UN General Assembly
1979

218. The fulfilment of that and other pertinent resolutions has caused serious difficulties in the economy of our own country. These difficulties are aggravated by the fact that our economic structure, conceived by colonialism, had been oriented to serve the interests of the racist regimes of Pretoria and Salisbury. Hundreds of thousands of our workers went to the plantations and mines of Rhodesia. Towards Southern Rhodesia were directed important roads and railroad connexions. The main purpose of all these connexions was the transport of Rhodesian goods. The breach of this flow came to overburden our already weak economic situation. However, despite all of these difficulties, the Mozambican people are giving shelter to more than 160,000 Zimbabwean refugees, who are in need of food, health care, housing, clothing. They need hoes, tractors and other means of producing food. The children need milk and books. It is our people in Mozambique who endure the major part of this burden.