Relief Supplies Cut to a Trickle : Mozambicans Battle Dual Plagues: Rebels, Drought

Jose Vilanculos crouched low in the well, his bare feet balanced on clods of dirt and his hands digging with a crude iron tool. For two days he had been digging, but the hole was still only four feet deep.

The parched plain around Vilanculos was dotted with mounds of dirt and the backs of men working in other holes.

Everyone in Dindiza, it seemed, was searching for water this week as the hot sun rose over Gaza province in south-central Mozambique.

Everyone, that is, except the soldiers who were protecting the village from what the people here call os bandidos.

Dindiza’s 14,000 residents have been paralyzed by seven years of drought. But they have been virtually destroyed by those “bandits”--the South Africa-backed Mozambique National Resistance, known here as Renamo.

In its effort to undermine President Samora Machel’s support and block Mozambican economic development, Renamo has struck railroad lines, pipelines, ports--and tried to cut off the flow of relief supplies to drought-stricken areas.

The guerrillas have launched frequent attacks near Dindiza, a long day’s walk from the nearest water supply and 80 miles north from Chibuto and food supplies. Trucks carrying emergency food aid have been ambushed, drivers killed and the goods stolen or destroyed, residents say.

On July 20, a truck carrying dozens of women and children to pick up food was attacked by the guerrillas. Two children, ages 2 and 4, were killed.

The shiny, white Leyland flatbed truck used to ferry food and water from Chibuto, the provincial capital, was donated by the United States. It now sits idle, with three bullet holes in the windshield and a rear tire blown apart by gunfire.

Dindiza is more than 200 miles north of the port of Maputo, the national capital, and only 100 miles or so from the South African border to the west. Refugees from miles around have moved to the village, where a Mozambican army unit guards them against Renamo attacks.

But the people cannot be protected from disease and starvation. Many have died for lack of medicine, food and water; three children died this week, residents say.

No Food in 3 Days

“I have not eaten in three days,” said Vilanculos, a thin man of about 50, as he dug the well with a small hoe. Vilanculos, father of five, said Renamo forces had killed his cattle months ago.

Simeone Benzane, 47, a father of eight, carried an old army canteen strapped to his waist. The canteen is frequently empty.

“We don’t do anything but look for water,” he said. “When we get up in the morning, we feel dizzy and sick because we have no water.”

Benzane said his wife was killed last year by the “bandits” about five miles from the village. She was walking to get water.

“They came into our houses at first a few years ago, asking for food,” Benzane said. “Then later they stole our cattle by the dozens and took all our belongings.

“Then they started killing. Now when they find us, they kill and don’t ask questions.”

All of Cattle Dead

Dindiza was once a livestock-producing area. The drought killed many cattle and Renamo killed the rest, villagers said. The only animals left are a few small goats and skinny dogs.

Some people in Dindiza have tried to cultivate the soil outside their grass huts. They plant, “but there is no harvest,” said Amos Mahanjne, director of the Mozambique natural disaster office.

Most of the soil long ago turned to a fine dust that shifts like sand, making it difficult to walk.

Without crops or cattle, the people of Dindiza “live on donations,” Mahanjne said.

U.S. assistance has increased steadily as the relationship between Machel, Mozambique’s Marxist president, and President Reagan has improved. In fact, M. Peter McPherson, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, arrived in Maputo this week to talk about AID projects in this country.

But the village is often isolated by the rebel forces. Its two-room health clinic has 14 bottles of medicine, a supply that has not been replenished this year.

Diseases Common

Diarrhea, malaria and skin diseases are common. So are deadly parasites from unpurified water.

“After people walk nine miles to get water, they drink it right there and don’t take time to boil it,” explained Mahanjne, the disaster official.

South Africa, preparing for a rash of economic sanctions from the West and its neighbors in southern Africa, has stepped up its efforts to keep Mozambique off balance, political analysts in the region say.

A frequent target has been the railroad and pipeline across Mozambique to the port of Beira, north of here. That route could make landlocked Zimbabwe and other southern African countries less dependent economically on South African ports.

In a visit to the Dindiza village this week, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, former U.S. presidential candidate, said the United States should provide defense as well as food assistance to southern African nations threatened by what he said are South Africa’s attempt to destabilize the region.

“Aid without defense of that aid is worthless,” he said. Protecting Mozambique from Renamo attacks, he added, would be an effective sanction against South Africa.

South African Weapons

The Renamo forces have been around for a decade. In the beginning they were supported by the white-minority government in Rhodesia, now black-led Zimbabwe, Mozambique’s western neighbor. Now South Africa provides many of the guerrillas’ weapons, planes, equipment and technical expertise, analysts said.

Dindiza itself is guarded by Mozambican soldiers in their teens and 20s, wearing T-shirts and camouflage pants, with rifles slung nonchalantly over their shoulders.

The younger boys of Dindiza, their faces already covered with the white dust of drought, will one day wear the camouflage fatigues of Mozambique soldiers, defending their village. The girls will soon be making those long treks through dangerous territory for the family’s water.

The children of Dindiza serenade visitors with songs about FRELIMO, the government party that has run the country since Portuguese colonial rule ended in 1975.

Their tunes are joyous but the lyrics are not.

“The bandits are our children, but they have been bought by the rand of the Boers” of South Africa, they sing in Changana, their tribal language.

“What type of war are they waging?

“They kill us when we are sitting.

“They kill us when we are working.

“The struggle against the bandits continues.

“Viva FRELIMO!”