Mozambican Notes

Contents: New Worker's Organization Formed • South Africa Behind Maputo Bombing • Rain Fall but Food Shortage Continues • MNR Captives Freed • Improving Conditions for Tourism • Operation Production • Reinforcing the Link between the People and the Police • A View from Within: Americans in Mozambique by Nina Swaim • MACHEL VISITS EUROPE • Samora Machel EPISODES FROM LIFE • news briefs • SUBCOMMITTEE OF 'THE FIVE' MEET • LAND -REDISTRIBUTED TO FIGHT HUNGER • GOSPEL SINGERS PERFORM IN MOZAMBIQUE • NEW BABY FORMULA DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM ANNOUNCED • TRADITIONAL GAMES REVIVED • FRIENDS and NEIGHBORS • FRONT LINE STATES MEET • SECRETARY GENERAL REPORTS ON NAMIBIAN INDEPENDENCE PROGRESS • DOCUMENTS SHOWING DESTABILIZATION PLAN FOR ZIMBABWE REVEALED • SADCC ACTIVITIES • CALL FOR WITHDRAWAL OF SOUTH AFRICAN TROOPS FROM ANGOLA • LATE NEWS Mozambique and South Africa Talk • THE FOUNDING OF FRELIMO Conclusion (Continued for September issue) • The newsletter says delegates from each of Mozambique's provinces gathered in the nation's capital at the end of October; they were participants in the constitutional conference to establish Mozambique's first post-independence workers' union to be known as the Organization of Mozambican Workers (OTM). The newsletter says South Africa escalated its war against frontline states with an attack on an apartment building in the Mozambican capital of Maputo. The newsletter says torrential rain fell over the three provinces of southern Mozambique hardest hit by drought; in November and December heavy rains swelled many of the formerly dust-dry streams throughout the region. The newsletter says the effects of the drought in Mozambique have obscured the relatively successful anti-terrorist campaign that the government has been waging against the South African backed MNR. The newsletter says neither the massive exodus from the countryside to the cities nor the attendant social problems which it has created are unique to Mozambique. The newsletter says during the first three weeks of October, President Machel led a delegation on a visit to six European countries; spending from two to five days in each country, the delegation visited Belgium, Holland, Portugal, Yugoslavia, France and England. The newsletter says since last June more than 1500 families in the Namacurra district of Zambezi province have each received a parcel of land for the cultivation of cassava. The newsletter says the first annual championships of N'Tchuva and Muravarava, traditional Mozambican games akin to chess or checkers were held in Maputo during the week of September 25. The newsletter says Mozambique and South Africa announced that the two countries had established four commissions that would begin holding a series of bilateral talks in mid-January on the issues of security, economic relations, tourism, and the Cabora Bassa hydroelectric dam. The newsletter discusses Mariano Matsinho, the African National Congress (ANC), South African Defense Minister Magnus Malan, Secretary of State for Tourism Antonio Materul, Church World Service, the World Food Program, Ambassador Peter John De Vos, Oxfam, Angola, Cape Verde, Guine-Bissau, Mozambique, Sao-Tome and Principe, AGRICOM, the Barrett Sisters, SWAPO, Julius Nyerere, Robert Mugabe, Cuban troops, the Commonwealth Conference, Resolution 435, Alves Gomes, Elisio Figuerego, the Security Council, Resolution 546, Southern African Development Coordination Conference, ZAPU, ZIPRA, and Roelof Botha.