port of Maputo. SAR spent 70 million rands electrifying and upgrading the South Africa Backs Renamo 181

Witwatersrand±Komatipoort railway line linking the port of Maputo. SAR assisted its Mozambique counterpart in doubling the 31 km section of the line between Moamba and Machava, thus eliminating the last single-line bottleneck on the 600 km route.8 South Africa reviewed its attitude towards Mozambique when it became aware that Frelimo's degree of involvement with the ANC was beyond acceptable levels. As a sign of its change of heart, Pretoria decided in 1978 to stop exchanging the earnings of Mozambican migrant workers for gold at the official price, selling it instead at world market prices. The year before, South Africa announced its intention to build a strategic air force base at Hoedspruit near the border with Mozambique. There was a complete reappraisal of the relations between the two countries when P W Botha, who served as Vorster's defense minister, replaced him in September 1978. From then on, the military would gain the upper hand in the running of South Africa. P W Botha viewed Mozambique's support for the ANC as part of a well-devised strategy to subvert the prevailing political order in South Africa. The ANC had for some time been using Mozambique as a transit point to infiltrate its guerrillas into South Africa. Some of them entered the country's rural areas with the assistance of the Mozambican Border Guard Troops, TGF. Trained as a reconnaissance unit by USSR's Spetsnaz instructors, the TGF had an operational radius of 50 km beyond Mozam- bique's borders. Posing as migrant workers, other ANC guerrillas entered their country with forged travel documents issued by the Mozambican government.9 Arms for the ANC were shipped directly from the USSR to Maputo. Joe Slovo, the deputy head of the ANC's armed wing, was transferred from Lusaka to Maputo with responsibility for operations in the South African provinces bordering Mozambique.10 In response to this, South Africa decided to assist Renamo: first, through Rhodesia, and then directly, after the Rhodesian settlement of 1979. The group of about 200 Renamo recruits still at the Odzi camp during Rhodesia's transition to independence was transferred to South Africa and accommodated in a camp at Letaba, near the Mozambican border. A radio communications centre was established at the camp, enabling contact with the Renamo headquarters and other bases in Mozambique. To prevent detection by surveillance satellites believed to be hovering in the South African skies, Renamo personnel at the camp were told to wear SADF fatigues, and those entitled to carry arms were issued with weapons from the local armoury. Upon completing training given by Renamo instructors, the group was airlifted in South African Air Force Super Frelon helicopters and 182 Mozambique: the Tortuous Road to Democracy deployed just south of the Save River, Gaza, on 20 October 1980. A DC-4 Skymaster plane fitted with electronic surveillance equipment remained airborne throughout the airlift operation to monitor any FAM ground or air response. The Renamo contingent was led by Lucas Kwambirwa and included several senior commanders, notably Calisto Meque, RauÂl LuõÂs Dique and Francisco Girmoio, a nephew of Afonso Dhlakama. Although the South Africans had succeeded in convincing Dhlakama to activate Gaza, the newly trained group was forced to cross the river and join the Renamo headquarters at Chicarre after a number of set- backs, including the death of Kwambirwa on 26 December. The contin- gent suffered a substantial number of casualties while trying to cross the flooded Save River into Manica. Some of the survivors found their way into Zimbabwe, mingling with the local population. The South Africans would later deploy in Gaza a commando unit consisting of Mozambi- cans serving with the SADF. FAM claimed to have wiped out most of the unit not long after its deployment inside Mozambique. South Africa's backing of Renamo had a clear-cut political agenda: the replacement of the Frelimo government with one that would not threa- ten Pretoria's domestic interests. The DMI was given the responsibility to assist Renamo not only militarily, but also politically. From the onset, Pretoria linked its logistical assistance to Renamo to the proviso that the movement represented a viable political alternative to Frelimo. Prior to South Africa's direct involvement with Renamo, the DMI's Department of Covert Collection had been cultivating a relationship with Domingos Arouca. The DMI felt that Renamo lacked a credible leader, one who would be representative of Mozambique's intelligentsia, never mind the fact that the guerrilla movement was essentially rural. Arouca fitted squarely with DMI's perception of what a leader should be. It took a while before the DMI realized that it was impractical to trans- plant a politician exiled in Europe into an existing organization with a leadership and dynamics of its own. In April 1980, the DMI brought Arouca to