Peace, Unease in Past Mozambican Battle Zone : East Africa: Rebels prefer to attack poorly equipped government troops rather than the Zimbabwean military on the other side of border.

Local militiamen and soldiers from neighboring Zimbabwe stand guard over a pipeline, railroad and crumbling highway. In the soporific heat, they talk of past campaigns and the possibility of peace.

There was a time when the enemy, an ubiquitous rebel army accused of many atrocities, launched attacks of 1,000 men on the three facilities, which are lifelines to the sea for Mozambique’s inland neighbors.

For the last several months, quiet has prevailed in the Beira Corridor ascending from the port of Beira, through nearly 200 miles of fertile savanna flecked with forests and swamps, to the Vumba Mountains of Zimbabwe.

Observers suggest the rebels, who remain active on either side of the zone, prefer to attack poorly equipped government troops rather than the heavily armed Zimbabwean military.

“We have a few firings along the road, that’s all,” said Col. Michael Dube, one of the men commanding several thousand Zimbabwean soldiers who have helped guard the transportation corridor since 1984.

About 12,000 Zimbabwean troops are scattered throughout Mozambique to help government forces.

Dube’s troops make routine seven-day foot patrols from Lamego, a mosquito-infested base camp on the edge of swamps about 45 miles inland from the Indian Ocean coast.

Armored convoys run another 110 miles westward to the Zimbabwean brigade headquarters at Chimoio, just across the border, carrying supplies to the soldiers and Mozambican militia posts.

The corridor has remained open through most of the war, closing only long enough for repairs to the railway after mine explosions and other sabotage by the guerrillas, who began fighting in 1977.

Two Beira-bound trains trundle along the corridor most days, carrying potash and railroad ties from Botswana, tin and cobalt from Zaire and Zimbabwean tobacco and granite. Trucks overloaded with Zambian copper pound along the highway.

Western donors and investors have contributed more than $400 million since 1986 for repairs to the transport system and rebuilding Beira’s port and infrastructure.

Keeping soldiers in Mozambique costs Zimbabwe about $20 million a year, according to official figures, and up to seven times that by private estimates. Zimbabwe is infinitely better off than Mozambique, but still is among the world’s poorer nations.

White settlers who ruled Zimbabwe when it was a British colony called Rhodesia helped establish the rebel force to fight Mozambique’s Marxist government. Mozambique became independent of Portugal in 1975, two years before Renamo was formed.

South Africa later became Renamo’s main supporter, with the aim of undermining Mozambique economically, and openly supported the guerrillas until the two governments signed a peace agreement in 1984. No government now acknowledges aiding Renamo.

President Joachim Chissano’s ruling party, known as Frelimo, officially dropped its hard-line Marxist policies in 1989. In July, the government said Mozambique’s first multiparty elections will be held next year.

Renamo has demanded recognition by the government and free Western-style elections, but has not made its political aims clear. The guerrillas will be allowed to participate in the 1991 elections if they lay down their arms.

The war has killed an estimated 600,000 Mozambicans, displaced more than 1 million and made the southeast African nation one of the poorest in the world. Nearly half the 15 million people require some food assistance and per capita income is less than $200 a year.

Peace talks were undertaken in Rome between the government and exiled rebel leaders, but Dube’s men wait for peace with little cheer or optimism.

He and his junior officers sipped Dao, a cheap Portuguese red wine, in a tidy dining tent and said peace would not come easily.

Zimbabwean soldiers, with their far superior firepower, equipment and air support, have little faith in Mozambican government troops.

“When there’s trouble, the first thing Frelimo do is run away,” said Dube, a Soviet-trained veteran of his own country’s war for independence, which ended a decade ago.

A young officer, who asked not to be identified, said militiamen, soldiers and rebels alike turn to banditry.

The Zimbabweans have been accused of using armored vehicles, which are seldom searched, to smuggle out ivory, gemstones, valuable carvings and marijuana, which grows wild in central and northern Mozambique.