MOZAMBIQUE-SOUTH AFRICA: New investigation into Machel's death welcomed

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

JOHANNESBURG, 10 Feb 2006 (IRIN) - South Africa's decision to reopen the investigation into the 1986 death of Samora Machel, Mozambique's first president, has been welcomed by the leader's compatriots.

During his state of the nation address last Friday, President Thabo Mbeki noted that this year would commemorate "the 20th anniversary of the violent death of President Samora Machel in our country in 1986, in a plane crash that still requires a satisfactory explanation".

The South African Minister for Safety and Security, Charles Nqakula, said this week that "quite clearly, the president, our commander-in-chief, was asking for a reopening of the investigation of that death. Our law enforcement agencies are going to develop a strategy to deal with the matter". He noted that new information had come to light and was currently being evaluated.

"The investigation will be reopened and will include co-operation with the law enforcement agencies of Mozambique. We will deploy the best available resources, human and material, to deal with the matter. We owe it to the people of Mozambique, who assisted our liberatory forces to topple apartheid and install the democratic dispensation that we have," Nqakula noted.

Machel died with 24 others in a plane crash, at the height of regional cold war and apartheid tensions. He was returning from a summit in Zambia when his plane veered off course and crashed in hilly terrain in Mbuzini, in South Africa's Mpumalanga province, near the borders with Mozambique and Swaziland.

An initial probe by South Africa's apartheid government ruled out foul play, but Soviet and Mozambican officials who investigated the crash claimed there had been a cover-up, and it was not an accident. The possibility that a false beacon was used to lure the plane off its course has been raised repeatedly.

A subsequent Truth and Reconciliation Commission probe into the matter was inconclusive and recommended further investigation.

The news that South Africa intends answering the questions around Machel's death evoked an emotional reaction.

Egidio Vaz, a researcher at the Southern Africa Research and Documentation centre, told IRIN: "People still frequently make reference to Machel on political and social issues. Machel's legacy is strong as the liberator of the people from colonialism, and also for contributing to the destruction of apartheid."

UNESCO's country programme officer, Tomas Viera Mario, was then a Mozambican journalist and travelled with Machel on his official visit to Russia in 1986, four months before he died. According to Mario, "He died at a very complex political and military time in the Southern African region."

Mario recalled how the 1984 Nkomati Accord (in which South Africa agreed to stop supporting the opposition Renamo if Samora Machel's government would stop supporting the African National Congress) collapsed in 1985 after a joint Zimbabwean and Mozambican military operation into a Renamo stronghold in Gorongosa, in the central province of Sofala. They found the famous "Gorongosa documents", showing that South Africa was continuing its military support to Renamo.

"Machel was a key figure in the region and the country at the time. It is always difficult to get conclusive evidence of how a head of state dies in such circumstances, because it will have political implications internally and in the region itself. It can provoke strong feelings. But all Mozambicans would welcome a final conclusion on what happened. Mozambique always [displays] the face of Samora Machel," added Mario.

Muchimba Sikumba-Dils, daughter of the Zambian ambassador who also died in the crash, told IRIN she welcomed the reopening of the investigation. "His legacy lives on through the Machel family and the commitment of the Mozambican people to recognise the contribution he made," she said.

As evidence of this, the Samora Machel documentation centre recently opened in the capital, Maputo. "This has been important to ensure that his memory lives on, and that the information is passed down to the younger generation," said Sikumba-Dils, who works at the Foundation for Community Development, which is headed by Graca Machel, widow of Samora Machel and wife of former South African President Nelson Mandela.

Sikumba-Dils said she remembered Machel as "very warm, charming and with a lot of energy. He loved children. He would pick children up and put them on his knee; he was truly a father."

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