THOUGH STILL MARXIST, MOZAMBIQUE IS SHIFTING TOWARD THE WEST

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000403640046-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 9, 2012
• Sequence Number: 46
• Publication Date: August 6, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403640046-8
-ARTICLE AP QED Q-IRISTIAN SCIENCE rnNITOR
ON PAGE
6 Au
ust 1985
g
INTERNATIONAL
Though still Marxist, Mocambique is shifting
toward the West
" Sam Levy
S POW b The Oi u Samos Monier
M"Rft MWEVI qus
Ngunguiyane came home recently and
brought with him "a new era" in relations
between Lisbon and Maputo, according to
Mozambique President Samora Machel.
The return of the remains of the 19th
century warrior, whom the Portuguese co-
lonial authorities exiled to the Azores in
1896, is symbolic of the improvement in
relations between Mozambique and its
former colonizer and hint of the
realignment of Mozam-
bique's foreign policy
away from the Soviet
bloc and toward the
West.
In international eco-
nomic and diplomatic
relations, Maputo is be-
more
.. " than
'.Soviet allied."
There are limits to
the distance Maputo
can put between itself
and Moscow. The war
with guerrillas, in
which the ruling politi-
cal party, Frelimo
(Front for the Liber-
ation of Mozambique)
controls only the cities,
leaves the regime de-
pendent on the Soviets
for arms. A quick end
to the war is unlikely. And within the
F relimo Party itself, the pro-Soviet fac-
tion remains strong. -
In only three years, however, the gulf
between Mozambique and the West, once
a yawning chasm, has narrowed consider-
ably. As the United States Ambassador
in Maputo, Peter Jon De %os, remarked,
We've come a long way in a very short
time."
The most radical policy stage in Mo-
zambique's 10 years as an independent
nation was immediately after indepen-
dence in 1975. The Frelimo party had re-
ceived most of its support from the East
bloc during its war against the Portuguese
colonial government.
Nurtured in the "socialist liberation"
tradition, it tried to put theory into prac-
tice in the newly proclaimed Marxist-Le-
ninist state. Nationalization and collec-
tivization were the order of the day.
But nationalization scared away the
majority of the Portuguese residents, who
made up the skilled labor force, and radi-
cal political and economic policies pro-
voked armed dissidence and guerrilla
activity.--
And just as the guerrilla war began to
heat up, the economy cooled down. In
1981, Mozambique's per capita gross na-
tional product began its headlong plunge,
falling 15 percent. Drought and war made
things worse. -
It was then that the shortcomings of an
alliance with the East
,bloc began to show
The Council for Mutual
Economic Assistance
- the East bloc's
equivalent of the Com-
mon Market - refused
Mozambique's mem-
bership application
that April. The Bulgar-
ian agronomists sent to
breed miracle rice had,
it developed, overdosed
the paddies with chemi-
cal fertilizer.
Moscow could spare
little food for drought
relief. The army the
Russians had trained in
conventional warfare
was ill-prepared to fight
a guerrilla counter-
insurgency.
In 1981, the Portu-
guese government dropped compensation
claims against Mozambique resulting
from nationalization, and the rapproche.
ment between former colony and colonizer
began. Portugal agreed to supply arms
and training in counterinsurgency.
Portuguese companies began receiving
more technical assistance contracts.
When Portuguese President Ramalho
Eanes visited Maputo this April he was
given a genuinely warm welcome.
The Nkomati Accord was signed by
Mozambique and South Africa in March
1984, pledging the two sides to stop sup-
porting each other's internal opposition
movements.
It has altered the dynamics of the sig-
natories' bilateral relations. Some ele-
ments of the South African government
and business communities, formerly
President Machel's active foes, now feel
that their chance for investment and
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403640046-8
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403640046-8
2
marketing opportunities in Mozambique
lies with the present regime. Farmers in
South Africa's Transvaal province would
like to lease Mozambican farmland, and
industrialists to export cheaply through
the port of Maputo.
The liberal foreign investment code,
published last September, confirmed
many businesses in their disposition to
bank on Machel. South African firms
have to date cooperated on a significant
scale in refrigeration, mail delivery, and
railway maintenance. And the recent
Cabora Bassa agreement between Mo-
zambique, South Africa, and Portugal,
governing uses of the enormous hydro-
electric dam of that name in Tete Prov-
ince, indicates deepening economic links.
Despite the fact that is has not brought
an end to the war, Nkomati brought other
dividends. Relations with the United
States, which had encouraged the accord,
improved markedly thereafter Despite
aTon
TJ 2 to an approval in fiscal 1984 for
350,000 tons. In 1984 Mozambique was
the largest recipient of US emergency
food aid in the world.
More controversial than food or agri-
cultural-development assistance is a pro-
posal to send "nonlethal" military aid to
Mozambique. Critics point out that the re-
gime remains avowedly Marxist-Leninist,
and that hundreds of Soviet and allied ad-
visers continue in the country.
The Foreign Aid bill passed by the US
Congress bars arms aid to Mozambique
unless a variety of conditions are met, in-
cluding human rights progress, a reduc-
tion in the number of foreign military per-
sonnel in the country, and steps toward
holding free elections by Sept. 30, 1986.
Ambassador De Vos says that al-
though the Machel regime is not perfect,
"constructive engagement is not just for
South Africa. It's for the region as a
whole."
The country joined the International
Monetary Fund and the World Bank
(which has already made over a $45 mil-
lion loan) in 1984, and signed the Lome
Convention late last year, tying it in to the
Economic Community-third world eco-
nomic-aid system.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403640046-8