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AIM NEWS CAST, THURSDAY 23/11/2000

1301100E MURDER OF CARLOS CARDOSO: LATEST DETAILS

Maputo, 23 Nov (AIM) - The Mozambican government has instructed
the police to work with Interpol and with the police forces of
the neighbouring countries to hunt down the killers of Carlos
Cardoso, editor of the daily newsheet "Metical", who was murdered
on Wednesday evening in Maputo.
Prime Minister Pascoal Mocumbi told a Maputo press briefing
on Thursday that the government "will spare no effort so that the
moral and material authors of this crime will be arrested, tried
and sentenced".
Since all the indications are that this was a highly
organised crime, and the murderers might have tried to flee the
country, the police had been instructed to make this a regional
investigation.
South African High Commissioner Jessie Duarte confirmed to
AIM that the South African government has offered "expert help"
to the Mozambican authorities to track down the assassins.
Mocumbi paid warm tribute to Cardoso, praising him for "his
unceasing fight for truth, for justice, and for the well-being of
his fellow citizens". 
"Carlos Cardoso was a man of integrity, a combative and
consistent journalist, who held strong convictions, and who
defended his ideas persistently and tenaciously", said the Prime
Minister.
"The brutal and cruel murder of our fellow citizen is an act
of cowardice", he stressed. "It is an assault against freedom, an
attempt to silence the voices who fight for honesty and for the
progress of our country".
Mocumbi reiterated the government's commitment "to do all in
our power so that the Mozambican media is truly free and
independent, and committed to our people".
In the Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic,
deputy Luis Videira read out a declaration on behalf of the
parliamentary group of the ruling Frelimo Party, expressing
condolences to Cardoso's family and to the country's journalists.
He called on the authorities "to ensure that this heinous
crime is fully investigated and that the murderers are severely
punished".
"We have lost a fighter for the construction of the
Mozambican motherland", Videira declared.
The circumstances of Cardoso's murder, from eye-witness
accounts of passers-by and from the lacerated state of his body,
are now fairly clear.
The attack occurred at about 18.40 on Wednesday evening as a
"Metical" driver, Carlos Manjate, was driving Cardoso from the
paper's offices to his home. On a central Maputo street, Avenida
Martires da Machava, in front of a local park, a car suddenly
pulled in front of the "Metical" vehicle, a Toyota Corolla,
forcing it to stop.
A second car drew up alongside, and a gunman opened fire
with an AK-47 assault rifle at point blank range. Cardoso was hit
several times in the head, dying almost instantly.
The shooting was over in a matter of seconds, and the two
cars used in the ambush then drove off into the night.
Manjate was also hit in the hail of bullets, but he
survived, and is currently in the intensive care unit in Maputo
Central Hospital.
The site of the murder has become an impromptu shrine. At
the spot where the Toyota was forced to halt, and where shattered
glass from its windows can still be seen in the road, there is
the stump of a dead tree.
On top of this stump, friends and passers-by have left
flowers, and messages of sorrow and outrage. When AIM visited the
spot on Thursday morning, two women, tears in their eyes, were

lighting candles there in memory of one of Mozambique's most
outspoken and courageous journalists.
(AIM)
pf/ (586)
1311100E CARLOS CARDOSO: OBITUARY
by Paul Fauvet

