This plan is already being implemented: The first group of Portuguese settlers are on their way from Portugal to the Cahora
Bassa site; In France and West Germany a large campaign is
underway among the Portuguese immigrant workers aimed at
convincing them to leave those countries for Mozambique where they will be given better living conditions. This campaign
has been extended to include the nationals of these countries.
Portuguese soldiers, after their four year period of military service in the colonies, are persuaded to stay and settle in the
areas of strategic importance.
We see therefore that improved land would not be for economic benefit of the Mozambican people: on the contrary, it
would mean further misery for our people, as they are pushed
off land they have traditionally occupied.
There are other implications as well. The Portuguese are engaged in a colonial war against the people of Mozambique. The
establishment of a mass of white settlers is part of a strategic
plan: the aim is to create a human barrier along the Zambezi
to prevent the FRELIMO Forces from advancing further south.
At present the Portuguese colonial government has little more than a superficial economic hold on Mozambique. The realisation of the dam however more firmly implant the Portugue
se industrial interests in the colony - a situation whic will make more difficult the wresting of independence from a otherwise notoriously backward European country.
These reasons alone are strong enough for the Mozambique Liberation Front to oppose the Cahora Bassa project. But there
are other reasons involving the connection of the Cahora Bassa
Dam with South African expansionism and international capital.
IMPERIALISM  MOVES IN
Cahora Bassa is not solely a Portuguese project. In fact the
country most interested in its materialisation, and which is
participating heavily, to the extent of sending her troops to Mo
zambique to protect the construction site, is South Africa.
South Africa has the biggest stake in the project - more than
half of the total estimated cost of 170 million pounds. Other
countries deeply involved are West Germany, France, Britain
and Canada. Canada will provide all the aluminium through
her company ALCAN. Portuguese participation is less than 20
per cent. The United States and Japan have been granted extensive rights to explore oil deposits, copper and iron in Tete
Province, in the region of Cahora Bassa.
We are therefore witnessing a great move of international monopolies to secure a place in Mozambique's economic development. The carving up of the economic resources of
Mozambique by western and South African capitalism is mat-
ched,as we have already said, by the scheme to settle some
one million European migrants in the Zambezi Valley. This
undoubtedly is the most pernicious aspect of the Cahora Bassa
scheme: it envisages the mobilising of the outcasts of Western
European society, of transporting them to Mozambique, providing them with free land alienated from the African people
and of creating for these migrants a special regime of privilege
based on the South African aparttheid model. These European
social outcasts are, in these senses, destined to play the role
of the white settlers of Rhodesia and South Africa: a major
supporting force for colonialist reaction in Mozambique, capable of defending their newfound privileges and become a de-
14
pendable pillar for international imperialism inside Southern
Africa.
The freedom struggle in Mozambique has played a crucial
part in the decisions of the colonial powers and of international capital to construct the Cahora Bassa dam at this stage.
Over the past five years the armed forces of FRELIMO have
steadily expanded their area of operations in northern Mozambique, isolating and liquidating Portuguese garrisons in the
Provinces of Cabo Delgado and Nyassa and in Tete, north of
the Zambezi. Until about 1965 the Portuguese military authorities concentrated their forces along a line from Nacala to
Mandimba in the hope that this so-called defence zone would
be held against the armed units of FRELIMO. By 1966 this
line was broken and FRELIMO forces have virtually occupied
the provinces concerned. This development gave impetus to
the South African-Portuguese survey of Tete and the planning
of the Cahora Bassa Project. The South African authorities
despatched two battalions to Tete in 1968 fearing that FRELIMO guerrilla units would link up with the armed forces of
the liberation movements of South Africa and Zimbabwe operating to the west of the upper Zambezi valley. By the end of
1968 South Africa had come to commit over one-third of its
selective recruitment ground forces in Mozambique, Rhodesia
and Angola. Cahora Bassa is now to be built under the pro-
tective military shield of apartheid South Africa.
These, then are the terms in which the Cahora Bassa Project
emerges as a calculated and comprehensive economic and
political device, conceived and now being made operational
by international capita! and the South African-Portuguese
alliance, to stave off the progress of the liberation struggle in
Mozambique, to link Mozambique in a common economic and
political destiny with that of the neighbouring countries of
Southern Africa, all rooted in a system of cheap labour and
white settler privilege and under the perpetual sway of western
capitalism. The Cahora Bassa scheme would provide a critical
focus around which international monopolies could control
and influence economic and political developments in East
and Central Africa and ultimately to integrate the economies
of these states with those of Southern Africa.
The Mozambique Liberation Front will continue fighting against Portuguese colonialism and economic imperialism as represented by the Cahora Bassa project. FRELIMO guerrillas are
already operating in the region of Cahora Bassa and are achieving outstanding successes, extending their control over the
area.
The Mozambican people do not stand alone in the struggle.
The recent Non-Aligned Summit Conference endorsed the
resolution passed by the Organisation of African Unity Heads
of States Conference held this month, against the Cahora
Bassa project. The United Nations condemned the scheme
President Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia has been in the forefront of the international diplomatic campaign for the halting
for the halting of foreign participation in the dam. Sweden
and Italy have already withdrawn. West Germany remains the
major supporter, along with France and South Africa.
The combination of FRELIMO's military action with international support will ultimately prevent the construction of the
Cahora Bassa Project.