South Africa. Much to DMI's embarrassment, Dhlakama refused to meet the Fumo leader in Pretoria. Earlier, the DMI had agreed in principle to the first point on Arouca's agenda, which called for the removal of Cristina from the scene. Arouca told his hosts that `the second point on the agenda would only be placed on the table pending the approval of the first one'.11 With an empty-handed Arouca back in Lisbon, where he later claimed to have `visited Mozambique, crisscrossing the liberated areas at will',12 the DMI realized that it had to deal solely with Dhlakama. The irony of the DMI±Arouca scheme was that it ultimately benefited the man whom South Africa Backs Renamo 183 they both wanted out of the way ± Cristina. Gradually, the South Af- ricans began to liaise with him. In November 1980, Cristina met Dhlakama at the Letaba camp. He impressed on the Renamo leader the need to drum up international support for the organization, particularly since the South Africans were not keen to go it alone. Cristina recommended that Renamo should make its political goals clearly known outside Mozambique. He stressed that since Renamo's leadership was based in Mozambique, a fully- fledged external wing would have to be established so as to further those goals. Someone whom the Renamo leadership could trust would guarantee the link between the domestic and external wings. Cristina saw himself as the right person for the job.13 On 4 November, Dhlakama called a meeting attended by his immedi- ate advisers and a few junior military commanders who had traveled with him from Chicarre, as well as Cristina. Dhlakama opened the meeting which dealt with the creation of an external wing and the appointment of someone who would liaise between the central base and that wing. The Renamo leader briefed those present about Cristina's role in the Voz da AÂ frica Livre over the past four years, adding that the time had come to review Cristina's status in the organization. During the course of the meeting, Manuel Domingos, one of Dhlaka- ma's personal secretaries sitting on his right, asked Cristina about his links with Jorge Jardim. Domingos then raised objections to the forma- tion of an external political wing, which he saw as unviable since its members would operate detached from the Renamo leadership. Cristina saw Manuel Domingos as a nuisance, failing to realize that Domingos' questions not only had been cleared by Dhlakama, but also fitted the Renamo leader's style of having others raise the questions he did not want to ask personally. Domingos' objection to the idea of an external wing in fact reflected the Renamo's leadership uneasiness about a body beyond their immediate control. Cristina told Domingos he had parted ways with Jardim in 1974, but were still friends. He went on to reiterate what he had discussed with Dhlakama the day before, stressing that since a Renamo delegation would soon travel to Europe, a decision needed to be made on what was under discussion. The meeting continued in the afternoon without Cristina. Seeing Mozambique from the angle of their rural environs, Dhlakama and his men decided that no external political wing would be formed. They remained committed to their 1979 program of action, which envisaged for Renamo the role of creating conditions that would enable political 184 Mozambique: the Tortuous Road to Democracy parties to establish a democratic order in Mozambique. Dhlakama agreed to designate Cristina as Renamo's secretary general, arguing with his advisers and junior commanders that it would be preferable to have someone like Cristina, despite the embarrassment that his colo- nial past posed to Renamo, rather than an unknown exiled figure. Cristina, reasoned Dhlakama, would keep at bay the squabbles and the intrigues of exiled politics, without letting them spill over into the organization. The Renamo leader felt that this arrangement would leave intact his own domestic structure which, at the time, consisted of a 14±man National Council.14

Table IV.1.1 Renamo National Council (Members' ethnic group in brackets)15

1 Afonso Dhlakama, commander in chief and president of Renamo (Ndau) 2 JoaÄo Macia Fombe, deputy commander in chief and 1st Battalion commander (Manyika) 3 Vareia Manje Languane, 2nd Battalion commander (Sena) 4 Jose Domingos Cuanai CalcËaÄo, secretary in the National Defense Department (Manyika) 5Jose  LuõÂs JoaÄo, 9th Battalion commander (Sena) 6 RauÂl Manuel Domingos, secretary in the National Defense Department (Sena) 7 Jose Marques Francisco, head of the Training Department (Sena) 8 Jose Manuel Alfinete, head of the Telecommunications Battalion (LomweÁ) 9MaÂrio Franque, 3rd Battalion commander (Manyika) 10 Joaquim Rui de Figueiredo Paulo, deputy battalion commander (Shangaan) 11 Henriques Ernesto Samuel, deputy battalion commander (Chope) 12 Ossufo Momade, deputy battalion commander (Makua) 13 OlõÂmpio OsoÂrio Caisse Cambona, head of the telecommunications department (Yao) 14 Albino Chavago, head of the health department (Ronga)