Maputo, 23 Nov (AIM) - Carlos Alberto Cardoso, editor of the
independent newsheet "Metical", who was murdered on Wednesday,
was born of Portuguese parents in the central Mozambican city of
Beira in 1952.
He studied in South Africa, where be became involved in
radical, anti-apartheid student politics, which earned him
expulsion from the country.
Back in Maputo, he identified with the revolution against
Portuguese colonial rule, although he never became a member of
the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo).
The revolution split the Cardoso family: Carlos considered
himself a Mozambican and stayed to help build the new,
independent state, while his parents returned to Portugal.
His exceptional talents as a writer ensured a rapid rise in
the world of journalism. He worked first on the weekly magazine
"Tempo", then briefly on Radio Mozambique, before he was
appointed chief news editor of the Mozambique News Agency (AIM)
in 1980. At the time AIM did not, strictly speaking, have a
director: Cardoso was usually treated as the director, though he
did not formally acquire this title for several years.
Under Cardoso's leadership, AIM achieved fame, in the
country and in the region, for its campaigning coverage of the
apartheid regime's war of destabilisation against Mozambique. 
So persistent was AIM's work in this field, that, according
to Mozambican security sources, Cardoso's name was on a list of
potential targets drawn up by South African Military
Intelligence.
But there were often tensions between the open and outspoken
brand of journalism practiced by Cardoso, and the altogether more
cautious approach followed by the Frelimo leadership and by the
Ministry of Information.
In 1982 this clash resulted in the sudden imprisonment of
Cardoso, apparently because an opinion article he wrote in the
daily paper "Noticias" violated an obscure government guideline
on covering the war that neither he, nor most other journalists
were aware of. Other journalists and intellectuals protested at
the jailing, warning government members up to and including
President Samora Machel, that Cardoso was no enemy of the
country.
Six days after his arrest he was released. Though the
government was not so gracious as to apologise for the arrest, he
was fully reinstated at the head of AIM.
Cardoso's outspoken approach led to a public clash with the
then head of the Frelimo Ideology Department, Jorge Rebelo, at
the second congress of the National Journalists' Organisation
(ONJ) in 1986, when Cardoso dared to suggest that Frelimo could
not rely on journalists' loyalty for ever.
Despite this, Cardoso was one of a select group of
journalists invited for private briefings with Samora Machel in
the last months of the president's life.
Cardoso was deeply affected by the death of Machel in a
plane crash at Mbuzini, just inside South Africa, on 19 October
1986. He followed the story of the plane crash with tenacity, and
the material he published then built up a picture of the likely
causes of the crash - deliberate electronic interference by the
Apartheid military to lure the plane away from its correct flight
path.
In the late 1980s, Cardoso found himself in conflict with
Information Minister Teodato Hunguana. He offered his resignation
as AIM director, but initially Hunguana refused to accept it.
When he tendered his resignation for the third time, arguing that
he wanted to be relived of his functions as director, in order to
concentrate full-time on journalistic work, Hunguana finally
accepted.
Despite his political differences with Cardoso, at the
handover to the new director, Ricardo Malate, Hunguana publicly
praised Cardoso's work at AIM, saying that it was thanks to
Cardoso's leadership that the agency had won "prestige and
credibility" in the outside world.
In 1990, Cardoso was among a core group of journalists
campaigning for the inclusion of a specific commitment to press
freedom in the new Mozambican constitution. This campaign,
including a petition to President Joaquim Chissano, entitled "The
right of the people to information", and signed by over 160 media
professionals, was entirely successful. The clauses on the media
in the 1990 constitution, and the follow-up press law of 1991,
are among the most liberal in Africa.
In 1992, Cardoso and a dozen others founded a journalists'
cooperative, Mediacoop. In May of that year, the cooperative
launched a new independent daily paper, "Mediafax", the declared
purpose of which was to produce investigative journalism, and in-
depth articles on issues not normally touched by the other media.
Edited by Cardoso, "Mediafax" reached its subscribers by
fax, thus avoiding problems of distribution and paper supplies.
In 1992 this was an entirely novel way of proceeding, though one
soon imitated by other publications. 
A dispute in Mediacoop in 1997 led to Cardoso leaving the
cooperative. Taking most of the "Mediafax" staff with him, he set
up his own paper "Metical", to continue his own brand of
investigative journalism, particularly on economic matters.
Just as in the 1980s Cardoso had campaigned tirelessly
against the South African destabilisation of Mozambique, so now
he campaigned against what he regarded as the disastrous recipes
for the Mozambican economy imposed by the World Bank and the IMF.
He championed the fight, first of the cashew processing
industry and later of the sugar industry, against liberalisation
measures that would shut down factories and cost thousands of
jobs.
Cardoso took up the cause of environmentalists protesting at
government plans to incinerate obsolete pesticides in the cement
factory in the densely populated city of Matola. It was in no

