South Africa-Mozambique Talks in Paris

South Africa-Mozambique Talks in Paris

On 5 December 1980, a four-man apartheid South African delegation led by the Director-General of Foreign Affairs, Brand Fourie, secretly met with a three-person Mozambican delegation headed by the Minister of State for Security Affairs, Jacinto Veloso, in Paris, France. The apartheid South African Department of Foreign Affairs report on the meeting was classified as “Top Secret”.

Addressing the meeting, Fourie, maintained that for his government the major element breeding suspicion was the problem of the African National Congress (ANC) in Mozambique, as was the case with the South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO) in Angola, as it pertained to South West Africa/Namibia. Veloso responded that the ANC was there but was not operating from Mozambique, which unfortunately did not allay apartheid South Africa’s suspicions.

According to Veloso, the Mozambican government did not support the ANC, though it did give full political support to the achievement of equal rights for all people in South Africa. Veloso ventured into a thought whether the ANC could be accommodated politically inside South Africa. If P.W. Botha continued in the reformist direction he was taking, Veloso argued, the ANC would have no justification for acting against apartheid South Africa from outside. Veloso further added that the ANC would have no justification for styling itself a “liberation movement” at all.

Responding to Veloso’s assertions, Fourie stated that Pretoria feared the situation with the ANC in Mozambique developing over time into one akin to that with the SWAPO in Angola, whereby it would become an “irritant” and action could be taken. Actually, that was how apartheid South Africa was beginning to view Mozambique. Veloso responded that the current problem had to be resolved and should be discussed on a bilateral basis.

Neither Angola nor Mozambique wanted confrontation with South Africa. However, Angola had no choice but to support SWAPO because of the situation on its southern border. Once the problem of SWA/Namibia had been solved, Angola would no longer support SWAPO. Angola had no choice in the matter because of the international situation, primarily Angola’s geographic location and the decisions of the United Nations. On the question of the ANC, it was one which Angola and Mozambique had inherited and must be resolved bilaterally and through multilateral forums, such as the United Nations, especially considering the problem of South African refugees.

Fourie argued that when the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO) became part of the transitional government in 1974, apartheid Prime Minister Vorster stated in Parliament in August that year that “ …it was not South Africa’s policy to lay down what kind of government they should have there …” but that “irrespective of the colour of that government … “, and “… even though there may be differences in the political sphere”, apartheid South Africa was prepared to “… have the heartiest cooperation … in the economic sphere” provided a fully independent Mozambique did not interfere in South African affairs, but maintained the traditional economic ties with the apartheid Republic, and also kept up “a sound and stable government” at home.

Inthe same statement, Vorster made it clear, however, that South Africa would “defend itself with its full striking power in the event of its being attacked”. The hostile attitude of the FRELIMO government and the fact that the ANC operated freely against apartheid South Africa from bases in Mozambique, led apartheid South Africa to actively support the Mozambican Resistance Movement (RENAMO) after the surrender of the racist Smith government in Rhodesia.

RENAMO was a political-military hybrid that originated in the 1970s as an armed anti-Marxist rebellion against FRELIMO’s agenda of radical socialist transformation. Most analysts believed that it was cobbled together under Rhodesian sponsorship from various small dissident groupings, and, after 1980, continued fighting with the support of the South African apartheid regime. The conflict was ostensibly a foreign-supported war of destabilisation against the “Marxist” policies of the FRELIMO government, with RENAMO conducting, as its primary strategy, a campaign of terror against rural populations alongside sabotage of infrastructure.

To what extent, then, did Mozambique pose a threat to South Africa’s security? No visitor to Maputo could fail to note the awe with which the apartheid South Africa’s economic and military strength was viewed there, and it was inconceivable that Mozambique of its own would even contemplate provoking its neighbour by, for example, inviting Cuban President Fidel Castro to place major troop contingents in southern Mozambique. This led to the conclusion that the FRELIMO government posed a threat to apartheid South African security only in so far as it, firstly, aided or abetted ANC “terrorism”, and, secondly, helped to foster an international climate conducive to coercive measures against the racist Republic.

Despite these political and economic pressures, Mozambique bravely reinvigorated the Frontline States, offered its territory as a rear guard to the ANC, the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) and the South African Communist Party (SACP), thereby demonstrating its commitment towards the regional liberation struggle. When the apartheid government complained that FRELIMO had given military bases to the ANC, it was state that it wasn’t true. The ANC didn’t have military bases in Mozambique, but in Angola and Tanzania. Mozambique provided accommodation for a number of ANC cadres and freedom fighters who were in transit to South Africa. There were homes in Matola, Bairro da Liberdade and Maputo and there were definitely arms caches in some of them.

