A skimming flight over Mozambican memory

The two last editions of the autobiographical book by Jacinto Veloso were quickly sold out and it’s now on its third edition. The important missions he was involved in, the functions he executed and the positions he occupied before independence (1964–1974), during the Transition Government (1974–1975) and throughout most of the trajectory of post-colonial Mozambique, justify the curiosity he arouses and the great interest people have in what he has to say. Jacinto Veloso, a white man inside and out, is frankly identified with the Western and Christian world ideology in which he was raised, but a Mozambican by choice, he had, so to speak, the unique opportunity to participate in a libertarian epic, in a privileged position, reserved for few. That is what, among other things, the book ‘Memórias em Vôo Rasante’ (A Skimming Flight over Memories) is about, throughout its 290 pages.

‘Memórias em Vôo Rasante’ contains important moments of Jacinto’s personal trajectory and his social history. In it the following issues are widely explored: (a) his forced tour to some African capitals, in search of a contribution to the fight for the release of Mozambique from the Portuguese colonial yoke; (b) the tensions inside the Mozambique liberation movement in the exile that resulted in the assassination of Eduardo Mondlane, president of the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo in Portuguese); (c) troubled transition, the national independence proclamation and the difficulties in the first years of governance by Frelimo Party under the siege of trilateral alliance formed by the racist Rhodesia, the apartheid regime of South Africa and with the assent of the western governments that gave them support and actively collaborated with them in an attempt to cripple the young Republic; (d) the backstage of the actions that resulted in the with them of peace agreements with racist South Africa and the estrangements caused by the Nkomati Accords of international scope, given that domestically there appeared to have prevailed some sort of quiet unanimity; (e) the experiences from what the author calls ‘Affair SOCIMO’ (Mozambican Commercial and Industrial Society, Ltd) a company created with the intention to combine business, ‘economic intelligence’ and security activities in the interests of the Mozambican state.

The diversity of subjects, situations and characters visited by the author at the same time makes the book rich in information, much of it unknown to the general public, but also requires the reader's redoubled attention because it is, above all, between the lines and traps woven in the text that much of the most revealing information is found. One cannot overlook the fact that Jacinto Veloso has a military background, he was the first holder of the state, security services, as the head of SNASP (National Services for the People’s Security) and, by imposition, before and after the independence of Mozambique, was often devoted to the tasks of intelligence and counter-intelligence. That is one of the reasons, if not the main one, why ‘Memórias em Vôo Rasante’ is arousing so much interest.

Without the pretension of analysing the book, which by the way is not the objective of a review, it seems interesting to put in evidence some aspects of Jacinto’s book. The first aspect relates to the self-centred nature of the piece, which, as in most post-modern texts, carries a strong mark of cult to the author’s own personality. Veloso is no exception to the rule. Repeating, by transverse roads, the same itinerary made by Dr Helder Martins, in his book of memories, ‘Why Sakrani?’, he difference lies fundamentally in the fact that Dr Helder Martins is more explicit and direct, demanding for himself, when he thinks it appropriate, the leading role in many of the events he writes about. However Jacinto Veloso transits between the implicit and the deceit. He exaggerates his position alongside Samora Machel, whom he served directly – at least that’s the idea given, regardless of his own merits and the personal qualities he is undeniably endowed with.

By convenience, and also because the subject is emergent memories from Mozambique, it’s fair to add: Also in the history of everyday life, in which history is constructed through personal experience, is inscribed the life journey of Janet Mondlane. ‘Meu coração está nas mãos de um homem negro’ (‘My Heart is in the Hands of a Black Man’), written by Nadja Manghezi, contains the memories of Janet and it was the way she found to recollect Eduardo Mondlane, so, she wrote in the preface of the book. Even though the book is based, predominantly, on the exposition of repressed resentment, it’s still a valuable contribution and a fundamental reference work on to the knowledge of recent Mozambique history.

Another aspect worth noting is the clear dichotomy between the narrator and the analyst of historical events and facts. In the role of the narrator, Veloso talks about a significant body of facts and events and at the same time discourses on an enviable number of episodes and characters, according to his own criteria with prior selection and consciously ranked, as stipulates traditional history. Particularly noteworthy are the success narratives that have the memoirist himself as the patron. This is the case of the so-called ‘Operation Zero’, when Mozambique replaced the old Portuguese Escudo by Metical, the currency in force in the country since 1980. Ten fat paragraphs explain the successful ‘Operation Zero’, while only two miserable and laconic paragraphs launch in the depth of the ill-fated Metical, currency that was supposed to replace the Portuguese Escudo before the implementation of the Metical, but whose operation was aborted by the authorities. It is worth a while to remember that much was said and speculated at the time about the stillborn Metical but till this day nothing of consequence was ventilated or clarified publicly about the matter. This is only an example, but there are many other that were muzzled!