small measure due to Cardoso's work that this became a public
issue, and the government eventually beat a retreat and decided
to re-export the pesticides instead.
In 1998, angered by the Frelimo government's handling of the
economy, and seeing no future in any of the existing right-wing
opposition parties, Cardoso stood as an independent candidate for
the Maputo municipal assembly.
The independent grouping, known as "Juntos pela Cidade"
(Together for the City) won 26 per cent of the vote, and became
the opposition in the city assembly. Cardoso then threw himself
into municipal politics with the same enthusiasm and commitment
he had shown in his journalism.
Among the scandals Cardoso had been investigating in the
last months of his life, one stands out above all others. This
was the largest banking fraud in the country's history.
In 1996, on the eve of the privatisation of the country's
largest bank, the BCM, a well-organised criminal network siphoned
the equivalent of 14 million dollars out of the bank. Although
the names of the main suspects were known, and repeatedly

published, there was no prosecution and no trial.
Persistently "Metical" has covered the BCM affair, calling
for en end to the culture of impunity, and for the culprits to be
brought to justice. That this was dangerous territory became
clear in November 1999, when the BCM's lawyer, Albano Silva,
narrowly escaped an assassination attempt.
One cannot help but wonder whether the attacks on Silva and
Cardoso are linked - and that, having failed to silence their
main judicial opponent, the criminal sector of the Mozambican
economy has succeeded in eliminating its main enemy in the media.
(AIM)
pf/ (1164)
1321100E CARLOS CARDOSO'S LAST ARTICLE

Maputo, 23 Nov (AIM) - The last article ever written by murdered
Mozambican journalist Carlos Cardoso was a characteristic defence
of an embattled Mozambican industry, a defence of legitimate
companies in danger of being overwhelmed by the illegal sector of
the Mozambican economy.
The piece, entitled "SOS in the oil industry", is the lead
article in Thursday's edition of Cardoso's paper "Metical".
Cardoso had finished editing the paper, and was on his way home,
when the unknown gunmen struck, and silenced him for ever.
Cardoso wrote that Mozambican vegetable oil factories "are
facing their greatest crisis ever", since they are unable to
compete with illegal imports, and with the low price of Asian
vegetable oil exports (which benefit from the sharp devaluations
of some Asian currencies).
There are five large vegetable oil factories - Fasol in
Maputo, and four that belong to the Entreposto group (Ginwala in
Maputo, Saboeira in Inhambane, Mocambique Industrial in Beira,
and Companhia Industrial do Monapo, in the northern town of that
name).
The four Entreposto factories now have accumulated losses of
over a million US dollars since mid-1999.
Cardoso warned that hundreds of jobs in these factories are
at stake. The closure of the Companhia Industrial do Monapo could
paralyse economic activity in the town, since the town's cashew
processing factory is already closed, thanks to the World Bank-
imposed policy of liberalising the trade in raw cashews.
Three months ago the vegetable oil industries wrote to the
government requesting assistance. They sought - as at least a
temporary measure - the same fiscal treatment that is given to
certain other basic foods such as bread and flour, namely
exemption from Value Added Tax (VAT). But the government has not
yet responded to this plea for help.
The industries warned in 1999, that the switch from a five
per cent sales tax to VAT charged at 17 per cent would cause them
enormous difficulties. For the factories would not be able to
escape from the tax - but many traders would evade VAT just as
they used to evade sales tax. Locally produced oil would become
ever less competitive with smuggled oil that pays no tax at all. 
As from mid-1999 the vegetable oil factories found their
profit margins under enormous pressure, and were even forced to
sell at below cost. 
The evidence of massive illegal oil imports was clear. For
wholesalers would appear at the factory door and offer to buy
vegetable oil - but only on condition that the factories issued
no invoice at all, or invoices for half the real value of the
goods.
Clearly wholesalers would only be able to act in this way if
they had easy access to alternative supplies. 
(AIM)
pf/ (448)
1331100E METICAL PLEDGES TO CONTINUE CARDOSO'S WORK

