Mozambican Clerics End U.S. Visit With Appeal for Relief

An ecumenical delegation of top Mozambican church leaders ended a Washington visit this week with praise for past American generosity and a plea for continued relief aid and political support for the embattled government.

“The visit has been a good one,” said Anglican Bishop Denis Salamao Sengulane in an interview. “I have found what we knew from a distance about American generosity is true.”

Sengulane, joined by Roman Catholic, Baptist, Presbyterian and Methodist church leaders from Mozambique, spent 2 1/2 weeks in the United States telling church groups and government officials that 4.5 million of the 14 million population are facing starvation as a result of the twin disasters of drought and a guerrilla war being waged by right-wing groups believed to be supported by South Africa.

“There is a great need for emergency help,” Sengulane said. “There are two causes of hunger in Mozambique. The major one is the violence, the other is the drought.”

National Council of Churches officials, who are sponsoring the visit of the Mozambican religious leaders, said the trip comes at a critical time for the beleaguered African nation.

Although the Reagan Administration has generally held steady in its support for the Mozambican Marxist government, that policy has been under increasing attack by conservative members of Congress.

But the Mozambican church leaders said the concern for human suffering should override the political differences conservatives might have with the Marxist regime.

“Anything withheld for political or ideological motives simply means we are allowing people to die in front of us just because we are unsure of their political preference,” the delegation said in a statement.

“The choice before Mozambicans is not between socialism or capitalism but between life and death,” the statement said.