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FREE   MOZAMBIQUE
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Journalist Iain Christie on the march with FRELIMO
Christie with our President in Cabo Delgado
Frelimo's victories
are our victories
To the Editor,
Mozambique Revolution:
You have asked me if 1 would contribute
an article describing my impressions of
the FRELIMO zone which I visited in the
last two weeks of October. With respect,
I would suggest that Mozambique Revolution has published so many articles by
visiting journalists that my own contribution would only duplicate those reports. Instead, I would like to tell you
something I wanted to say to the people
of Cabo Delgado when I was mere, but
didn't, perhaps because I felt that they
were rather too busy building a nation to
listen to my opinions. I would have told
them this:
Your President, Comrade Samora Machel,
has told you that I am a Scottish journalist, living in Dar es Salaam and working
for the Tanzanian Government; that I
have been reporting on the struggle in
Mozambique, from the point of view of a
supporter of FRELIMO, for several years;
that I have been involved in other activities to assist your struggle. Therefore
he says, I come as a friend, as a comrade.
This is true. But perhaps the emphasis is
too much on what I and other anti-
imperialist elements from the West are
doing for you. The truth is that what we
are doing for you is nothing compared to
what you are doing for us.
You are fighting and dying to free your
country from Portuguese colonialism.
This is the priority. But it is clear to me
from the people I have met in Cabo
Delgado, from the schools I have visited,
that FRELIMO is taking on an even
bigger challenge. That is to ensure that
the Mozambican people, once independent, do not suffer the same fate as many
other former colonies: exploitation by
indigenous parasites and international imperialism operating through its neo-colonial machinery. Your struggle may last
for many more years but victory is certain and, when it comes, you will have
significantly eroded the power of imperialism in this continent - and in the
world at large. Even today every victory
you score is a victory against imperialism,
and therefore a victory for us.
The forces in the West which support
FRELIMO are not doing you a favour.
Imperialism will be weakened by the
liberation of Mozambique, just as it has
already been weakened by losing its economic control of countries like China
and Cuba. And one day the great liberation movement of the world's colonised
and neo-colonised peoples will have weakened imperialism to the extent that it no
longer has the strength to resist the anti-
imperialist struggle in the West itself. This
is so because international capitalism depends for its very existence on you and
peoples like you. And when control of
oil, coffee, gold, diamonds, cotton, tungsten and cocoa fall out of imperialism's
hands and into the hands of the workers
and peasants who produce them, imperialism's greatest crisis will begin. Then,
at least the objective conditions for struggle will exist in the West.
So someday, perhaps, my children or
grandchildren will be able to repay your
hospitality to me by inviting someone
from the Republic of Mozambique to
come and witness our struggle. If this
ever happens it will be due in no small
part to the courage and determination of
the people of Mozambique.
IAIN CHRISTIE
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