The analysis was that the meeting was largely precipitated by two major developments that influenced changes in foreign policy positions for the apartheid regime. Firstly, was the United States’ President Jimmy Carter’s defeat in the 1979 presidential elections, which brought Ronald Reagan to the White House — as a hawkish president who was intent on arresting the “advance of communism” in Southern Africa. Reagan’s Southern Africa policy, whose architect was Chester Crocker, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, was titled “constructive engagement”. This policy was referred to as “reactionary pragmatism” by its critics, as it was aimed at stopping the advance of communism worldwide, and specifically using apartheid South Africa as a proxy in preventing Marxist governments from gaining a foothold in the African sub-continent.

Secondly, in 1980, following the Lancaster House Agreement that led Rhodesia-Zimbabwe to independence, relations between the South Africa and Mozambique had shifted considerably. When Rhodesia became Zimbabwe in 1980, the Mozambicans felt relieved. It was a year of peace; the war with Ian Smith of Rhodesia was finally over, and resources could be returned to building up the economy. But it was not to be. Their respite was short-lived, as it became also the year in which the apartheid regime developed its plan to destroy Mozambique. Apartheid South African Defence Force’s (SADF) Directorate for Military Intelligence (DMI) took over and a weakened RENAMO was relocated to South Africa.

Since 1975, when FRELIMO assumed power in Mozambique, the apartheid South African regime had regarded the Marxist-Leninist government as a serious threat to its security. This perception was responsible for the apartheid regime’s support for RENAMO. Rhodesia had used it mainly to acquire intelligence about the Zimbabwe liberation movements in Mozambique, which required some credibility amongst the local population. Whereas the apartheid regime seemed interested only in using it for terrorism, disruption and destruction. In the 1980s port and railway revenues had decreased by more than 50 percent due to sabotage by RENAMO and South Africa’s diversion of its cargo to its own ports and rails in retaliation towards Mozambique’s support for the ANC.

Mozambique has long been dependent on South Africa for economic survival, having inherited from the Portuguese an economy that was closely linked with South Africa. Mozambique provided transit facilities for South African goods; sold electricity to Pretoria from the Cahora Bassa Dam; and provided workers for South African mines. For years, these transactions helped Mozambique ease its shortages in foreign exchange earnings. Although Mozambique’s FRELIMO government, under Samora Machel, continued to deal with South Africa on economic matters, it remained committed to majority rule in South Africa, and to its support for the ANC.

The emergence of a Patriotic Front-led government in Zimbabwe and its role in the formation of the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC) in 1980, within which Mozambique played a prominent role, also exacerbated the tensions. South Africa’s regional economic dominance, which was used in a hostile manner against Mozambique, was being challenged through the SADCC, established by the independent states of Southern Africa as a system of project cooperation designed to reduce dependence on South Africa and thus diminish vulnerability to economic aggression.

Through SADCC the independent states hoped to strengthen their economies through bilateral and collective action, and through assistance and investment from Western European nations. As a memorandum of understanding on common economic development, the SADCC arrangement was concluded in Lusaka, Zambia, on 1 April 1980. It was formalised as the Lusaka Declaration, entitled “Southern Africa: Towards Economic Liberation”, which was ratified by the nine signing states. The main goals for the member states were to be less dependent on apartheid South Africa and to introduce programmes and projects which would influence common economic development for the Southern African countries and the whole region.

SADCC itself was attacked by South Africa in acts such as the dislocation of communication links between the member countries, which was an example of how powerfully the apartheid state controlled regional economic infrastructures. Moreover, the Pretoria regime offered “favourable treatment” to those Southern African countries which were willing, or obliged, to cooperate with South African financial and industrial enterprises.

The credibility of the apartheid government was undermined by the widely held contention that, despite all protestations, it was still somehow involved with RENAMO, and that it actively supported and abetted the movement. Accusations of destabilising the Southern African region, which were levelled against apartheid South Africa relied heavily on this contention, which gravely damaged relations between the two countries. In South Africa itself this belief in official complicity in the anti-FRELIMO insurgency was cited as proof that the racist government was actively opposing black political freedom and economic progress in South Africa no less than in Mozambique.

In a communique issued by leaders of the Frontline States following their Summit Meeting held in Luanda on 15 April 1981, they “condemned the intention of the United States to strengthen its relations with South Africa at a time when the apartheid regime has only embarked on systematic acts of aggression against independent African states, but has also resorted to the training and equipping of traitor groups from the Frontline States with the view to destabilising their legitimate governments and ultimately therefore undermining the freedom of the African continent. In this connection, the Presidents noted with satisfaction the collective expression of indignation and condemnation made by African States at the United Nations” (Sechaba).

The South African Communist Party also added its voice to the changing geostrategic environment and its impact on southern Africa. It said, “Under the banner of anti-communism and anti-Sovietism Reagan and Thatcher can be expected to join hands in an attempt to bring South Africa back to international respectability, and to resume the supply of arms to the Botha regime. Progressive forces throughout the world must be alerted to the danger of such moves and must resist every suggestion of compromise with apartheid. The combination of the forces of racism and imperialism spells danger not only to South Africa and independent Africa but to world peace” (The African Communist).

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Castro Khwela
Good evening fellow Compatriots!