"We made the same mistake in politics that we made in economics," confided a Mozambican official.

What's more, as a Mozambican official noted recently, "Gorbachev is doing things he would have been put in jail for advocating five years ago."

Mozambican officials have aided the United States in these talks.

Mozambican officials shrug off such complaints.

Mozambican officials assert that the rebels killed 386 people and wounded 76, many of them children, in an attack on the village of Homoine last Saturday.

"Most of our rivers are dry," said Oldemiro Baloi, a Mozambican official who heads the emergency relief effort.

Mozambican officials later dropped the charges, and Mr. McBride, in a midlevel staff job at the ministry, began looking for a new challenge.

The center has conducted extensive investigation of the dubious land deals that have been arranged by Mozambican officials.

Mozambican officials declared a red alert, one level short of a national emergency.