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| Guebuza vows to continue search for Samora Machel killers
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Mbuzini, South Africa (PANA) -
Mozambican President Armando
Guebuza Thursday pledged that his government would continue
"to search for the truth" about the plane crash that killed
the country's first President Samora Machel and 34 others,
20 years ago.
Speaking at Mbuzini, in the South African province of Mpumulanga,
at the site where Machel's presidential plane, a Tupolev 134,
smashed into a hillside on 19 October 1986, Guebuza told the
crowd Machel "was assassinated, in cowardly fashion, by the
apartheid regime."
Machel was returning from a summit in Zambia, and there were
strong indications that his plane was diverted from its path
by a pirate navigational beacon linked with the apartheid
military.
But a lack of cooperation from the apartheid regime meant it
was impossible to investigate properly what beacon the plane
had followed, while an inquiry set by the apartheid regime
blamed the Soviet crew for the disaster.
Guebuza after a wreath-laying ceremony, said investigations
into what happened the night of the crash must continue,
because the results would be of interest not only to Mozambique,
but because "Samora Machel was a citizen of the entire world."
"His death strengthened the determination to struggle against
the enemies of peace, of progress, and of the well-being of
all of humanity. His death exacerbated still further hatred
against apartheid, which the United Nations had already declared
a crime against humanity," the Mozambican leader said.
He recalled that Machel always believed that Mozambique would
only be truly independent when other oppressed peoples were
also liberated - and so, under his rule, Mozambique became "a
secure rearguard" for liberation movements from across the globe.
As if to symbolise his anti-racist and anti-tribalist stance,
Machel died at Mbuzini, Guebuza said: "with Mozambicans of
various ages, various races, and from various parts of our country,
united by the desire to see our country prosper and to share its
capacities with the region and the world."
According to him, Machel's legacy is that Mozambicans will say:
"Samora has not died: Samora lives in us."
Mozambique gained independence from Portugal in 1975, while
apartheid crumbled with the 1994 all-race elections in South
Africa.
in his own speech at the memorial, South African President Thabo
Mbeki called on his compatriots to show continued solidarity
with Mozambique as a tribute to Machel, who defined solidarity
as "not charity, but mutual aid in pursuit of shared objectives."
"If there is a Mozambican who is hungry, that means that we are
hungry. If there is a Mozambican who is sick, that means that
we are sick. We are one people - we have developed together.
When you feel pain, I feel the same pain. One of us cannot be
prosperous, if the other is poor," Mbeki added.
He recalled that Machel had once remarked that "The rich man's
dog gets more in the way of vaccination, medicine and medical
care than do the workers on whom the rich man's wealth is
built."
But the South African leader said: "That must change - in South
Africa, in Mozambique, across our continent."
Mbeki posed the question whether, 20 years after the Mbuzini
tragedy, "have we succeeded in creating a leadership cadre and
a continental African people inspired by a new mentality?"
"Our future," he stressed, "rests in our own hands."
According to him: "We must know how to rely on ourselves to
change our condition for the better. The blood which was shed
here at Mbuzini, whatever the enemy thought, was shed so that
indeed we can speak and act as one people inspired by the same
cause."
Guebuza later laid the foundation stone of a new monument for
Machel, to be built at the Independence Square, in front of
Maputo City Hall.
He said this would be an "indelible tribute" to Machel, and a
sign of the consolidation of peace and national unity.
"We emphasise that the best and most permanent way of paying
tribute to the founder of the Mozambican nation is to build a
country where national unity is continually consolidated,"
"Our decision to conduct this ceremony here, at Independence
Square in Maputo is to crystallise the bond between this place
and the role of President Samora Machel as a mobiliser of his
people and those from other parts of the world in the defence of
noble causes," Guebuza added.
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| Mbuzini - 19/10/2006 |
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