Born in Chilembene village in Southern Mozambique in 1933, Samora Moises Machel worked as nurse before becoming a revolutionary. He fought for liberation from the 400-year-long Portuguese colonial rule and became the first president after gaining independence in 1975.”He was very clear about creating a culture of discipline and hard work,” says his widow Graca, who served under him as education minister and is now married to former South African President Nelson Mandela.Machel included women and people of all races in the nation-building project of the ruling party Frelimo, in stark contrast with Mozambique’s apartheid neighbour.”It was very inspiring and encouraging for me as a South African to see this non-racial spirit working,” recalls Albie Sachs, a former South African constitutional court judge who lived in Mozambique at the time and nearly died in a bomb attack himself for his activism against the white-minority government.But socialist policies and a crippling civil war from 1977 funded secretly by South Africa forced Mozambique to its knees. In a 1984 agreement Mozambique agreed to send away guerillas of the then-liberation movement African National Congress. In return South Africa would stop bankrolling the rebel movement Renamo. Neither kept their side of the bargain.On the night of October 19 1986 Machel was flying home from a conference in Zambia when his Tupolev airplane crashed into the Lebombo mountains just a few kilometers from the border. A South African-led enquiry blamed the Russian crew for the accident which killed 35 of the 44 aboard, including government ministers and academics. But Mozambicans believed South Africa brought it down.”We have evidence from people: within minutes South African military forces were on the scene,” Graca Machel adds.The crash shattered the newly-independent country’s morale. “People at work were crying, walking slowly,” Sachs recalls.Nineteen years after Frelimo and Renamo signed a peace deal, progress is dubious. More than half of the 23 million Mozambicans live below the poverty line in one of the world’s most unequal societies, “not something Samora would be proud of,” his widow laments.Corruption abounds and despite 6.5% growth last year, Mozambique still evokes a sense of unfulfilled potential, says Darch. “There is a lost dream of what could have been achieved and what wasn’t.”
More than half of the 23 million Mozambicans live below the poverty line in one of the world’s most unequal societies
On October 6, 1986, just two weeks before the crash, South African soldiers (SADF) were injured by land mines near the spot where the borders of Mozambique, South Africa, and Swaziland converge. This site was very close to where the Tupolev Tu-134 went down.Timemagazine noted that this”really seemed too much a coincidence”. Throughout southern Africa angry people mourned the loss of Samora Machel.
In South Africa protestors blamed their government for Machel’s death. In Zimbabwe thousands of youths stormed through downtown Harare. The crash remains a mystery: with some blaming it simply on bad weather and others still believing in South Africa’s guilt. No conclusive evidence to either effect has yet emerged.
Video clip, 17 October 2011
President Jacob Zuma paid tribute to former Mozambican President Samora Machel saying he made a lasting contribution to peace and stabilty in the region. Zuma was joined by his Mozambican counterpart President Armando Guebuza and the Machel family at 25th anniversary commemorationin Mbuzini.
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