(introduction...)

You don't choose your neighbours, they say, and, over the past 20 years, in the bad times when the destabilisation operations incontrovertibly launched from the surrounding countries have hit home, Mozambique has had frequent occasion to brood over the fact. A look at the map of Africa tells the whole story- the 3000 km-long Mozambique is on the Indian Ocean close to the epicentre of the upheavals which have shaken this part of the world and are still sending their tremors through it.

It really has no experience of what internal peace and security are. Independence, in 1975, came after a decade of armed struggle to which many fell victim, including Eduardo Mondlane, the historic leader of Frelimo, the Mozambique National Liberation Front. And, free of the Portuguese yoke and now a sanctuary for the anti-apartheid movements, it immediately came under fire from the white regimes of Rhodesia and South Africa, which fretted that black independence might be catching and directed an unflagging demolition campaign at the new state.

In 1976, the Rhodesians set up a special unit of Mozambican half-castes and blacks to infiltrate the ranks of the ZAPU and ZANU fighters and attack the refugee communities in the border areas. A few years later, the South Africans formed their Portuguese-speaking Buffalo Battalion to raid Mozambique, Angola and Namibia and the Rhodesians gave military and logistical support to Renamo, Mozambique's armed resistance movement, which had started guerrilla warfare. Some say even now that Renamo was the work of the lan Smith regime and Afonso Dhlakama, its chief, does not try to hide the fact that he had Rhodesia's help. How could he? But he took it, he says, because no-one else, not the British nor the Americans whose code of freedom he claims to share, was willing to help him in his crusade for democracy and against the communist ethic of Frelimo leaders.

We know that happened next. Mozambique's life and economy were soon at a standstill and the Government was forced into the humiliation of the Nkomati Agreements, the accords with South Africa whereby the two parties were to stop helping their respective enemies, the ANC and Renamo. There is peace today, most certainly, and detente after all the laboriousness of the long-drawn-out talks in Rome, but may it not be due in part to powerful South Africa's realisation of the pointlessness of its policy and its decision to start transferring power to the black majority? After all, it would only be the last tug on strings which date back at least to the 19th century, because, for 100 years at least, Mozambique has borne the stamp of relations with its neighbours in Rhodesia and South Africa, who were quick to see the attraction of its pool of workers for their gold mines. But its claim to fame was as a supplier of slaves, that most abhorrent of trades, which developed in the 18th and 19th centuries and survived for 50 years after the Portuguese abolished it officially in 1836. In 'Mozambique - From Colonialism to Revolution, 1900-1982', Allen and Barbara Isaacmandans say that the country supplied almost 100 000 slaves to Brazil alone between 1817 and 1843 and a third of Cuba's slaves over the same period. All in all, a million Mozambicans were reduced to slavery.

Another brand of exploitation succeeded the Negro slave trade early this century, when contract workers were sent down the gold mines of Rhodesia and South Africa. The policy was made official in an agreement between the colonial government of Mozambique (self-governing since 1752, after being administered from Goa in India) and the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association, representing the South African mining industry. Under it, the Government of Mozambique was to receive 13 shillings per worker and sixpence for every month worked on top of the 12 months of the contract. In addition, they were to be paid half of every miner's wage, in gold, at a fixed rate which was lower than the world gold price-thus allowing a fine profit on resale.

Map to Mozambique

Throughout the colonial era, miners' wages and the profit from gold sales were the territory's biggest source of income. In 1904, Mozambique supplied most of the labour in the South African mines- 50 997 of the 77 000 workers-but its lead narrowed consistently as the sources of supply broadened. By 1927, the figure was 107 672 Mozambicans out of 215 000 miners, going down to 100200 out of 413 900 in 1961. And there are around 60000 of them there even today, estimates suggest, their contracts still an appreciable source of income for their country. In Rhodesia, the Tete Agreement laying down annual consignments of 25 000 miners was soon overtaken and about 100 000 Mozambican contract workers were taken on every year.

The policy of exporting labour, in which the people most concerned had no say, and similar forms of coercion whose purpose was to supply farm workers free of charge to the Portuguese planters, led many Mozambicans to flee to the neighbouring countries, with lasting effects on traditional farming, which both lost its manpower and had its strength sapped by the meagre prices fixed by the colonial administration.

Another thing still making its effects felt is the dependence of Mozambique's ports, which are far too large for national needs, on the neighbouring countries' shipping. In 1901, a clause in the Treaty with Witwatersrand made the supply of cheap labour contingent on part of Transvaal's trade going through the port of Lourenco Marques (now Maputo). By 1917, $700 000 was being made from the customs handling and transit of these goods and, with major expansion, half of Transvaal's import and export trade was soon passing through Lourengo Marques, making a South African satellite of the city and the whole of southern Mozambique. Beira, the main ocean outlet for Rhodesia and central Mozambique, was more dependent on Salisbury (now Harare).