Maputo, 23 Nov (AIM) - Colleagues of murdered journalist Carlos
Cardoso on his daily paper "Metical" have pledged that they will
not be silenced, but will continue his work.
In an emergency issue of the paper, distributed to
subscribers on Thursday morning, the "Metical" staff wrote "The
assassins who ambushed him wanted to shut Cardoso up, and
indirectly to shut the mouths of all those who have fought on the
same barricades of freedom, decency, honesty and public service".
"But they will not achieve this goal", the paper pledged.
"They have silenced an honest and courageous man, but they have
not silenced ''Metical'', and they have not silenced all the
other voices of a society that wants a decent country where
people can live in peace and prosperity".
"We shall not allow those who killed him, whoever they may
be, to achieve their filthy goals, and sit back and laugh", the
editorial added. "The pen of Carlos Cardoso shall not lie on the
ground where it fell after he was riddled with bullets. We shall
pick it up to continue his struggle.".
"Metical" demanded "swift and efficient justice. So that
there may not grow among us the idea that Mozambican democracy is
being drowned in blood, that it is being murdered just as our
editor was murdered".
The South African High Commission in Maputo has added its
voice to those condemning the assassination. A statement issued
from the High Commission expressed "shock at the brutality of the
murder", and recalled "the contribution made by Carlos Cardoso in
the struggle against apartheid, particularly in the turbulent
decade of the 1980s".
A message from Joaquim Fanheiro, general secretary of
Mozambique's main trade union federation, the OTM, described the
killing as an act of barbarism "which has silenced a voice that
always fought for the development of the country and contributed
to a serious and responsible mass media".
Fanheiro recalled that Cardoso "was always on the side of
the workers, and made a contribution to the trade union movement,
particularly to the cashew processing industry". (Cardoso had
fought tirelessly against government policy on cashew nuts,
imposed by free trade ideologues in the World Bank, which has
resulted in the closure of most of the processing factories and
the loss of thousands of jobs).
The OTM demanded that the authorities "undertake a firm and
speedy investigation in order to track down the assassins and
mete out an exemplary punishment".
(AIM)
pf/ (412)
1351100E CHOLERA KILLS 11 PEOPLE IN NIASSA

Maputo, 23 Nov (AIM) - 11 people are known to have died of
cholera in the northern Mozambican province of Niassa since the
latest outbreak of the disease began in mid-October, and a
further 69 are still undergoing treatment, reports Thursday's
issue of the Maputo daily "Noticias".
However, the health authorities believe that this figure
underestimates the real number of victims, since there are
serious communication difficulties with several parts of the
province, said the provincial chief doctor, Husene Isse.
Special cholera wards have been set up in several Niassa
health units, a prevention campaign has been launched and all
available resources are being mobilised to face the situation.
Isse said that the appearance of the disease in several
districts, including the provincial capital, Lichinga, has to do
with poor water supply and sanitation.
A prevention campaign has also been launched in the
neighbouring province of Cabo Delgado, although no cholera cases
have yet been reported there.
"We are on alert for a possible cholera outbreak in the
outlying districts", said Ana Charles, chief doctor in the Maputo
provincial Health directorate, in the south of the country, who
said that a similar campaign is being carried out countrywide.
She said that after the cases of cholera reported in Manhica
district, and in Matola city, the situation in the province is
now under control.
She added that in the neighbouring province of Gaza, where
337 cases, with three deaths, were reported in September, the
situation is also under control.
(AIM)
bm/pf (251)
1341100E MISSION TO UAE BRANDED A SUCCESS

