The question whether the apartheid regime was responsible for the death of former Mozambican president Samora Machel on October 19 1986 remains unanswered 20 years later, President Thabo Mbeki said on Friday.
Mbeki paid tribute in his weekly newsletter on the African National Congress website to Machel, whose death in an aircraft crash at Mbuzini in Mpumalanga was mourned as much by the ANC as by Frelimo, the Mozambican liberation movement and later governing party.
Mbeki and Mozambique’s President Armando Guebuza would lead a ceremony on October 19 at Mbuzini to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Machel’s tragic death, he said.
”With us will be Mrs Graça Machel, her children with Samora Machel, and other members of the Machel family.
”On October 19, at Mbuzini, we will, together with the leaders of the sister people of Mozambique, to whom we are riveted by unbreakable steel bands of comradeship, friendship and solidarity, formally dedicate the monument that will symbolise the common suffering of the people of Southern Africa, a tribute to their heroism and a solemn affirmation that we share a common destiny of liberty, peace and social progress, of which [former ANC leader] Oliver Tambo spoke almost 20 years ago.
”Today it seems such a long time ago that we had the privilege to sit with Samora Machel, to hear him speak, to draw inspiration from his seemingly inexhaustible energy, his effervescence and optimism, his confidence that Mozambique, South Africa and Africa would overcome their problems, in the same way that the great Frelimo liberation movement he led had, through struggle, ended 500 years of Portuguese colonisation of Mozambique.
”And yet as we recall the memory of Samora Machel two decades after he died, the images of the living Samora flash in the mind, occasionally evoking an intense feeling that we can actually still see this great hero of the people of Mozambique and Africa and that we are indeed about to hear his voice once again,” Mbeki said.
”It is during such moments that we come to understand the enormous and indelible impact that Samora Machel made on us as individuals, on our movement and struggle, and on the future of our country.
”It is at such moments that we come to understand that Samora Machel became part of us, our own national hero that cannot be separated from all our other national heroes and heroines.
”The terrible news broke upon the world and us on October 20 1986 that the plane carrying Samora Machel had crashed on South African territory the previous night, killing him and 34 other people, including the Soviet crew that flew the fated plane.
”And as we grieved, we asked a question that has still not been answered — was the apartheid regime responsible for the tragic deaths at Mbuzini!” Mbeki said. – Sapa