The fact that Mozambique is the only former Portuguese territory in Africa to drive on the left, as they do in South Africa and Zimbabwe (all the others, with Angola in the lead, like Portugal, drive on the right) is a sign of how involved the three countries are, even today.

Financial plight

After 14 years of civil war, hundreds of thousand of deaths, the incalculable suffering of whole populations struck by the life-threatening famine which came with the war and the demolition of infrastructure and all the consequences that flew from it, Mozambique's fighters have now laid down their arms. Negotiations opened in Rome in 1990 and, with encouragement from the country's churches and the painstaking support of the Italian Government and the United Nations, they came to a successful conclusion two years later. On 4 October 1992, the Government of Mozambique signed a peace treaty with those who had recently been 'armed bandits' and the cease-fire came very soon after, on 15 October. Fighters from the two sides were separated and billeted in camps in preparation for the demobilisation of all those not to be recruited to the new national army. Demobilisation was scheduled for completion six months later, on 15 April, to make way for the election campaigns and the elections themselves on 15 October 1993 at the latest.

But by mid-April the 7000-strong UN peace-keeping force due to supervise the cease-fire still had not arrived, so the billeting of the fighters prior to demobilisation had not started and this, in turn, delayed the whole election process. The only encouraging sign was that the cease-fire held without anyone to enforce it, which says a lot for the state of mind of the protagonists, who were all convinced that they could not win on the battlefield and had to thrash out their differences around the negotiating table. Their dampened ardour is of course the best guarantee that Mozambique will not suffer the fate of, say, Angola.

Aldo Ajello, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General, put these potentially disastrous delays down to over-optimism on the part of the negotiators in Rome, who had made believe that transition could be very rapid; and to the fact that neither the Government nor Renamo, nor even the UN, was yet in a position to carry out its undertakings. The head of the peace-keeping force said that the UN made a mistake and underestimated the time it would take to deploy its units of soldiers and civilians in Mozambique.

Yet it was all predictable, for with all the UN troops around the world, in Cambodia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Somalia and Angola, it was difficult to find the manpower and the money for more peace-keeping operations. The bill for a year of the 'restore hope' operation in Somalia is more than $1.2 billion and the cost of peace-keeping forces in Mozambique for 10½ months is $332 million. The same rich countries have to put their hands in their pockets yet again and it is easy to see why some of them are not so keen to do so.

At the end of April, however, the lumbering UN machinery finally got into gear, with most of the troops ready and the demobilisation operations at last able to go ahead. But this was counting without the demands of Renamo, which had pulled out of the supervisory committee and the three other bodies set up under the peace agreements, on the pretext that it did not have the material resources-whether of money, housing, transport or office equipment - to perform its duties properly.

This display of temperament masked the real problem, the financial plight of Renamo, whose leader was saved in the nick of time by a western chancellery a few months ago from the wrath of a Geneva hotelier whose bill he could not pay. Afonso Dhlakama proclaims that he has been tricked, that a secret clause in the Rome agreements guaranteed financing to help his movement convert into a political party and that a percentage of the funds earmarked for the UN forces is intended to be shared out to finance political activity, the amount for Renamo even being specified.

Promises there certainly were, although certainly nowhere near the $100 million or $150 million Renamo has sometimes claimed. It is actually expecting between $10 million and $15 million, enough to publicise itself abroad and recruit the technical people it so badly needs from amongst the expatriate Mozambican communities.

Tiny Rowland, the head of Lonrho, who has major interests in plantations in Mozambique, has put his Maputo hotel, the Cardoso, at Renamo's disposal for representatives of the committees set up under the peace agreement. And the Government says it is acting in good faith, claiming to have spent something like $500000 on logistical support for Renamo as well as having handed over several official houses since the end of April.

Have there been other 'gifts'? Who knows? But after a three-month boycott, Renamo was back on the supervisory committee at the beginning of June and, a fortnight later, the UN Special Representative announced the opening of the first three billeting/demobilisation centres. There are to be 49 in all, 29 for the 63 000 Government soldiers and 20 for Renamo's 21000 underground fighters. But the camps-two (one for each side) in the province of Nampula and one in the province of Zambeze-are opening more than eight months after the date laid down in the Rome agreements. This has prompted government authorities and guerrilla leaders alike to say that the elections cannot be held before mid-1994 and that this is bound to have financial implications.

It costs roughly $1 million per day to keep the UN's peace-keeping forces in operation. There are already 5000 men in the field, with the biggest contingents from Bangladesh (1320) and Italy (1039), followed by Zambia and Uruguay (820 each) and Botswana (720). Logistical and technical support is being provided by other countries including Portugal, Argentina and Japan (only its second mission abroad since the end of World War II). The original $332 million allocation will not last long at this rate and it will once more be a case of relying on the generosity of western funders to provide a top-up, possibly in excess of $100 million.