Considering the time-frame covered by the ‘Memórias em Vôo Rasante’ and the numerous events and personalities involved, it seems something isn’t right in regards to the names mentioned or even by the omission of many of them. Fleeing from the rule are the allusions to the author himself, something perfectly predictable, and to Samora Machel, who is referenced about a hundred times in the book. In a distant place, but still in relief, emerge the names of João Ferreira (Samora’s friend and exile comrade), Eduardo Mondlane (first Frelimo president), Joaquim Chissano and Aquino de Bragança, all of them with an expressive presence, some being mentioned up to thirty times. In the third place, names such as Óscar Monteiro and Fernando Howana, Fernando Ganhão and Helder Martins, Sebastião Marcos Mabote e Prakash Ratilal, Armando Panguene, Jorge Rebelo and Alcântara Santos are referred to at least on three occasions. That’s not the case with figures of Mozambican revolution of the stature of Marcelino do Santos , a first-hour militant of Frelimo and long dubbed the ‘number two’ in the party and state hierarchy, as a member of the politburo, secretary for economic policy of the party, minister of planning, resident governor of Sofala and speaker of the parliament. He is only cited twice in the entire work, both cases are allusions to periods prior the blow-up of the revolution, while he was in transit by Egypt. One of the citations tells about the time when Marcelino dos Santos, in Cairo, battered Jacinto Veloso and João Ferreira for acting as useful innocents in the production and dissemination of pamphlets in the interest of enemies of the ripening Mozambican revolution. There is, actually, a third passage presented by the author almost casuistically, in which Marcelino directed a party meeting to decide the destinies of the all-mighty SOCIMO.

The feeling that stays is that Marcelino dos Santos is not a crucial part of Mozambican history in Veloso’s imagination, neither during the armed struggle nor in the transitional government, and even less during the republican course of the country. Sérgio Vieira, a respected name and historical figure of Frelimo, just like Veloso occupied the billet equivalent to chief of intelligence services beyond other important key-positions such as governor of the Bank of Mozambique and agriculture minister, but is mentioned in two moments altogether, one during the armed struggle and the other on occasion of the Nkomati Accords. Armando Gebuza, Mário Muchungo, Joaquim de Carvalho, Graça Machel, just to mention some the names that are arbitrarily put in the book are referred only once. There are however names from the party, the state and the governmental hierarchy front that were not cited, at least not directly, contrary to what happens on an endless list of notable personalities from neighbouring countries (including Kito Rodrigues, Frederik de Klerk) and western personalities (friends or foes) like Jean-Batiste Doumenge, Chief Fernandez, Frank Wisner, Pik Bhota, Van der Westhuizen, among other, who are spoken of restlessly. Under this perspective a loose loyalty is observed towards old comrades.

From this fact it is inferred that the history narrated in the first person induces the reading of the events and realities and the very interpretation of the national and world history to be merely from a personal perspective. This is consistent with what the author announces at the beginning of his book as ‘[…] several comrades, family members, youngsters and friends, compatriots as well as foreigners, have come to suggest that I write telling a little bit about my own life experience in the last forty or fifty years, in particular my involvement with FRELIMO’. Therefore one can conclude that the problem lies not in the narrative itself but in the method used by the author. In it, Veloso recovers his own image from the past through the reiteration of the Frelimo Party government emblem, its maximum leader, the president Samora Machel – the propeller and the only and universal point of national convergence. From that statement many memories have to be written in order to reach the composition in its entirety or almost all of the complex mosaic, which composes the Mozambican experience from the last 50 years.

Jacinto Veloso truly exceeds himself when he moves from the dissertation to the evaluative discourse, opening his heart and soul to the reader and making gush, through the veins and pores, his profession of public faith in the market’s ‘invisible hand’. Abdicating a more rigorous analysis of the facts and events, with a mea culpa tone he effects a vigorous self-criticism about what he considers to be unfortunate choices that for so long kept Mozambique excluded from the positive – in his view, IMF and World Bank’s prescriptions. In defence of the reasonableness of his thesis he argues: ‘I believe that Eduardo Mondlane would have defended Mozambique’s adhesion to the IMF and World Bank, while maintaining balanced contacts with the West, specifically the USA, which he knew well because he had studied and lived there for sundry years’. Staunch enemy of state planning, and ardent supporter of market economy, here and there pinpoints with aversion and malicious contempt, he even mocks ruthlessly and caustically the ephemeral Mozambican experience. And he does so with the authority of a former minister for economic affairs that had high responsibilities in the conducting of the economy through the capitalism route.

