Frelimo or no?
From Brigadier Michael Calvert Sir: The Frelimo guerrillas in Mozambique, after a series of defeats and desertions in the Cabo Delgado district on the Tanzanian border, have undoubtedly switched the emphasis of their activities to the Tete area where the construction of the great Cabora Bassa Dam whose hydro-electric potential when, completed will be the fourth greatest in the world, and where they hope to get more notice taken of their little operaions. It is a more sensitive area. This follows the advice given by their new mentors, the Chinese, who appear to be replacing the Russians in influence over the communist revolutionaries In Africa.
Frelimo feel that greater diviloured ' used here. propaganda offensive in Europe, America and the UN than from activities in the remote African bush. Elizabeth Morris (December 2) has, I think, swallowed some of this propaganda when she implies that the rail disaster which killed ten and injured thirty-two people in North Mozambique was caused by Frelimo guerrillas., In actual fact a diesel-driven railcar travelling from Nampula to the new harbour of Nacala was signalled to stop on the approach from the other direction of a steam-driven passenger train. The driver of the rail car thought that he might just make it to the next stop where the single line bifurcated. But he hit the heavier locomotive head-on in a cutting just west of Meconta. The road runs close to the rail on this section, and driving back to Nampala after a swim on Mozambique Island, I noticed the commotion, stopped to see and took some photographs. By this time, on the morning of Sunday, October 29, all casualties had been efficiently evacutated to Nampula hospital by helicopter, and the Mozambique press had already taken photographs from the air of this event.
The nearest known uncapt"red guerrilla was over 300 km away to the north and there had never been a guerrilla incident within that distance from this railway which runs now to Zomba, the new capital of Malawi, for which the magnificent harbour of Nacala has been recently built. Having recently returned from Tete and talked to General Kaulza de Arriaga and toured the guerrilla areas I can assure readers tht much of what Elizabeth Morris has written in her article has the same degree of veracity as the implication that it was Frelimo guerrillas that caused the rail accident.
It would seem that the Frelimo propagandists are succeeding in their efforts to delude the Western world.
Michael Calvert Flat 9, Station Parade, Ockham Road South, East Horsley, Surrey
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