The second problem is demobilisation itself. Many of the fighters are unhappy with the idea of leaving the relative comfort of the towns to go first to the camps and then back to their villages, armed with only a few farm implements and a couple of months' rations. At Maputo airport, in early April, we saw one of them trying to escape. There is no other word for it. The sentry had to fire into the air to stop a government soldier who was running away, refusing to board a plane due to take him and his companions from the familiar surroundings of the capital far away to a demobilisation camp at the other end of the country.

The national army is just as much of a problem. The Rome agreements fixed on a force of 30 000 men (24 000 in the army, 3000 in the navy and 3000 in the air force), consisting of equal numbers of Government troops and Renamo fighters, and the UN suggestion is that only 6000 of Renamo's 2 1000 combatants need to be demobilised because 15 000 of them have to go to the new Mozambican army. However, although there is no doubt as to the bravery of these men, they have given ample proof that their training is well below the level of troops in the Government ranks, where officers have often trained at military academies in the developed world. And how can officers and NCOs be trained for the navy and the air force in only a few months?

The dividends of peace

Another major problem is the fate of the 4.5 million deslocados, the displaced persons, some of them refugees abroad, who will not go home unless the rural areas are safe. Many of Mozambique's roads are still mined, of course, but there is currently only one mine disposal brigade, a Community-financed team advancing at the rate of 2-3 km per day along the 890 km of priority roads to be cleared so emergency aid can get through. And there are thousands of km of tracks and fields where mines will go on claiming victims for years to come, because the erstwhile enemies can no longer remember where they buried their lethal devices.

That is not all. Not only is the countryside dangerous. It is also now lacking in any form of social infrastructure. 3995 rural schools, 68% of the 1983 total, have been damaged or destroyed, 1100 health centres pillaged and abandoned and thousands of wells dynamited. Deputy Planning Minister Tomas, Salomao, who puts damage done between 1978 and 1990 at $50 billion, says that reconstruction must focus on the rural areas, the only places which can quickly be made fit to house the millions of Mozambicans displaced by the country's interminable conflict. But where is the money coming from? 'The foreign donors can help us and indeed they are already doing so, but there are limits to what we can ask. We have to bear the brunt of it ourselves,' he says.

Like other political leaders, Tomas Salomao is counting on the dividends of peace, starting with agricultural recovery, to finance reconstruction. With the end of the region's worst drought for decades and the countryside at peace again, Mozambique could soon return to the position of self-sufficiency in food which it lost in the early 1980s. It could also do something about its annual trade deficit. Last year, for example, it exported $10 million-worth of goods and imported $900 million-worth, but, 'with peace, our exports could be up at the $500 or 600 million-mark,' ventures Daniel Tembe, the Trade Minister and National Authorising Officer for the EDF.

But peace alone will not suffice. Rapid reconstruction of some of the infrastructure is called for-17 of the 23 tea processing plants were wiped out, for example-if the country is to boost its export capacity of traditional products such as tobacco, tea, cotton, sisal, sugar and the cashew nuts of which it was once the world's leading supplier.

However, repairs are well under way in the transport and communications infrastructure sector, where Mozambique plays a crucial part in the region. The 2.4 million-tonne capacity port of Beira is already back up to pre-independence levels, handling 1.3 million t of the 5 million t of food aid sent to Southern Africa last year and notching up $15 million in profits. The giant, computer operated cranes, the thousands of containers in neat rows along the quays, the packaging facilities which can bag 60 t of grain per hour and the plan for a 2.5 million t oil terminal are proof of the unique place which this port occupies in the economy of the nation and the whole region. Beira and the other two ports, Maputo and Nacala, and the railways linking them to Zimbabwe, Malawi, Zambia and South Africa, form the network which makes Mozambique one of the key countries in this part of Africa.

But you don't choose your neighbours, as we said before. Take another look at the map of Southern Africa. Even if Mozambique does manage its peaceful transition to democracy, countries on which its prosperity ultimately depends -South Africa, that is to say, Malawi and even Zimbabwe, indirectly-could be seeing serious upheavals over the coming years which cannot but affect its domestic situation.

But for once, at least, there is hope that these outbreaks will be the last to afflict this hard-pressed country.

Arnadou TRAORE

Interview with president Joaquim Chissano

'Mozambique is not another Angola'

Joaquim Alberto Chissano, at 54, is a veteran of African politics. He helped found the Mozambique Liberation Front in 1962 and was secretary to its first president, Eduardo Mondlane. He was one of the leading negotiators of independence with the Portuguese authorities in 1974 and the obvious choice for Prime Minister of the Government of Transition whose job it was to prepare for the breakaway. In 1975, after independence, he became Foreign Minister and, firmly entrenched in the post, represented his country abroad for 11 years, investing all his verve and rare linguistic talents (he is equally at home in Portuguese, French and English) in a moderate, realistic approach to diplomacy which was in complete contrast with the more radical style fashionable in Maputo at the time.