Nevertheless the most severe criticism to the planned economy are voiced through Veloso’s guru the French business man, Jean-Batiste Doumeng, the ‘red millionaire’, as he was known and owner of sentences such as the ones quoted in the book: ‘Brezhnev Tovarish I have found that the only scythes that exist in the USSR are those drawn on your flag’. ‘The truth is that no one recorded this item (a scythe) in the list of products of the National Plan Commission and what was not in the Central State Plan simply could not be produced or imported’. ‘[...] I know you follow the Russian model, this model will not take you very far. In a while, you’ll have to ask the IMF and the World Bank for help and will be forced to do on your knees what you still have time to do with your head held high, by choice [...]’.

Thus, he solemnly distances himself from the economic choices made by the party, state and government, to whom he had always served and, suggests to his old comrades that they should explain themselves for what he considers to be bad choices. Veloso snobs and deliciously amuses himself by confiding to the reader how he cheated the Mozambican state planning to make possible his project of opening schools for the training of airplane pilots. He did so by passing and approving an importation, in foreign currency, of school books and the like but instead he would buy flight simulators and training aircrafts. As to the East-West conflict, this is treated in the same manner; synthesised in the known allegory, actually an old Mozambican proverb: ‘In a fight between two elephants, the grass is the victim’, meaning that the real consequences to the bipolar conflict were felt by countries such as Mozambique and Angola.

The form in which this issue is addressed by the author, results in a sensation of what was the level of perception of the Frelimo Party, of its foremost directors and even of the scribe himself, which is made to transit between the romantic and the most candid naivety, in the matter of the international background, and the nature, amplitude and implications of the east-west conflict.

Veloso at no moment in his memories takes the risk of confronting which would have been the real gains for the Mozambican masses in the 24 years in which the country was part of both multilateral organisations, comparatively to the preceding nine years, abstracting the effects and consequences of the destabilisation war and natural calamities that made Mozambique go backwards 50 years in time, in terms of GDP! That’s no doubt an exercise that the Anglo-Saxon historian Robert William Fogel would certainly make, in search of ways of explaining the one and only past of independent Mozambique.

However, it’s in the chapter about the amending that preceded the proclamation of the independence of Zimbabwe, where the author explores issues with more acuity. It’s certainly the most exciting part of the book, where the facts are very well chained and the events comprehensibly characterised, even though it has to be admitted, after reading, that the true architecture of Zimbabwe’s independence was engendered from Maputo through a bridge direct to London. In it, Zimbabwean patriots were put in the second place because the matter concerned a ‘vital interest’ of the Mozambican state. Who does not recall the demand from the ‘Front Line’ countries, where Mozambique carried out a prominent role, supported little by little by others international influent players, the need for England to resume its position of colonial potency concerning the Rhodesian issue, as indispensable pre-requisite for the success of Lancaster House negotiations? It was, without a doubt, a historical deed, transcendental, to which the Mozambique contribution was crucial, and which Veloso’s disclosure much clarifies.

Another issue on which Veloso’s contribution is remarkable, pertains to the destabilisation war in independent Mozambican bred by the perverse alliance formed by the apartheid regime of South Africa, Ian Smith’ s Rhodesia, the Malawi of Hastings Kamuzu Banda, Portugal and its allies from NATO. In this chapter Veloso does more than just an honest self-criticism about the mistakes made by underestimating the enemy for being part of the Frelimo leadership. He brings to light key elements that help better understand the nature of the 16 years war to which his country was submitted. Veloso has the care, as an expert in war theory and the real circumstances of the destabilisation, not to assess it as a ‘civil war’, contrary to what many do, driven by his particular motivations.

Behind the apparent graveness usually carried in public, Veloso, finds ways to share with the reader hilarious episodes lived at trying times in his political journey. One of them is the case of the Boer that tried to order different brands of whisky from the barman in a local hotel, always getting a negative response that there was none. Angry, the South African asks the barman, which brand he had to serve. ‘Black and White’, answered the barman, to what the Boer replied: ‘Okay! That’s fine! But serve it in two separate glasses’.

One can stay with an absolute feeling that in this first work the author preferred to be economical, saving ammunition for the next, which will certainly come. Therefore, going from levelling flight to deep diving, much of the debt to the reader would be liquidated. Of one thing nobody has doubts: Major-General Jacinto Veloso – as inferred, a Generalfeldmarschall for Samora Machel of some sort, but primarily for Frelimo after the fervour of the early years of the independence passed – is knowledgeable and has plenty of stories to tell.

However, it has to be recognised that the author makes a real effort to deliver what is promised, in the itinerary traced when he justifies the title of the book: ‘Memórias em Vôo Rasante’ (A Skimming Flight over Memories). Why? Because it is really skimming – skimming the earth, the trees, the poles, the bridges, skimming the truths and lies of recent history, to verify, see, recon and perhaps surprise.

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* Wilson Gomes de Almeida is an agronomist and graduate of the University of Sofia/Bulgaria. He worked as a lecturer in Mozambique.
* This article was Memórias em Vôo Rasante’ is published by JVCI, Ltda, Maputo, 2007.