Rhodesians involved in killings in Mozambique, says UN report

Portuguese and Rhodesian soldiers were responsible for the torture and massacre of at least 1,000 Africans in west central Mozambique in the last three years of the war of independence, according to a United Nations report released on Monday.
The ,previous Portuguese Government, whose determination to maintain its African colonies despite African guerrilla successes led to a military coup last April, had denied that massacres took place.
The report also established the existence of a village, Wiriyama. where some 200 people were killed, although the former Portuguese Government denied knowing of the The report was compiled by a special five-nation commission of inquiry on the reported massacres in Mozambique, formed through Scandinavian and African initiatives.
Opposing the formation of the commission were Portugal, Spain, the United States and South Africa.
News of the mass murders surfaced last year when a British priest, Fr Adrian Hastings, published the testimony of some Spanish priests who had fled from Mozambique.
The commission interviewed 28 European priests and nuns, several members of the Mozambique guerrilla movement, Frelimo, which now controls the provisional government of the territory, as well as some residents of the areas of Tete district where the major atrocities took place.
In addition to killing populations of whole small villages, the report mentioned disem bowelment of pregnant African women, electric shock torture, forced relocation or populations and break-up of
Portugal gave South Rhodesian troops carte blanche to sweep into the territory to hunt guerrillas, and the Rhodesians killed several people, including many children, in the Mucumbura area.
Among the commission's findings were: Portuguese troops and secret police killed more than 400 in the Tete villages of Chawola. Joao and Wiriyamu, at the confluence of the Zambezi and Luenha rivers, in December, 1972. Vs'iriyamu was also known as Viliano Valete.
Portuguese and South Rhodesian forces killed 184 people in the village of Zambeze and neighbouring villages in March, 1972.