Funny how time flies. It seems as if it was only yesterday that the great Samora Moises Machel died. The news of his sudden death on October 19 1986 came as a shock to many Mozambicans who expected much from him. Also to his children and wife Graça.
But to some of us journalists in Maputo who were closely monitoring developments in southern Africa at that time, his death was not entirely a surprise. President Machel was seen as a “problem” by the then apartheid regime. They needed to deal with him. He was accused of abetting “terrorism”, not only in South Africa but in the whole of southern Africa.
At some stage, the then South African Minister of Defence General Magnus Malan mentioned him by name: “If Machel chooses terrorism and revolution, then South Africa will act accordingly.”
Machel was an internationalist of the first order. He never pretended to be anything else. He knew very well that the freedom of the people of Mozambique was closely intertwined with the struggles for freedom in other countries, including South Africa.
Then on the night of October 19 1986, Machel’s plane, a Soviet-built Tupolev-134, rammed into a hillside at Mbuzini on South African soil, a mere 300metres from the Mozambique border. It was travelling from Zambia, carrying an entourage of 34, including top Frelimo government officials.
The immediate response of the apartheid government raised a lot of suspicion. The crash took place shortly before 9.30pm, yet it was not until 6.50 the following morning that Maputo received the first communication from Pretoria.
Furthermore, the information was wildly inaccurate. It claimed the crash had occurred in Natal, hundreds of kilometres away from Mbuzini.
Mbuzini was a military sensitive area for South Africa, and with its advanced radar systems, a plane blundering towards it and suddenly disappearing would have been noticed at once. Some of the eight survivors of the crash also testified that South African police arrived shortly after the crash but instead of helping the injured, stole documents.
One who could walk, one of Machel’s bodyguards, contacted a police station nearby, at about midnight, via a mission’s radio. The police promised to radio Maputo immediately but did not.
There was therefore little doubt in the minds of most Mozambicans and some of us monitoring the developments that Machel had been assassinated by the apartheid state.
At Machel’s funeral mourners carried banners and placards reading: “The Boers have murdered the finest son of our people” and “We demand that the racist South African regime be severely punished”.
In a prescient article one of Mozambique’s top journalists, the late Carlos Cardoso, had warned that Machel was a “possible target” for murder by the apartheid regime.
Cardoso was not taken seriously, but four days after penning the article, Machel was dead in a puzzling fashion on South African soil.
Pretoria’s response throughout the whole crash saga was to blame the dead Russian pilot, Captain Yuri Novodran. Yet Novodran was highly experienced, with more than 13000 hours’ flying time, more than half of them on Tupolev-134s. He had made 65 landings at Maputo airport, 70% of them at night. Other crew members also had distinguished civil aviation records. They were unlikely to mistakenly blunder onto a wrong route.
When the black box flight recorders were decoded, it became clear that the immediate cause of the crash was a turn to the right when the plane was about 100km north-west of Maputo.
Conversation among the crew showed the turn was made in response to a signal from a VOR (a navigational radio beacon).
Machel’s plane crew believed it was the Maputo VOR as there was only one other legitimate VOR nearby, at Matsapa, in Swaziland. Investigations showed it was impossible for the plane to have followed the Matsapa signal by mistake.
That left one possibility: that the plane had been deliberately lured off its correct flight path by a private VOR transmitting on the same frequency as the Maputo one.
That was a possibility that Pretoria showed no interest in investigating. As expected, an inquiry under Judge Cecil Margo declared the cause to be pilot error.
Despite the insistences of Mozambique, and the then Soviet Union as the manufacturer of the Tupolev-134, apartheid South Africa refused further investigations.
But to most Mozambicans, close relatives and people who loved and respected Machel, the truth would one day be laid bare for all to see.
“We shall leave no stone unturned to ensure that, in the fullness of time, nothing but the whole truth is known about the events leading to President Machel’s death,” Nelson Mandela, the president of the new South Africa, also pledged in 1996.
A luta continua, a vitoria e certa (The struggle continues, victory is certain).
