Mozambicans Link Seized Americans to Rebel Allies

Mozambican sources said Saturday that seven Americans and two other foreigners detained last week in northwestern Mozambique were traveling with supporters of the right-wing Mozambique National Resistance movement, which has waged a debilitating guerrilla war against the Marxist government in this former Portuguese colony for more than a decade.

These sources and U.S. officials confirmed that the group were apprehended by Mozambican troops in Tete province after they entered the African nation on a medical relief mission.

U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Cynthia Efrid said the Mozambican Defense Ministry told Ambassador Melissa Wells that the seven Americans were detained Tuesday for “allegedly crossing illegally over the border with Malawi,” which lies north of Mozambique.

Efrid said the seven Americans were brought to Maputo on Saturday and that Wells would be allowed to see them today. At least six of the seven Americans were identified as members of the Christian Emergency Relief Team, based in Carlsbad, Calif.

The other two foreigners included one man identified by South African officials as a South African who has been linked to the MNR rebels, but Maputo sources said the man carried a British passport. The ninth person was identified as a South African.

Mozambique in the past has accused neighboring South Africa of supplying the anti-Marxist MNR rebels.

The Christian Emergency Relief Team is headed by David Courson, described as a vocal anti-communist who has carried out several similar mercy missions in the Third World since forming the organization in 1974.

Kris Courson, CERT’s director of medical services, identified the detained CERT group as Dr. Ken Daugherty, of San Diego; Dr. Fred Leist and his wife, Lucille Leist, of Bremerton, Wash., Dr. John Cannon, a dentist from Davenport, Iowa; and paramedics Carol Roberts of Syracuse, N.Y., and Steve Sherrill of Stroudsburg, Pa. Their guide was identified as Peter Hammond of South Africa.

Courson said the group had just arrived at the Malawi border when they encountered the troops.

“Malawi was their first stop,” Courson said. “They were going to be setting up medical clinics and dental clinics in the refugee camps along the Malawi-Mozambique border.”