Child Slave Labour

Volume 1 1988

Testimony of Dr. Antonio Rocha, a high ranking Frelimo diplomat who fled Mozambique:

“One of the first shocks I experienced in the “new order” was the mass deportation of Mozambiquan youth to various parts of the East-Bloc, particularly the Soviet Union. Children as young as seven years of age were soon trooped aboard Soviet aircraft and ships. Their heartbroken and bewildered parents were powerless to object as they were told — “Children are property of the state.” The young adults had an equally hard time adjusting to the “re-education programme”.

“Thousands of children have been sent to Cuba to work in the agricultural lands. Many have never returned. Their parents have never had a letter from them. 12 000 young Mozambiquans are presently in East Germany, where they work as slave labour in the mines, steel mills and cleaning the streets, This export of children as cheap labour (their salaries being paid to the Frelimo government) is Frelimo’s way of paying for military and technical hardware.”

“The students sent to the Soviet Union on the other hand, are educated in various skills with heavy emphasis on political mobilization.”

“Prior to independence, Machel (the previous dictator) and Chissano (present dictator of Mozambique) participated in a cannibalistic ritual which was meant to guarantee invincibility Machel’s bouts of madness and his preoccupation with witchdoctors increased as the Resistance threat grew.”

“I believe Frelimo will eventually collapse from its own weight of corruption, intrigues, nepotism, incompetence and brutality.”