Wandile Kese was in MK in Mozambique and is a former Dispatch sub-editor
Machel’s mystery death festers
But to some of us journalists in Maputo who were closely monitoring developments in southern Africa at that time, his death was not entirely a surprise. President Machel was seen as a “problem” by the then apartheid regime. They needed to deal with him. He was accused of abetting “terrorism”, not only in South Africa but in the whole of southern Africa.
At some stage, the then South African Minister of Defence General Magnus Malan mentioned him by name: “If Machel chooses terrorism and revolution, then South Africa will act accordingly.”
Machel was an internationalist of the first order. He never pretended to be anything else. He knew very well that the freedom of the people of Mozambique was closely intertwined with the struggles for freedom in other countries, including South Africa.
Then on the night of October 19 1986, Machel’s plane, a Soviet-built Tupolev-134, rammed into a hillside at Mbuzini on South African soil, a mere 300metres from the Mozambique border. It was travelling from Zambia, carrying an entourage of 34, including top Frelimo government officials.
The immediate response of the apartheid government raised a lot of suspicion. The crash took place shortly before 9.30pm, yet it was not until 6.50 the following morning that Maputo received the first communication from Pretoria.
Furthermore, the information was wildly inaccurate. It claimed the crash had occurred in Natal, hundreds of kilometres away from Mbuzini.
Mbuzini was a military sensitive area for South Africa, and with its advanced radar systems, a plane blundering towards it and suddenly disappearing would have been noticed at once. Some of the eight survivors of the crash also testified that South African police arrived shortly after the crash but instead of helping the injured, stole documents.
One who could walk, one of Machel’s bodyguards, contacted a police station nearby, at about midnight, via a mission’s radio. The police promised to radio Maputo immediately but did not.
There was therefore little doubt in the minds of most Mozambicans and some of us monitoring the developments that Machel had been assassinated by the apartheid state.
At Machel’s funeral mourners carried banners and placards reading: “The Boers have murdered the finest son of our people” and “We demand that the racist South African regime be severely punished”.
In a prescient article one of Mozambique’s top journalists, the late Carlos Cardoso, had warned that Machel was a “possible target” for murder by the apartheid regime.
Cardoso was not taken seriously, but four days after penning the article, Machel was dead in a puzzling fashion on South African soil.
Pretoria’s response throughout the whole crash saga was to blame the dead Russian pilot, Captain Yuri Novodran. Yet Novodran was highly experienced, with more than 13000 hours’ flying time, more than half of them on Tupolev-134s. He had made 65 landings at Maputo airport, 70% of them at night. Other crew members also had distinguished civil aviation records. They were unlikely to mistakenly blunder onto a wrong route.
When the black box flight recorders were decoded, it became clear that the immediate cause of the crash was a turn to the right when the plane was about 100km north-west of Maputo.
Conversation among the crew showed the turn was made in response to a signal from a VOR (a navigational radio beacon).
Machel’s plane crew believed it was the Maputo VOR as there was only one other legitimate VOR nearby, at Matsapa, in Swaziland. Investigations showed it was impossible for the plane to have followed the Matsapa signal by mistake.
That left one possibility: that the plane had been deliberately lured off its correct flight path by a private VOR transmitting on the same frequency as the Maputo one.
That was a possibility that Pretoria showed no interest in investigating. As expected, an inquiry under Judge Cecil Margo declared the cause to be pilot error.
Despite the insistences of Mozambique, and the then Soviet Union as the manufacturer of the Tupolev-134, apartheid South Africa refused further investigations.
But to most Mozambicans, close relatives and people who loved and respected Machel, the truth would one day be laid bare for all to see.
“We shall leave no stone unturned to ensure that, in the fullness of time, nothing but the whole truth is known about the events leading to President Machel’s death,” Nelson Mandela, the president of the new South Africa, also pledged in 1996.
A luta continua, a vitoria e certa (The struggle continues, victory is certain).
Wandile Kese was in MK in Mozambique and is a former Dispatch sub-editor
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