Film Review: Against Destruction and Destabilization: The Struggle of Mozambique's EnduringRevolutionMozambique: The Struggle for SurvivalReview by: Gabriel Ume and Fernando Sumbana, Jr.Africa Today, Vol. 34, No. 4, Africa's Liberation Struggle: Retrospect and Prospect (4th Qtr.,1987), pp. 43-44Published by: Indiana University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4186446 .

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Africa Rights Monitor: Film Review

Against Destruction and Destabilization: The Struggle of Mozambique's

Enduring Revolution Gabriel Urme with Fernando Sumbana, Jr.

MOZAMBIQUE: THE STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL (New York, The Cinema Guild, 1987) Color, 57 minutes, all video formats. Rental: $90, Purchase: $350.

Mozambique is among the most ravaged and strife-torn countries on the African continent today. An economy already weak due to a long legacy of neglect was fur- ther debilitated at independence by the mass exodus of Portuguese enterpreneurs and skilled labor, many of whom deliberately sabotaged their enterprises before depar- ture. The country has been plagued by floods and drought damages of unprecedented dimensions in the years since, with famine an inevitable consequence, exacerbated in some cases by mistakes of the Frelimo government. But its most serious problems have stemmed from the accident of geography that provided it with long common borders with white-ruled Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and South Africa. Both minori- ty regimes regarded Frelimo's accession to power as a serious threat to their security, and efforts to destabilize and discredit the new government began almost immediate- ly. One result was the creation by the Rhodesian Central Intelligence Organization (CIO) of the Mozambique Resistance Movement (MNR), which has, since shortly after in- dependence, been terrorizing the countryside and disrupting the economy through armed banditry, terrorism, sabotage and guerrilla warfare.

The consequences of all this are the focus of this new documentary video, Mozambique: the Struggle for Survival, produced and directed by Bob and Amy Coen, two Americans resident in Zimbabwe, with sponsorship and funding from the Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church (USA), and the Netherlands Organization for International Development Cooperation (NOVIBO). The primary purpose is clearly to create awareness of Mozambique's desperate situation, with a view to mobilizing relief assistance in the outside world.

Scene after scene in the film documents the tragedy of Mozambique and its peo- ple. Starvation has claimed an appalling number of lives. The film asserts that up to 100,000 Mozambicans starved to death in 1983, while famine today threatens more than three quarters of the population. Crying babies, shanty towns, hospitals filled with maimed and injured, burnt down and deserted villages, mass graves, refugees, terror- ist atrocities and war scenes fill the screen in this grim but moving documentary.

Central to these problems are the 10 years of armed conflict between Frelimo and the MNR. Mozambiques strategic border position alongside South Africa and Zim- babwe has established Mozambique as a target for indirect attack by South Africa through MNR (or RENAMO).

Among those whose insights were sought by Africa Today in preparing this review was Fernando Sumbana, Jr., a citizen of Mozambique newly arrived in the U.S. from Maputo, who commented:

Gabriel Ume is book review editor of Africa Today and a Ph.D. candidate at the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver, Denver, Colorado. Fernando Sumbana, Jr., is a graduate of Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo, Mozambique now engaged in graduate study at the Economic Institute at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

4th Quarter, 1987 43

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The causes of war are well explained, as well as the overall destabiliza- tion in the region, which will only end when apartheid ends. The film also clarified how MNR-armed bandits were created and recounts their growing atrocities. Appropriately included are some excerpts from films made inside MNR. The interview with Ken Flower, the former head of the Central Intelligence Organization in Rhodesia, in which he accepts responsibility for forming MNR, is a key to understanding this instability.

Mr. Sumbana went on to affirm the basic tenets of the film and the unfortunate reality for the people of Mozambique. From his own personal knowledge, he confirmed the film's portrayal of the coercion of children into MNR activities, and the extreme dimensions of starvation that is forcing people to eat roots and go naked. He also cor- rectly pointed out that the war has prevented children from attending school and de- prived many communities of sanitary facilities, water supplies, hospitals, and supplies for shops. All of this has caused deterioration in many parts of the country.

All of us agreed that the interview with Flower, who has since died, was a key ingredient in the film. Sitting calmly in his garden in an independent Zimbabwe, he describes how the CIO decided to create MNR as a force to counter Mozambican assistance to ZANU. At no point does he so much as hint that this was done in response to any initiative on the part of the enlisted Mozambicans. Rather, it was an externally organized operation for the express purpose of harassing and destabilizing the legal government of Mozambique. Clearly many Renamo members came from the dregs of society where ruthless acts of banditry come naturally.

The film relies heavily on pictures and interviews with victims of MNR atrocities, including persons who have suffered nose, ear and breast dismemberment. The effort to sabotage the economy is dramatized by pictures of the bombed Enteraba bridge spanning five miles across the Zambezi river basin, which deprived a major agricultural area of its markets, and of the killing of farmers and the taking of their stock.

Also documented is South Africa's role as a destabilizer, including the deporta- tion of 70,000 Mozambican workers whose labor had provided both colonial and newly independent Mozambique with one of its few sources of hard currency, and its sup- port for Renamo after Zimbabwe's independence. The film shows how this support continued even after South Africa pledged in the Nkomati accords to discontinue such aid, pointing out that the documents captured by Mozambican and Zimbabwean troops at the MNR headquarters at Gorongoza in October 1985 describe both arms shipments and top level visits of South African officials to the MNR subsequent to Nkomati. Ques- tions are also raised of a possible South African role in the plane crash in which Presi- dent Machel and several other top government officials were killed.

The film focuses almost entirely on Mozambique's problems. Little of the positive side of Frelimo's efforts to meet the needs of the people nor of the cooperative efforts Mozambique and other members of the Southern Africa Development Coordinating Conference (SADCC) to lessen dependency on South Africa are portrayed. It stands in contrast to another video, Comdors of Freedom, 1987 by Ingrid Sinclair, which provides a positive inside look at SADCC. Film clips of Presidents Machel and Chissano, however, portray Mozambican determination.

While concentrated scenes of misery made this at times a difficult film to watch, it nevetheless effectively calls attention to Mozambique's need for assistance, both material and political, to meet the challenges it faces. It can be useful in African studies courses with a focus in southern African politics.

*MNR stands for Mozambique National Resistance, while Renamo is the Portuguese acronym for MNR.)

44 AFRICA TODAY

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