Good Step on Mozambique

The Senate, at long last ignoring the bad advice of Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), finally summoned its collective courage and good sense and did what it should have done 10 months ago by confirming Melissa Wells as the new American ambassador to Mozambique.

She is a career Foreign Service officer with substantial experience in Africa, well qualified for the delicate task of pursuing the constructive policy that President Reagan has followed for that desperate and confused country.

Wells had been opposed only by the reactionary rightists who sought to leverage the confirmation into a modification of U.S. policy, and by some with political ambitions--like Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.), who seemed anxious to curry right-wing favor. The right wing has sought recognition for Renamo, a South African-supported organization that is waging a murderous guerrilla war in Mozambique. Renamo seems to specialize in killing civilians, but represents no coherent political interest. The American right had been blinded by the Marxist trappings of the Mozambique regime from seeing the progress that the Western nations have made in helping it become a nonaligned nation in a crucial strategic location in Southern Africa.

The President has wisely resisted the reckless proposals of the far right, and now can get on with the imaginative diplomacy as well as the famine relief that is essential for this beleaguered country.