Mozambican’s U.S. Visit Irks Conservatives

Amid cries of anger from conservatives, the Marxist president of Mozambique arrived Tuesday for talks with President Reagan aimed at cementing growing ties with the United States and winning new aid for his leftist government.

The Administration’s cordial relationship with Mozambican President Samora M. Machel flies in the face of Reagan’s usual rhetoric on the Third World.

In this case, the United States is supporting a Soviet-backed Marxist dictatorship against a pro-Western rebellion.

The United States is supplying Machel’s regime with $40 million in economic aid this year; Congress turned down an Administration request for $1.1 million in military aid.

Reagan and other officials say that Machel has helped U.S. attempts to calm tensions between white-ruled South Africa and its black neighbors and that they hope he can be wooed away from his close relationship with the Soviet Union.

“For some time now, there has been an indication that (Machel), who had gone so far over to the other camp, was maybe having second thoughts,” the President said at his news conference Tuesday night. “We think it’s worth a try to let him see what our system is.”

A senior Administration official said: “Mozambique has been important to us . . . in the efforts it has made, (in) its advice and counsel on southern Africa. It is clearly moving away from an outright Soviet embrace.

“Our view would be that if you wish to displace something which is contrary to our interests--namely, a position of Soviet strength in that part of the world--the way you do it is by competing (with the Soviet Union), not by quarantine,” he said.

But conservative Republicans complain that aid for Mozambique is inconsistent with Reagan’s policies in Nicaragua, Afghanistan and Cambodia, where the Administration has been aiding rebels against leftist regimes. They called on the President to aid the rightist Mozambican National Resistance, known as Renamo, which has been fighting to overthrow Machel’s regime.

“The President is engaging in what seems an ultimate act of hypocrisy by extending official honors to Samora Machel,” charged Howard Phillips, chairman of the Conservative Caucus. “The only evidence that Mozambique is tilting toward the West is that they are willing to take our money. . . . We hope the President comes to his senses on this.”

Sen. Helms Critical

“The Mozambique government . . . would inevitably collapse without Western sustenance,” Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) and four other conservative senators said in a letter to Reagan. “We question whether it is in America’s strategic interest to prevent the inevitable toppling of a pro-Soviet, dedicated Marxist government which has ruthlessly suppressed its people and bankrupted its economy.”

Administration officials acknowledge that aid for Mozambique is a departure from what some have called the “Reagan doctrine” of support for rightist insurgencies. But they dispute the conservatives’ assertion that Machel’s regime is unstable and charge that Renamo is backed largely by white former colonists who fled Mozambique after a black guerrilla movement led by Machel wrested independence from Portugal in 1975.

“We feel that it is a viable government. It’s one that has shown staying power,” a U.S. diplomat said.

“We have not seen any evidence that Renamo represents a widespread indigenous base that is capable of forming a government,” the senior Administration official said. “It includes some indigenous African black Mozambican interests. . . . It also represents very clearly the interests of Portuguese who were displaced by the decolonization process, many of whom see that struggle as a way to get their properties back, quite frankly.”

Private Sector Emphasized

The officials said that Machel has made serious efforts to move away from Soviet-style economic planning toward more emphasis on the private sector and noted that he sent East European agricultural experts home earlier this year.

Machel’s main value to the Administration, however, has been as a black friend in southern Africa, where the United States is attempting to negotiate the withdrawal of Cuban troops from Angola, the withdrawal of South Africa from neighboring Namibia and a general detente between white-ruled South Africa and surrounding black nations.

Machel signed a peace pact in 1984 with South Africa under which each government agreed not to support insurgents against the other.

Machel is scheduled to spend much of his time in Washington meeting with members of Congress in an attempt to convince them that he is moving away from the Soviet Union. At the same time, a delegation from Renamo is also touring Capitol Hill in hopes of offsetting Machel’s message.

Machel, whose visit is his first to the United States since Mozambique won independence 10 years ago, is scheduled to have an official lunch with Reagan and separate meetings with Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger.