Mozambican President Armando Guebuza on Friday said there had been no word from South African authorities on a fresh probe into the mysterious death of Mozambique’s first president, Samora Machel, during the apartheid era.
”Sadly enough, we haven’t had an answer as yet and there haven’t been any clear signals about the investigation into the death of Samora Machel,” Guebuza told Agence France-Presse.
”The people have to know what happened on October 19 1986,” he said, adding that South African and Mozambican authorities were working together ”to shed light on how Samora Machel died”.
In February, South Africa said it would reopen a probe into Machel’s death in a plane crash.
”We will deploy some of the best resources we have, human and material, to get to the bottom of that matter,” South African Minister of Safety and Security Charles Nqakula had said.
”We owe it to the people of Mozambique to ensure the matter is thoroughly investigated. We would not start an inquiry without any reason. There is a reason, but that’s all I can tell you.”
Machel perished in a plane crash near a South African town bordering Mozambique.
He had signed a non-aggression pact with the erstwhile apartheid regime agreeing that he would not let his country be used by the then banned African National Congress, while Pretoria pledged to withdraw support to Renamo rebels fighting Machel’s government.
However, many Mozambicans believe the then government in Pretoria was behind the accident by jamming the plane’s radar.
Others speculate that the pilot had mistaken a South African airstrip for Maputo airport.
Machel’s widow Graca married Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first post-apartheid president, in 1998 and the couple spend their time between South Africa and Mozambique. — AFP
