by Phyllis Johnson – SANF 06 No 90
President Samora’s death cast a long shadow over southern Africa, at a time when the region was locked in combat with the apartheid system of racial oppression in South Africa.
Suddenly, overnight, the inspirational energy that he generated was gone, replaced by a sense of shock and deprivation. Deprived not only of President Samora’s person and leadership, but that of others who had accompanied him to the Front Line States meeting in northern Zambia.
These included Fernando Honwana, an influential advisor and activist in the president’s office; Muradali Mamadhussein, the president’s press secretary and communications advisor; Ambassador Lobo, Mozambique’s articulate representative at the United Nations in New York; Aquino de Braganza, revered historian from the Centre for African Studies at Eduardo Mondlane University; the official photographer, Maquinesse, and others.
Travelling south-east, their plane passed safely through the Curla beacon from Zimbabwe into South Africa, and was gone.
First reports said the plane was missing. Another report said there was wreckage of a plane in South Africa near the Mozambican border. It was not difficult to put the two reports together, but impossible to believe the result.
Samora Moises Machel had walked large on the southern African stage since the 1960s.
Taking up the leadership of the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frelimo) from the first president, Eduardo Chivambo Mondlane, who was assassinated by Portuguese security agents in 1969, and leading the liberation struggle from the battlefront, Samora Machel defeated Portuguese colonialism (which saw Mozambique as an “overseas territory”) to became the first President of Mozambique at independence on 25 June 1975.
A few months later, in March 1976, he closed Mozambique’s 1,200-km border with Rhodesia, in line with United Nations sanctions, and cut off the lucrative transport of goods from the interior to his country’s railways and ports.
Frelimo was already accommodating the liberation fighters from Zimbabwe in its bases in the liberated zones of Mozambique since 1972, especially in Tete province where they had ready access to the border crossing.
The firm and active support from President Samora, Frelimo and Mozambique continued until Rhodesia again become Zimbabwe at independence on 18 April 1980. That support included the provision of rear bases and camps in Mozambique, and providing materials including those from the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) Liberation Committee, which was based in Tanzania.
When the war in Rhodesia escalated to the extent of several rounds of negotiations, Mozambican officials were present on the sidelines. At the Lancaster House talks in London in 1979, Mozambique played an active role in encouraging a settlement.
President Samora did this because he knew that the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) would win the proposed transitional elections, and he believed the British government would deliver on their commitment on the land issue, to provide significant resources for purchase and resettlement.
This belief is at the root of the firm support of Mozambique and Tanzania for the Zimbabwe land issue. They were at Lancaster House, they were part of the decision to settle, and they believed that resources would be forthcoming.
President Samora was eloquent and outspoken on the subject of liberation in southern Africa (he called Ian Smith a tabaqueiro, a tobacco seller), and especially against apartheid in South Africa. Having won Mozambique, he believed that anything was possible, including a victory over apartheid in South Africa.
His high profile stance against colonialism and white minority rule, however, made him a threat to those in power in South Africa.
October 1986 was at the height of new activity by the African National Congress (ANC) in the townships of South Africa, with cadres moving in and out of Mozambique; and at the height of Mozambique National Resistance (Renamo) activities in Mozambique, moving in from Kamuzu Banda’s Malawi.
Renamo, formed and trained at Odzi in Rhodesia, near the Mozambique border, was moved, complete with weapons, supplies and training officers, to South Africa during the transition to Zimbabwe’s independence and continued its activities from new bases at Phalaborwa.
The then South African president, P.W. Botha, was often called the “great crocodile” but he may not have been aware that Samora Machel was experienced at dealing with crocodiles.
Born on 29 September 1933 in the village of Chilembene, in what is now Chokwe district of Gaza province, Samora herded cattle like the other young boys. But one day, according to a story told by his cousin Paulo and quoted in Iain Christie’s biography, Machel of Mozambique, he lost a calf that was attacked by a crocodile.
When he found the calf with its leg in the crocodile’s mouth, he “jumped into the river, shouting and screaming and hitting the water with his stick.” Fortunately, says the author, “the crocodile did not call his bluff, but let go of the calf and made off down the river.”
He rescued the terrified calf, treated its wounds with medicinal herbs, and returned home in triumph, to be praised for his courage.
Later, in a political encounter with the “great crocodile”, President Samora signed a high-profile agreement with South African president Botha at Nkomati in 1984, which in typical fashion he made into a theatrical occasion, and drew praise from the British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, for his courage.
He had predicted in May 1979 that she would win the British election, and (to the astonishment of his Cabinet colleagues) that there would be “a settlement in Rhodesia by the end of the year”.
He drew on historical references to explain his prediction: US president Richard Nixon and China; and French president Charles de Gaulle and Algeria.
So, President Samora Machel and others died in the plane crash after dedicating their lives to liberation, Namibia continued on to independence in 1990, and the apartheid system was officially ended and majority rule came to South Africa in 1994.
Despite official inquiries in Mozambique, South Africa and the Soviet Union (the countries of ownership of the plane, venue of the crash, and nationality of the pilots), the full details have not yet emerged. Even now, 20 years later, the full evidence is not available.
But there is an echo across the Mozambique-South Africa border, where both presidents Armando Emilio Guebuza and Thabo Mbeki have pledged to “leave no stone unturned” until they find out what happened on 19 October 1986.
And at Mbuzini, where the plane crashed, you can hear the echo, whispering through the 35 vertical steel pillars of the monument designed by Mozambique’s leading architect, José Forjaz.
