Mozambican Leader Dies in South Africa Plane Crash



Mozambican Leader Dies in South Africa Plane Crash

• Pretoria Denies Role

• Mob Protests in Harare

• Reactions

• S. Africa Tensions Had Heightened

• 'Invasion' Follows Malawi Warning

• Transport Outlets Eyed

Pretoria Denies Role

Mozambican President Samora M. Machel was killed the night of Oct. 19, when a plane carrying him home from a meeting in Zambia crashed just inside the border of South Africa. Thirty-three other people--including several senior Mozambican government officials--died in the crash. There were 10 survivors.

Machel, 53, had led his country since guiding it to independence from Portugal in 1975, and was a major figure in the growing conflict between the black-ruled states of southern Africa and white-ruled South Africa. [See 1986 Mozambican Leader Dies in South Africa Plane Crash; Facts on Samora Machel]

His death came at a critical time for Mozambique's Marxist government. It was threatened by an escalating war with right-wing rebels backed by South Africa, and faced a growing military and economic confrontation with Pretoria itself. Many observers felt that, through his charismatic leadership, Machel had been almost single-handedly keeping his government and country from complete collapse.

Several days before the crash, the official Mozambican news agency had published an article suggesting that South Africa's military and intelligence leaders were plotting to kill Machel. On Oct. 20, the African National Congress (ANC), the main guerrilla group fighting to topple the white regime, charged Pretoria with being either directly or indirectly responsible for the crash. The accusation was repeated by Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda and in the Zimbabwean press.

South Africa called the claim absurd and denied any role. Foreign Minister Roelof F. Botha and Defense Minister Magnus Malan Oct. 20 flew to the site of the crash, in a remote and hilly area of Transvaal Province near Swaziland and about a half-mile (1 km) west of the Mozambican border. South African television reported that Botha was called upon to identify the body of Machel, whom he had known and negotiated with for years.

The crash of the Soviet-built Tupolev 134 jet reportedly occurred in bad weather, and there was speculation that the Soviet pilot had strayed across the border and mistaken the lights of a South African border town for Maputo, the Mozambican capital. The aircraft's "black box" flight recorder was found by South African investigators and put in a sealed container in the presence of Mozambican officials.

Pretoria Oct. 21 appointed a supreme court judge to head an inquiry into the crash. Foreign aviation experts, including Mozambican and Soviet representatives, were invited to participate.

Flight engineer Vladimir Novoselov was apparently the only member of the Soviet flight crew to survive the crash. There were unconfirmed reports that he had claimed that the plane had been shot down. (Another survivor reported hearing "a shot or bang" shortly before the jet crashed.)

Novoselov was moved from a hospital in Nelspruit to a Pretoria military hospital Oct. 20 to be treated for an "aggressive mental condition" stemming from the head injury he suffered in the crash. His wife and a Soviet diplomat from Maputo were allowed to visit him there Oct. 22.

Mob Protests in Harare

Thousands of black youths rioted in Harare, Zimbabwe Oct. 21 to protest Pretoria's alleged complicity in Machel's death. The mob set fire to the offices of South African Airways and Air Malawi, stoned South Africa's trade mission as well as the Malawian and U.S. embassies, and assaulted white pedestrians and motorists. It was reported to be the most violent protest in Harare since Zimbabwe won its independence in 1980.

(Malawi was targeted because its government was said to support the Mozambican rebels along with South Africa. )

The U.S. State Department angrily protested the assault on the American embassy, saying that Zimbabwean riot policemen had allowed the stoning to proceed for 10 minutes before dispersing the rioters with tear gas. Several windows were broken but no injuries were reported.

Reactions

South African President Pieter W. Botha Oct. 20 expressed shock at Machel's death, saying, "South Africa has lost an influential ally in its efforts to develop the economies of southern Africa." Foreign Minister Roloef Botha called Machel "one of the great leaders of Africa for whom I had the highest respect and regard as a leader and a man."

The U.S. expressed deep regret over the death of "a voice of moderation" in southern Africa. "President Machel led his people with courage and unfailing determination in the long struggle for Mozambique's independence and nonalignment," President Reagan said.

A British Foreign Office spokesman lauded the Mozambican leader as someone who "strove ceaselessly to bring peace to his own country and the whole region."

Zimbabwean Prime Minister Robert Mugabe Oct. 22 called Machel's death an "irreparable loss" of a "universal humanitarian." He described him as a "comrade-in-arms," recalling the crucial support Machel had lent Mugabe and his black nationalist guerrillas in their struggle against white-ruled Rhodesia in the 1970s.

Officials of the MNR (Mozambique National Resistance; also known by the Portuguese acronym Renamo) rebel group Oct. 20 in Portugal said Machel's death had dealt a devastating blow to the morale of the government and its army, and would thus bring the civil war to an end more quickly.

"Machel was holding the country together," an MNR spokesman said. "No one can replace him. He was the last link between the people and the government."

