Mueda, FRELIMO forces destroyed 19
enemy planes, 18 on the ground and one
coming in to rescue which was shot down
and fell behind the FRELIMO lines. In
this plane, FRELIMO troops found a
sub-machine gun belonging to the pilot
which they gave to me as a presentation
to the Liberation Committee. This gun is
of Belgian make, and shows that the
Portuguese have support from the NATO
countries.
On September 24, another aircraft was
shot down. On October 4, FRELIMO
forces attacked an enemy post at the
coast at Lussoma and captured a lot of
military material and equipment, and
freed many people who were imprisoned
there. One of them, who had been
working at Lussoma in one of these
guarded camps, concentration camps as it
were, told us his story: he was working
for some Portuguese people who paid
him one or two shillings a day - that was
his pay.
While we were in Mozambique, the Portuguese were bombarding various areas -
bombing started on the 7th and continued on 10th, 11th, 12th and 13th. In
many cases the bombings were aimless,
but on one occasion killed two people
and injured sixteen. On the following
day FRELIMO forces brought down one
of the aircraft at the Beira base, which
had been the scene of serious fighting in
1970 - 71, particularly in 1971. We
brought with us a piece of the fragmentation bomb dropped on the 10th.
When the Portuguese had the upper hand
in Mozambique before the armed struggle,
and when the Portuguese were in control
of all the areas, not much commerce had
been developed and the communications
system was very poor. In Cabo Delgado,
which I visited, there is still not much of
a communications system, but the main
roads I did see were those built during the
offensive with high costs in air cover and
bombing to allow the Portuguese to move
their troops to combat FRELIMO. Under
FRELIMO's own programme of economic construction, a barter trade is now
growing up. FRELIMO's priority is
liberation. But the economy and commerce are developing. Farms are being
opened up, cultivated by soldiers and by
the people. The people farm on a cooperative basis. Villagers come together,
clear the bush and cultivate co-operatively.
As I saw it in FRELIMO, the armed
struggle is not an end in itself. The purpose of the armed struggle, as I understood from FRELIMO, is to try and
bring sense to the Portuguese colonialists,
vl11^
Above: Dr. Kassiga, Mr. Sidki, Major Mbita and Captain Makaranga hold a working
meeting in Cabo Delgado. Below: Mr. Sidki on a difficult section of the march.
to stop their inhuman acts of oppression,
and their denial of self-determination and
dignity to the people.
In trying to suppress the voice of freedom
the Portuguese have used force - they are
using force now. They are being aided by
friendly countries, particularly NATO
countries, and we have evidence of this.
The aeroplanes are NATO aeroplanes,
the weapons the Portuguese use are NATO
weapons. It is no illusion that the aircraft which are being shot at are either
Canadian, American, French or Italian.
The Portuguese are killing and oppressing.
FRELIMO cannot rely on prayer when
they are being oppressed, killed, tortured.
The only chance is to fight back and
fight vigorously.
But beneath all this you can see FRELIMO as a humanitarian organisation that
wants to build a nation and has a programme for reconstruction in the liberated
areas. This is a clear indication of their
value for human life - giving health
services, giving mental liberation to people through education, and broadening
their horizons on life. This side of the
story is not often told. A bullet echoes
a great deal. The quiet revolution that
takes place beneath the bullet is not told.
I am confident of FRELIMO's victory.
After the recent African stand at Rabat
on armed struggle, and the successes that
have been achieved by FRELIMO, I have
no doubt in my mind that victory is just
around the corner. With total African
support there should be no difficulty at
all.
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