In 1986, when President Samora Machel was killed in a (still unexplained) flying accident, Joaquim Chissano took over. At the fourth and fifth Frelimo congresses, he helped engineer the change of ideology which led to the liberalisation of the economy, the development of the private sector and, later on, a new constitution setting up a multiparty system.

However, the guerrilla movement launched by Renamo at the end of the 1970s, initially with encouragement from Rhodesia and then, after the independence of Zimbabwe, from South Africa, gained ground throughout this period, to the point where it brought the country's economic activity to a halt. After fruitless attempts at settlement, direct negotiations between the Government and Renamo in Rome in October 1992 were successful and a peace agreement, opening the way to free elections under UN control, was forged.

In this interview with The Courier, President Chissano talks about the difficulties of the post-agreement era and the country's longer-term prospects.

· Mr President, the fighting has stopped, but is peace as irreversible as the people like to think?

-Yes, I think they all do believe that peace is here to stay, for they all want peace and they are all doing their utmost to see it is consolidated. We have appealed to society at large, to all social organisations, churches included, to work for the consolidation of peace. A whole new state of mind is being created. But Mozambique is not an island and external influences could still come and change the course of things. If it was only up to us, however, the peace process would be irreversible.

· But hasn't your situation got a lot in common with the situation in Angola, Mr President, and aren't you worried that the same terrible things might happen here?

- Angola had elections before the conditions were right. The soldiers hadn't been demobilised and the country hadn't had time to set up a solid national army which was united and not mixed up in politics. There were still close ties between the political parties and their partisans in the army at the time the elections were held. We don't want that happening here and we have been working to avoid it ever since the negotiations in Rome. We want a proper national army, which sticks to the constitution and the law, under the leadership of a Head of State who believes in peace and would be in no position to use the armed forces to overturn the regime even if he wanted to. And the domestic situation in Angola wasn't as provided for in the agreement, I believe, because there were still many unsolved problems and many fighters in the underground forces.

· Are you learning from Angola's mistakes?

-Not exactly, because we chose a way which enabled us to find answers to the sort of problems Angola stumbled over. Angola did not have enough time. And perhaps our process started the other way round, because we had discussions and changed the constitution before the negotiations with Renamo and we worked on the law on parties while those negotiations were going on. We already had a preliminary draft electoral law too. It was the basis for the discussions in Rome and we are going to pick it up again now. The political parties have been formed. So things are moving more slowly in this country, but everything is being covered.

· All this cumbersome UN machinery is so difficult to get going here, isn't it? Is it the only way of consolidating peace?

-Renamo only has confidence in the UN, unfortunately, which is why we agreed to call the Organisation in. We knew that UN machinery could grind slowly, because we had seen it working in other parts of the world. That is exactly what we expected. But we never expected it to take so long to get here.

· Is it delayed because money is short?

-My belief is that it is late because of the way it works. When we signed the agreement, we expected to see UN troops arrive here a month later, in accordance with suggestions by the UN representatives who came to observe at the negotiations. But now the plan cannot be put into operation, although it was an emergency, with the ceasefire to be kept up and peace maintained, and it cannot wait for all the palaver in the Security Council or the debates in the General Assembly or the discussions in the Budget Committee, where they really do take their time. Mercifully, for the past six months, we ourselves have managed to have the ceasefire respected here in Mozambique without the help of the UN peace-keeping forces, but if it had happened anywhere else, peace would have been shattered long ago.

· With all these delays, when do you think the elections can take place now?

-We shall see. The electoral law will decide the date. We are doing the groundwork for the elections at the moment, but the signs are that they will not take place before June 1994.

· Many of Mozambique's people have done nothing but fight for the past 14 years. Are they going to be willing to lay down their arms for the hard job of making a living from their devastated land?

-What the soldiers want-Government soldiers at least-is to settle down as civilians and have a job, so we have set up a resettlement committee to look after demobbed soldiers, refugees and displaced persons. The effort which the Government is making, in accordance with the peace agreement, has the support of the international community too. But the Government cannot do it all and we have made a general appeal for help with finding projects which will make it easier to reintegrate the soldiers. We are also encouraging the soldiers to help themselves. As a one-time national freedom fighter myself, I have helped set up an association for demobbed soldiers, which will be looking after former Renamo guerrillas too, forming an interest group of something like 100 000 people. It will be running personal initiative schemes and we have already applied for financial support for them from such institutions as the World Bank and the African Development Bank.

· Finance -just where the shoe pinches. Never before have the rich countries been called uponfor so much help and every crisis, ultimately, costs money, be it in Russia, the former Yugoslavia or Somalia. With resources in such short supply, what priority do you think will be given to Mozambique's projects?

