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South Africa Backs Renamo

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South Africa Backs Renamo 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 179 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.
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