Event information
This monument is a tribute to one of Africa's great heroes: President Samora Machel of Mozambique, who perished in a plane crash at Mbuzini in the Lebombo Mountains. Machel, his staff, and other prominent politicians, were returning to Mozambique from a meeting in Zambia when the accident occurred on 19 October, 1986. This memorial commemorates the tragic event, the circumstances of which are not yet fully resolved.
The monument was designed by Mozambican architect Jose Forjaz and consists of 35 steel tubes symbolising the number of lives lost. The pillars cast long shadows over the base, and the wind makes constant whispering sounds through incisions in the pillars. The wreckage of the Tupolev Tu-134 aircraft lies in a v-shaped crater just beneath the unpainted tubes.
The monument was unveiled by President Nelson Mandela on 19 January, 1999. Constructed as a tribute by the South African government to an outstanding African leader, the memorial was upgraded and a museum was opened on 19 October 2009. It expands on the story of Machel and the politics of Southern Africa during the Cold War.
It was declared a National Heritage Site in 2006, when a nearby library with a collection of books in English and Portuguese was opened. A statue of Machel donated by Norwegian anti-apartheid artists has also been erected. One can spend a couple of hours taking in the complexity of the period here, as well as the specifics of the crash and the various investigations that were conducted.