-Our projects will have whatever priority they get. That is all there is to it. And we shall be very grateful for any assistance we are given. Time and time again, we have said that donors will always give priority to whatever affects them most. And as there is every interest in stabilising the situation in central Europe, they will tend to give that part of the world priority and think about Africa afterwards. So we are looking at a different formula which does not involve relying on charity and waiting for handouts and we are trying to encourage private investment by Mozambican interst groups. That will be quite another picture for the donors.

· The Government is not the only one worried about the lack of financing, is it? Renamo too is complaining about not receiving the promised funds and thinking it has been betrayed by the donors.

-I don't think Renamo is right here. It's too early to start complaining that promises haven't been kept. The conference in Rome was only three months ago and it wouldn't be reasonable to start saying that the donors haven't stuck to their commitments yet. The plan was for the funds to be released when the soldiers were demobbed, in particular to help them settle down again in ordinary society. But they haven't been demobbed yet.

· How much are we talking about?

-The figure mentioned in Rome was more than $200 million.

· Assuming that you can complete the process you have got under way, how do you see the future for Mozambique in a Southern Africa in the throes of change?

- Mozambique is one of the key countries of the region and, with peace on our side, there will be a transformation. It is worth remembering that even while the war was going on, we were able to continue providing a service to the countries in the region. We have already modernised and rebuilt the Maputo Zimbabwe railway-a difficult job and all done during the civil war- and rebuilt the railway and the road between Beira and Zimbabwe. We have rehabilitated and modernised the port of Beira, we are doing the same for the ports of Maputo and Nacala and we have completed more than half of the Nacala Malawi railway. We did all that during the war. With peace, we shall be able to do a lot more.

Our country has always had great agricultural potential. If we can get everyone's shoulders to the wheel, we shall be able to produce enough to feed ourselves and to export too-which will be a good thing for the balance of payments and our per capita income. We think we can manage this in ten years at the most, but some people say that, at the present rate of progress, it won't take anything like that long.

· You have been President for nearly eight years now, haven't you? Will you be standing again in the next presidential elections?

-I am always being asked to stand again, but the party still has to meet to decide whether I should. Some people in the party take it as read, let me tell you, but I shall only stand if I am asked to stand, in the same way as I was asked to take the country's destiny in hand all those years ago. They all think I am going to stand, but we shall have to wait for the party to meet and discuss it. If the party decided to put up another candidate, I should be just as happy to support him...

· You have led Mozambique through some hard times, haven't you?

-Very hard. I have been a member of the party's leadership ever since it was formed-I was elected to the central committee when I was 23. What we need are candidates who are worthy of the people's confidence and who devote themselves to the people's wellbeing. I shall have the strength to wait for many of those candidates to appear, however long it takes.

Interview by A.T.

Interview with Afonso Dhlakama, RENAMO leader

'We shall respect the voters' verdict'

In pure guerrilla tradition, Maringue, the RENAMO headquarters, is out in the bush, an hour's flying time from Beira.

The Red Cross plane, the only aircraft authorised to touch down there, comes to a halt at the end of the overgrown runway, near the old 20-seater biplane which crafty South Africans recently managed to palm off onto the RENAMO for $500 000 and which has never flown since it was delivered.

Paul Domingos, the chief RENAMO negotiator at the talks in Rome, bursts out of the yellowing Savannah on a motorcycle to greet you. You are then guided along a narrow path, 50 cm wide at most, and after a good five minutes' walk, emerge into a huge, shady clearing, fringed with towering trees and dotted with houses and a large, straw-roofed rectangular hut-the meeting room.

By chance, or by organised coincidence, Afonso Dhlakama, the President of the RENAMO, has called all the men in charge of the movement to Maringue that very day for a briefing, which he obligingly interrupts to receive the European Parliament delegation, headed by Henri Saby, the Chairman of the Development Committee. He introduces his RENAMO staff, who are proud to see that such guests have gone to the trouble of coming so far to talk to their leader.

After the talk, Mr Dhlakama answered questions put by The Courier.

· Mr Dhlakama, you now have to transform a guerilla organisation in to a political party. How is this being done?

- Well, we have already started changing our movement into a political party but we're running into a problem of resources, namely money. As a political party we need to have representatives in the different European countries so that we can explain our policies, something we never really had the chance to do during the fighting because we were isolated here. Only the voice of the government was heard, and this spread disinformation in the international community. The signing of the Rome agreement gave us international recognition, so it's easier to send delegates to represent us outside the country, although the lack of money is a very serious problem. But this change is taking place, indeed we can say that, Renamo is in fact a political party since it ' has signed an agreement with the governmeet, an agreement setting out various principles that were agreed. The government is the party holding power and Renamo is in opposition. The agreement confers on Renamo the status of a political party.