Dubai (United Arab Emirates), 22 Nov (AIM) - Mozambican Tourism
Minister Fernando Sumbane on Wednesday described the joint
government and business delegation to the United Arab Emirates
(UAE) as extremely successful.
Sumbane, who headed the Mozambican delegation, told
journalists on the final day of the mission that several
agreements had been reached with the authorities of Abu Dhabi,
Dubai, and Sharjah - three of the seven emirates - which envisage
the setting up of trade centres in Mozambique and the gulf
country.
"We agreed on the establishment of a trade mission
here in the UAE within a year, which will be subsidised by them,
as well as the establishment in Mozambique of a trade centre for
the UAE companies", he said.
The measure will enable the business communities of
the two countries to have a better understanding of
each other's market.
A cooperation agreement was also signed between
Mozambique's Investment Promotion Centre (CPI) and the
Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which
envisages the strengthening of relations, the
establishment of training centres, and the promotion
of investments in both countries.
It was in Sharjah, the UAE industrial centre, that
Arab businesses challenged their Mozambican counterparts to set
up a timber distribution warehouse - the Arabs insisted
that the timber had to be processed in Mozambique, which is in
line with Mozambican government thinking.
Sumbane told the country's businessmen not to be too
greedy and think that they can supply the quantities
needed on their own. "The challenge we are faced with
overwhelms our supply capacity", he warned.
"We have to join hands and establish a warehouse
that will collect the timber and export it here", he
said.
He was backed up by the governor of the northern
Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado, Jose Pacheco. "We have to
create national blocs so as to develop Mozambique", he said."As
individuals we can't satisfy the market. As individuals we'll
have difficulties in managing the warehouses to be used to store
such huge quantities of timber", he stressed.
They agreed that the mission had whetted some appetites
and that a UAE mission would reciprocate the visit
within the first half of 2001.
But these negotiations could only be fruitful if there
was some continuity, said Sumbane, adding "I believe that these
negotiations will yield positive results if we have some
continuity".
The Arabs, he said, wanted to enter the market of the
Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) region, and had
expressed hopes to have Mozambique as their key partner
to claim a slice of the regional market.
The mission also visited some of the UAE's free zones, and
Sumbane said that he was impressed at the manner in which they
are run.
Mozambique is also taking its first steps towards the
creation of free zones.
The lesson learned, he said, was that to run a successful
free zone one had to get rid of red tape, and be efficient. "I
believe that we will follow this line", he said.
Meanwhile, Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano has sent
the UAE businessmen a message in which he said that the mission
"symbolises the beginning of an era of intensive trade
relations between our two countries".
He stressed the relations that had existed between the Gulf
region and the south-east African coast in antiquity. "History
disrupted these established links for nearly five hundred
years", he said, "but our will to expand and strengthen our
relations has prevailed".
According to Chissano, the private sector representatives on
the mission, "far beyond their particular motivations and
interests, will also be able to impress their counterparts with
Mozambique's potential and with the government's commitment to
strengthen its programmes and policies for the creation of a safe
and appropriate environment for business investment". 
(AIM)
bv/pf (638)
1361100E UNEXPLAINED DEATHS IN MONTEPUEZ PRISON

Maputo, 23 Nov (AIM) - Mozambican Prime Minister Pascoal Mocumbi
told reporters in Maputo on Thursday that "dozens of prisoners"
have died, under as yet unexplained circumstances, in the jail in
the northern town of Montepuez.
On 9 November Montepuez was the scene of violent clashes
between the police and demonstrators organised by the former
rebel movement Renamo, which resulted in the deaths of seven
policemen and 18 civilians.
During the riot Renamo overran the prison and the police
command, and released the 93 prisoners they found there. Thus the
current inmates of the jail will mostly be those arrested for
their participation in the riot.
Mocumbi said the deaths had occurred over the night of 21/22
November. There was apparently no violence involved.
Given the seriousness of this, the government has dispatched
a medical team to Montepuez to investigate the circumstances of
the deaths. But as of Thursday morning, the team was held up in
Nampula, because of bad weather in northern Mozambique.
Mocumbi said the government had also contacted the South
African authorities, the European Union and the United Nations in
order to set up an autonomous, independent team to find the cause
of the prisoners' deaths. The government's request "has received
a positive response".
Mocumbi said that the government, and he personally, were
"deeply concerned" at so many deaths at once in one of the
country's prisons.
"Even if only one person dies in prison, it's necessary to
find out why", he stressed
He promised that the government would do its utmost to get
to the bottom of the mystery, and invited journalists to visit
Montepuez and see for themselves.
Asked whether the notorious overcrowding in Mozambican
prisons might not have contributed to these deaths, Mocumbi did 
not rule it out, but found it strange that overcrowding would have
caused the simultaneous deaths of so many people.
He could not give an exact number for the deaths, but the 
reports that have reached Maputo speak of over 50. 
(AIM)
pf/ (335)
1371100E RADIO MOZAMBIQUE JOURNALIST ATTACKED

Maputo, 23 Nov (AIM) - On the same night that Carlos Cardoso,
editor of the independent newsheet "Metical" was murdered, a
second journalist, Custodio Rafael of Radio Mozambique, was
attacked by unidentified assailants.
According to a report on the radio, three men attacked
Rafael as he was walking to his home in the Maputo suburb of
Zimpeto
He recalls being surrounded by three men, one of whom
declared "You talk too much".
He was struck on the head, fell to the ground and lost
consciousness. He does not remember the rest of the attack, but
it seems that the assailants tried to mutilate him, and perhaps
even to cut out his tongue.
For when Rafael was taken to the Chamanculo General
Hospital, doctors had to put eight stitches in his tongue, and
two in his chin.
Rafael is currently convalescing at home.
(AIM)
dt/pf (146)
1381100E MINISTERS DISCUSS ASSASSINATION OF CARLOS CARDOSO

