Mozambique Seeks Peace Amid Famine : Africa: Talks with rebel forces broke down in September, curtailing optimism. Malnutrition is widespread and pledges of aid have fallen off sharply.

Peace is proving an elusive commodity in Mozambique, where a population of 15 million is teetering on the edge of famine.

“Every issue you discuss always comes back to the same point--the need for peace,” said a senior European diplomat.

Several diplomats in the region said right-wing opponents of South African President Frederik W. de Klerk’s efforts to end his country’s racial separation policy of apartheid are also backing the Renamo guerrillas fighting the Mozambique government.

“The people trying to stop the internal revolution in South Africa are the same people destabilizing Mozambique,” the European diplomat said. “If you believe the revolution in South Africa is irreversible, you must believe peace will come back to Mozambique. War doesn’t make sense anymore.”

The head of the U.N. development program in Mozambique, Peter Simkin, warned that the country faces mass famine. Diplomats estimate two-thirds of the population already live in absolute poverty and malnutrition is endemic.

More than 5 million people have been driven from their homes, while the United Nations estimated there were 900,000 war-related deaths in eight years beginning with 1980.

“Mozambique is living on a knife edge that could easily become a disaster area of major proportions . . . it could translate into famine later this year or early next year and we have no resources to fall back on,” Simkin said in an interview. “We are not in a position to prevent disaster or to mount a massive relief campaign.”

Diplomats said pledges of aid dropped sharply this year due in part to the Persian Gulf crisis, reconstruction demands for Eastern Europe and “donor weariness.”

Government and church leaders in Mozambique were optimistic in early September that a peace agreement with Renamo was possible after two rounds of talks in Rome. President Joaquim Chissano, who has promised the country’s first-ever multi-party presidential and parliamentary elections for next year, even talked about peace by Christmas.

But Renamo’s refusal to attend a third round of talks in September has deadened optimism, with Chissano throwing the blame squarely on the rebels.

Diplomats note the ruling Frelimo Party in Maputo has basically preempted all Renamo demands by ditching its socialist ideology and agreeing to a market economy, political pluralism and a free press.

“You know if you have an open multi-party system, Renamo has no hope of gaining power,” one diplomat said.

The shadowy rebel movement demanded withdrawal of Zimbabwe troops from Mozambique and an end to attacks on Renamo base areas as a prerequisite for further talks.

Diplomats estimate Zimbabwe has 6,000 troops in Mozambique, primarily to protect the so-called Beira corridor rail link from Zimbabwe to the Indian Ocean port of Beira.

” . . . The achievement of peace would mean a quick withdrawal of all Zimbabwe troops,” President Chissano told journalists at the United Nations in New York recently. “All those interested in seeing the country free of foreign troops should cooperate so that we can achieve peace as soon as possible--tomorrow if possible.”

Renamo, the Mozambique Resistance Movement, originally was set up by the white minority government of Ian Smith in what was then Rhodesia as a destabilizing force after Mozambique achieved independence from Portugal in June, 1975.

Diplomats in southern Africa said the Rhodesians recruited Renamo guerrillas from among black members of Portugal’s former colonial forces. They were used primarily against black nationalists operating out of Mozambique against Rhodesia.

When Rhodesia became Zimbabwe with independence in 1980, the former white security forces handed Renamo over to South Africa, which continued to use it against Maputo.

Pretoria and Maputo signed the Nkomati Accord of nonaggression and good-neighborliness in 1984 and the South African government subsequently cut all official links with Renamo.

Chissano himself has said he trusted Pretoria’s good faith.

Diplomats also believe South Africa severed ties with Renamo, cutting it off from weapons and communications supplies.

But they said it appears right-wing groups in South Africa, including Portuguese emigres hoping to recover property they left behind in Mozambique, continued to support the rebels.

They believe other support came from groups within Portugal--Renamo’s official headquarters are in Lisbon--and also Britain, West Germany and the United States.