· You referred to a lack of money. Who gives you money at present?

-Nobody gives us money, that's why things are so bad. Nobody gives money to Renamo-if you could see how we live, I tell you some of our followers, our fighting men, go barefoot and in rags, they don't have anything at all. I'm telling you that we don't have telephones or fax machines for our representatives. There's no money. If someone was giving us money, we wouldn't have to endure these conditions. We don't even have the basics.

· Is this why you recalled your representatives in Maputo a few weeks ago?

-Actually, this was not a question of money but of the whole process itself. I called my Maputo representatives here, provincial delegates are here as well, as you can see, together with the heads of the committees at Maputo for this meeting here, which is very, very useful. We are reviewing everything that's happened since the signing, the violation of the agreement, all the problems we have, and we are considering our strategy to make sure that our brothers in the government and Frelimo, and in the international community, help to resolve all these problems. That's why we're gathered here.

After the meeting, the delegations and committees will return to Maputo to continue their efforts to find solutions for our problems.

· Mr Dhlakama, the timetable agreed in Rome for the transition to democracy seems to be slipping. Do you share that view?

- No. What I mean is that the Rome agreement has been violated by Frelimo. It's been violated in various ways. For instance, Frelimo is putting, or has already put, some army battalions in the police force, which means that the police force is not independent of parties-it will continue to be the instrument of a party, as it always has been. It has always been an organ of the Frelimo party. This is one of the government's violations. There are others. Under the Rome agreement, Frelimo said it would provide Renamo with accommodation, transport, communications, etc., but the government has not done so. To this day we haven't got proper representation throughout the country for this reason, or even accommodation for myself. I stay on here in the bush because the government hasn't provided the right conditions in Maputo. The fact that the government is not cooperating means that it is violating the agreement. But we are patient, we know that the government is nervous and that it was forced to accept democracy, freedom and elections. Frelimo didn't want this, it's uneasy. But we understand, we won't give up, we're going to make them understand that this is what democracy means.

· From your point of view, is the war really over or will the fighting start again if implementation of the agreement is held up?

-I say no. I believe that there will never again be war in Mozambique. I believe this because only Renamo or Frelimo can wage war. If one provokes and the other responds, there is war. But if one always provokes and the other avoids reacting, there is no war. If we wanted war, we would have started it already because we've been provoked by the government on a number of occasions. I said in Rome, on the day of the signing, that Renamo's guerillas would never resume the fighting, and I have repeated this message to ambassadors and to the United Nations. And I reiterate it now. There will not be war- unless in the future some third party or other people start a third war-but I think that fair, universal and democratic elections are the only way of stopping wars. But in this time of transition, Renamo is having to put up with these government tricks. There won't be a war such as the one in Angola-thetas a terrible situation and people are still dying. That's why we are doing everything we can, not to react to the government's provocations, so that there won't be war.

· Many people do indeed fear a repetition of the Angolan situation in Mozambique. Can you give assurances that, if you lost the elections, which is a possibility, you would respect the voters' verdict?

-Certainly. Our principles are democratic principles. We know the consequences of elections. We did not fight for power, we fought for democracy. If we lost the elections, we'd bow to the principle of democracy and recognise any party, whether it was the government or another party. We'd agree to go into opposition as long as the elected government also recognised the importance of the opposition, the rights of the opposition; we wouldn't have any problem with that. But we should like to ask the government in turn to be patient if it loses the elections. After all, they are used to governing. They've been in power for 17 years. They won't find it easy to respect Renamo when it wins the elections.

· Do you have a programme of government yet?

-Well, we do have our programme, our general principles, but right now we are working on our government's development programme. If Renamo were elected, what it would do in the fields of health, education, the economy, transport, finance, and all that. Our people are drawing up our ideas for each sector and department and soon they will be published.

· Mr Dhlakama, many of the officials you introduced today seem very young and inexperienced. Will they be able to rise to the challenge of governing Mozambique?

-As regards government, running the party, taking part in elections, assuming office and governing on the basis of my democratic programme, I think that we are prepared. As regards my age, I don't think it affects my leadership. I started this struggle when I was very young and I don't see why it should be a problem. It's up to the people. If the people elect me, I shall carry out my programme. I think I could well be the first young African leader to govern democratically because I'd like to tell you, Renamo is the first party of struggle in Africa that was created to bring democracy to Africa. This is very important. I'll be the first such young leader in Africa; it will serve as an example for all the other African countries.

· Won't one of Renamo's first tasks as a political party be to try to make its African neighbours forget its past finks with Rhodesia and South Africa?

-This isn't a problem, no problem at all. The past is the past. We did have a little help from Rhodesia but circumstances dictated this. We received their aid-I'd have liked to receive aid from the United States of America, Portugal, France and Britain, but they didn't give us any, despite the fact that we were defending the same principles that they uphold: freedom, democracy and justice. Those governments made a mistake and so we had to turn to Rhodesia and South Africa for aid in the past, but that's a long time ago. Now that Renamo is a party among other parties we don't have links that could have implications for the party as was the case in the past. I don't think there is a problem.

