Machel was no democrat

IF DEPUTY president Cyril Ramaphosa is to realise his ambition of improving economic opportunities for all (The Mercury, October 18), then he had better brush up on his history first.

It beggars belief that Ramaphosa should regard Samora Machel of Mozambique as a democrat who advanced “the interests of the masses”. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In the first place, Machel seized power in Mozambique following the withdrawal of the Portuguese colonial authority. He declared a one-party Marxist-Leninist state in 1977 and nationalised all private property.

Those who opposed him were tortured and killed. As Stalin and Mao Tse Tung had done, with appalling human and economic consequences, Machel set up huge collective farms in which the peasantry were incarcerated and forced to work on meagre rations. As a result, more than 300 000 Mozambicans sought refuge, ironically, in apartheid South Africa from the tyranny of Machel’s liberation.

Not only did Machel attempt to wipe out Christianity through sustained persecution and execution of church leaders and followers, but he succeeded in transforming Mozambique into the poorest country in Africa with a negative growth rate of minus 8.6% according to the World Bank. His death in 1986, by accident or design, rid Africa of one of its most cruel and merciless tyrants.

For Sol Makgabutlane (Mercury, October 19) to label Machel a “gallant champion” of the oppressed is a shocking perversion of history.

DUNCAN DU BOIS Bluff