In Maputo, the mood was said to be subdued as the government sealed off the country and warned people to be calm but vigilant. Machel's body was flown back to Mozambique, and on Oct. 22 the nation began an official period of mourning.

A successor was not expected to be announced until after the funeral. The new president would be chosen by Frelimo (the Mozambique Liberation Front), the country's only legal political party, which was organized along Soviet-bloc lines. Foreign Minister Joaquim Alberto Chissano was deemed to be the front-runner by analysts.

S. Africa Tensions Had Heightened

In the weeks and months before Machel's death, tensions between Maputo and Pretoria had risen to new heights. Each side accused the other of violating the 1984 Nkomati agreement, which committed each country to withholding support for the other's insurgents.

While Mozambique had curtailed the activities of anti-Pretoria ANC guerrillas, elements within the South African military had apparently continued to provide vital aid to the anti-Marxist MNR rebels via Malawi. In the face of the South African violations, Mozambique had allegedly eased up on the restrictions it had put on the ANC. [See 1985 Southern Africa: Mozambique Pact Broken by South Africa]

South Africa built a "lethal" electrified fence across part of its border with Mozambique, purportedly to prevent stock theft and illegal crossings by "so-called refugees" fleeing the fighting between rebel and government forces. At least 60,000 refugees had made the dangerous journey, in which some were killed by mines on the Mozambican side and other fell prey to lions as they passed through South Africa's Kruger National Park.

A land mine explosion near the border Oct. 6 wounded six white South African soldiers. Blaming Mozambique-based ANC rebels for the blast, Pretoria Oct. 8 announced plans to halt the hiring of Mozambicans to work in South Africa and repatriate those already working there when their contracts expired. The move was also interpreted as a warning to Western countries that Pretoria would counter sanctions--such as those recently enacted by the U.S.--with economic warfare of its own. [See 1986 U.S. Congress Overrides South Africa Sanctions Veto; Tough Law Takes Effect, 1986 Thatcher Resists Tough South African Sanctions; Commonwealth Mini-Summit Split]

It was a devastating blow to Mozambique's ailing economy, which depended heavily on remittances from more than 60,000 citizens employed in South Africa, most of them in the gold mining industry.

Gen. Magnus Malan, Pretoria's defense minister, stepped up the pressure Oct. 15. He said the black "front-line" states from which the ANC launched its attacks were "co-responsible and should be aware of the consequences." He denied that South Africa continued to support the MNR, but described Mozambique as "hovering on the brink of collapse" and warned the Machel government that it should choose peace before it was too late.

'Invasion' Follows Malawi Warning

The Zimbabwean press Oct. 8 reported that thousands of MNR guerrillas were "wreaking havoc" in northern Mozambique after having "invaded" from Malawi. Five small towns had been captured by the rebels, according to Oct. 14 South African reports. Officials in Maputo admitted that "bandit gangs" had occupied some frontier zones and that the security situation was serious.

Ironically, the crisis had resulted from a regional effort to ease the MNR threat. The rebels crossed into Mozambique in unprecedented strength after having been ordered to leave by Malawi's aging President Hastings Kamuzu Banda, whose government had close ties with South Africa.

On Sept. 15, Mozambican President Machel, Zimbabwean Prime Minister Mugabe and Zambian President Kaunda had flown into the Malawian capital of Blantyre and confronted Banda, bluntly warning him of serious consequences if Malawian support of the MNR continued. On his return to Maputo, Machel threatened to blockade Malawi and deploy Soviet-supplied missiles on the border.

Although both Malawian and South African officials denied it, evidence reportedly indicated that South African military intelligence was running a large-scale covert aid operation for the Mozambican rebels through Malawi.

Transport Outlets Eyed

Political and military leaders of the black front-line states--Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe--held a special one-day security meeting in Maputo Oct. 12, where they condemned Pretoria for threatening Mozambique and accused it of planning an invasion.

Mozambique's security situation was a cause for general concern, because MNR rebels had continued to cut vital transport links that provided outlets for such land-locked countries as Zambia and Zimbabwe. The outlets were even more important now that the region was facing retaliatory economic sanctions by South Africa, through which most of the region's commerce currently flowed. [See 1985 Southern Africa: Mozambique Pact Broken by South Africa]

(Zimbabwe had stationed some 10,000 of its troops in Mozambique to lend partial protection to the vital railroad, highway and oil-pipeline route between Harare and the port of Beira.)

When Machel died Oct. 19, he was returning from a meeting in Zambia with Kaunda, Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos and Zairean President Mobutu Sese Seko. The talks were apparently aimed at convincing Mobutu to stop facilitating U.S. covert aid to South Africa-backed rebels in Angola. Those rebels had kept Angola's Benguela railroad line closed for more than 10 years. [See 1986 Angola: U.S. Invited Back to Talks; Other Developments]

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Modern Language Association (MLA)

Citation:  "Mozambican Leader Dies in South Africa Plane Crash; Pretoria Denies Role."  Facts On File World News Digest  24 Oct. 1986.  World News Digest.  Facts On File News Services.  30 June 2009  .

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