· One fast question. [low do you explain the fact that people in the areas you control, such as Inhaminga, are so desperately poor that they even lack clothing?

-Well, this is the situation we touched on earlier, the fact that people are living in conditions of great hardship. Everyone living in our areas is suffering great hardship. It's dreadful in view of the fact that there are countries in Europe that make clothing or other things, put them in warehouses and then destroy them when they are out of date, so they do not have anything to send us. Here there are people who are forced to use treebark and such like. These conditions are hard but the people are courageous and still believe in the future. And I as their leader, their long-standing leader, I tell them to look to the future. The present is full of suffering but in future there may be a better life, with clothes, soap and food. These people are hopeful. The end of the war has given them hope and so has the prospect of democracy.

EEC-Mozambique cooperation

by Glauco CALZUOLA

Mozambique, undermined by 16 years of civil war and the worst drought Southern Africa has seen this century, has just embarked upon a process of democratic transition scheduled to lead the country to its first multiparty elections. This follows the peace agreement signed by the Government and the Renamo opposition movement in October 1992. The path to democracy is slow and beset with obstacles of all kinds, but the Government is determined. It will call on external assistance if it has to, but it is also counting on the people themselves to transform Mozambique into a democratic, viable nation.

It is to help it pick up this twofold- structural and short-term-challenge, that the European Community's aid (all instruments) is focused on four priorities, i.e. schemes to support the economic and social recovery programme (the PRES), regional development in Southern Africa (SADC), humanitarian relief in emergencies and a support programme for the post-war period.

Community aid began shortly after independence. Initially (1978-1985), the EEC used the Commission's own funds to meet immediate needs in a country which was embarking on a process of independence hampered by the destabilising effects of civil war. Since that time, with the signing of Lome III (December 1984) and Lome IV (December 1989), the EEC has acknowledged the effects of the war, and recently the drought, by both providing assistance for a country which has nothing and helping cater for and manage the future through structural adjustment funds and support for development strategies to reflect its particular needs. All in all, about ECU 393 million has gone into 119 schemes under Lome III and Lome IV since 1985.

Add to this the exceptional aid, food aid, NGO cofinancing and schemes financed as part of cooperation with the non-associated developing countries prior to the signing of Lome III and Mozambique has had more than ECU 900 million-worth of Community resources to date.

Trade and commercial cooperation

The country's economic performance very much depends on international trade and the Lome preferential trade agreements guaranteeing access to the Community market are important to the national economy, because they cover 29% of its trade. In 1991, the European Community accounted for 28% of Mozambique's exports and 29% of its imports.

The Community also encourages trade in Mozambique and all other ACPs with trade promotion measures and Stabex, its export revenue stabilisation fund.

It has financed stands for Mozambique firms at international trade fairs and other events in Europe and Africa since 1988 and has channelled a total of ECU 22.7 m-worth of Stabex support (Lome III and Lome IV) into the tea, copra, cotton and cashew nut sectors. But the results, alas, are still not very good. Despite the Government's economic liberalisation programme, trade development is hampered by the enormous institutional constraints of hefty state centralism, combined with a formal economic sector which is dependent on inefficient state companies and a civil war which is paralysing the economy and preventing foreign investment.

Development aid

More than 45% of Mozambique's aid comes from the EEC and the Member States, making the European Community one of the country's biggest sources of assistance.

The Community alone (Commission + EIB) has provided ECU 928m, most of it (97%) in the form of grants, since this cooperation began, with 47% going to the national indicative programmes financing for regional projects of direct benefit to Mozambique and schemes run as part of cooperation with non-associated countries. Food aid accounted for 33% and EIB loans for 3% and the rest (17%) was emergency aid, refugee relief, Stabex transfers, NGO projects and other operations under specific budget lines (AIDs control, hunger in the world etc.).

National indicative and regional programmes and the early projects (aid for non-associated countries) focused on rural development and self-sufficiency in food, transport and communications, social development, support for the balance of payments and the support programme for the post-war period, all of which are priority areas.

Rural development and fisheries

This has been a Community aid priority since cooperation with Mozambique began and Lome IV has merely confirmed and clarified the ideas outlined before.

The focus is on three main areas- irrigation, integration (farming and fishing) programmes and technical cooperation (institutional support). Integrated development programmes have been sited in the province of Cabo Delgado

(ECU 5m), in Inhambane (ECU 4.5m) and in the Moamba area (a total of ECU 12m), with the aim of improving production and the marketing of both agricultural produce and artisanal fishermen's catches along the coast. A fourth project is being run in the Chimoio region (ECU 7.1m) to get local potato production moving again. The indicative programmes have also included an important artisanal fishing scheme in the Inhambane area (ECU 7.5m) and institutional support for the sector.