Maputo, 23 Nov (AIM) - Julieta Langa, chairperson of Mozambique's
Supreme Mass Media Council (CSCS), the body that has the
constitutional responsibility to safeguard freedom of the press,
on Thursday met with the Interior and Justice Ministers, Almerino
Manhenje and Jose Abudo, to express the CSCS's concern at the
murder on Wednesday night of Carlos Cardoso, editor of the
independent newsheet "Metical".
According to a CSCS press release, the two ministers assured
Langa that efforts were under way to track down the killers and
establish the motive for the crime.
Abudo and Manhenje expressed "the government's determination
to do all in its power in order to guarantee the free and secure
exercise of the profession of journalism".
A second CSCS release expressed revulsion "at this cowardly
act which has taken the life of one of the finest of Mozambican
journalists". 
The CSCS warned that "with the death of Carlos Cardoso one
of the greatest of Mozambique's post-independence gains - freedom
of expression and of the press - has been seriously wounded".
It described Cardoso as "the personification of a journalism
of integrity, whose only allegiance is to the truth".
"Cardoso was a voice for those who have no voice", it
continued. "Perhaps that is why he had become inconvenient for
certain obscure forces who do not want peace, transparency,
development and pluralism of ideas in Mozambique".
Such forces "think that by silencing Carlos Cardoso they
will silence the journalists of this country", said the CSCS.
"They are mistaken. For the best homage journalists can render to
Carlos Cardoso is to pick up his pen, and continue struggling for
the ideas for which he always struggled and for which he lost his
life".
The CSCS was sure that there are "many courageous
journalists in Mozambique who will certainly not allow themselves
to be intimidated, and will continue the struggle for the right
of the people to truthful information".
(AIM)
pf/ (323)
1391100E RENAMO HOLDS UP PARLIAMENTARY PROCEEDINGS

Maputo, 23 Nov (AIM) - Deputies from Mozambique's former rebel
movement Renamo on Thursday attempted to shelve all further
discussion in the country's parliament, the Assembly of the
Republic, of a government bill on gas and oil, on the grounds
that the deputies did not possess all the information they
require.
The Renamo tactic made it impossible to discuss the bill any
further this week, though the 16 seat majority enjoyed by the
ruling Frelimo Party ensured that the bill was not thrown out.
Speaking in the name of the entire Renamo parliamentary
group, Luis Boavida demanded "we want data on prospection for oil
and gas in the central and northern regions, because the
documents presented here only concern the situation in Temane and
Pande" (in the southern province of Inhambane).
This was factually inaccurate: the briefing given by the
Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy, Castigo Langa, to the
Assembly on Wednesday, had covered prospection in all parts of
the country.
Certainly Langa paid particular attention to Temane and
Pande - this is because they are the only places in Mozambique so
far where commercially viable hydrocarbon deposits have been
found. 
Nonetheless, Boavida claimed that the government was
discriminating against the north and centre of the country in
terms of oil prospection. "You're only interested in the south",
he shouted at Langa.
Boavida demanded that the session be interrupted so that the
government could present the deputies with "more relevant
documents".
Langa explained that reasons of commercial confidentiality
meant that he could not make public all the dossiers on oil and
gas explorations. "The companies involved are competing with each
other", he pointed out.
Furthermore, some of the information takes the form of 3D
seismic data - and the equipment to view this information doe
snot exist in Mozambique.
Nonetheless, he offered space in his ministry for any deputy
interested to view the full dossiers.
This was not enough to placate Boavida, and again Renamo
insisted on interrupting the session.
This led to a lengthy interval, while the Assembly's
governing board, the Standing Commission, discussed the matter
with the Frelimo and Renamo parliamentary groups.
Eventually, the only solution was a vote - which Frelimo
won. But by then the morning was almost over, and so the debate
on the bill will only resume next Tuesday.
(AIM)
lm/pf (390)