The results and problems of implementation of all these projects are similar, because, when the rural operations were designed, insecurity in the area was such that not enough was known about the real situation there. Then, the fact that there were too many projects led to activities being scattered and difficult to coordinate and the various project leaders were not equally efficient. Another important thing is that all the Community's emergency aid and refugee relief has been for people in rural areas or in outlying areas around the towns.

Transport and communications

This is of great importance when it comes to ensuring the country's economic and political integration and opening up the SADC countries to give them access to international markets. Rehabilitation of port, rail and road infrastructure is one of Mozambique's priorities and a large percentage of international aid is channelled into this sector. The Community is involved here too, transport being a focal sector of the country's national indicative programmes and the SADC regional indicative programmes. A total of ECU 114m has been mobilised for a series of projects-the biggest of which are the Beira port rehabilitation scheme (ECU 56m), the railway modernisation schemes in Nacala (ECU 25m) and Limpopo (ECU 15m) and the emergency rehabilitation of the Beira-Inchope road (ECU 5.7m). Three further projects to rehabilitate a total 440 km of road (Nampula-Nacala, Boane-Sabie and Beira-Inchope) are currently being assessed. The EEC is also financing a general study of transport and communications in Southern Africa, with a view to shaping a strategy for the coming years which reflects the new socio-economic realities and trends in the South African situation.

Social development

A number of Community schemes have been run in this area to rehabilitate war-damaged schools and various health centres and dispensaries. Because of the local insecurity, these were small, individual operations, but two large-scale projects are now under way too-a rural telecommunications scheme (ECU 13m) and a study of repairs to health centres at national level. In particular, this latter scheme should make it possible to restore and maintain a basic level of services and ultimately ensure that treatment is available to all those living in rural areas.

Aid for the balance of payments

Mozambique has been trying hard to straighten out its economy through the PRES, the economic and social recovery programme which the Government brought out in 1987, and the Community has backed its action with:

-two sectoral import programmes, worth ECU 70m (Lome III), aimed at encouraging imports of raw materials and intermediate products to stimulate local agricultural and industrial production;

-a general import programme, worth ECU 54.7m (Lome IV), a substantial part of it for petroleum products.

Emergency programme for the post-war period

The Commission told the funders' conference in Rome (15-16 September 1992) that it would be helping Mozambique in this transitional phase leading up to the country's first multi-party elections by providing ECU 72m for five areas- the elections, demobilisation, the resettlement of refugees, displaced persons and demobilised soldiers, the provision of social services and the rehabilitation of the basic infrastructure. Despite the efforts of the various parties involved, there are still many impediments to the peace process. However, the Community's programme to provide medical assistance, distribute seed and other agricultural inputs and rehabilitate wells in rural areas to enable refugees and displaced persons to be resettled is taking practical shape with specific schemes to be run by NGOs. The Commission is currently financing technical assistance to help the Government in its difficult task of preparing the census and the elections-the equipment for which is also to be provided by the EEC. Studies are being run to decide on the rehabilitation priorities for the roads used to bring in food aid and medical assistance and the Commission is financing a programme to de-mine what the Red Cross and the WFP have designated as priority roads.

Community aid to Mozambique (summary) (30.04.93)

Non-programme aid
Food aid

Agricultural output has dwindled because of the civil wan nationwide insecurity and the drought of the last few years. The food shortfall is now about 600 000-700 000 t p.a. Food aid from the Community, currently accounting for 33% of EEC allocations to Mozambique, is of fundamental importance in that it represents 40% of the volume of all external food aid. The rains returned in late 1992 and the Commission, which is anxious to revive domestic production, is now concentrating more on obtaining agricultural products and seed locally. Cereal market buffer stocks are also being financed under the Community programme for 1993 (approximately ECU 40m), which combines conventional supplies from the European market with local purchases and special school-hospital canteen operations and will be meeting the food requirements of about 120000 demobilised soldiers and their dependents over a period of six months.

This outline of Community aid to Mozambique is not complete as it stands, because, in addition to the contributions mentioned above, the following have also been provided:

-various forms of emergency aid and aid for displaced persons, mainly in the form of medical and humanitarian assistance schemes, usually run through MSF, the ICRC and other NGOs (ECU 51.6m);

-various schemes cofinanced with NGOs (ECU 10m);

-various health education and emergency aid schemes in rural areas and around the towns to help the victims of destabilisation (ECU 13.5m);

-an AIDS control support programme; -a contribution to the tsetse fly control programme which is part of the campaign against world hunger (ECU 1.5m);

-three projects (a cotton factory and vegetable cannery, the Matola cement works and an ECU 15m line of credit to finance SMEs) financed by the EIB.

G.C.