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Mozambique
FRELIMO armed struggle against Estado Novo led to rapid Portuguese exit following 1974 Lisbon coup.
- Independence
- June 25, 1975
- Before
- Portuguese East Africa
- Metropole
- Portugal
- Leader
- Samora Machel
- Transition
- Armed Insurgency
- Movement
- Frente de Libertação de Moçambique (FRELIMO)
Forced Cotton, Chibalo and Mine Labour
Portuguese traders and settlers held posts on the Mozambican coast from the early 16th century, but Portugal conquered and administered the interior only from the 1890s, after defeating the Gaza state in 1897. Colonial rule rested on forced labour, known as chibalo, compulsory cotton growing and the export of hundreds of thousands of migrant workers to the mines and farms of South Africa and Southern Rhodesia. At Mueda on 16 June 1960, troops fired on a Makonde demonstration; estimates of the dead range from dozens to the figure of about 600 given in nationalist accounts.
FRELIMO and the Northern War
Three regionally based exile organisations merged in Dar es Salaam on 25 June 1962 to form FRELIMO under Eduardo Mondlane. It launched its armed struggle on 25 September 1964 with attacks in the north from bases in Tanzania. Mondlane was assassinated on 3 February 1969; a triumvirate of Uria Simango, Samora Machel and Marcelino dos Santos followed, and Machel became president in 1970, with dos Santos as his deputy.
From Lisbon's Coup to Independence
Portugal's Gordian Knot offensive of 1970, which deployed 35,000 troops, inflicted heavy losses but did not end the war, and FRELIMO fighters dispersed to press the struggle in Tete province. After the Carnation Revolution of 25 April 1974, Portugal and FRELIMO signed the Lusaka Accord on 7 September 1974, providing for a transitional government in which the two shared administration. Mozambique became independent on 25 June 1975 as a single-party state, with Machel as president.
Chronology
- June 16, 1960 — Mueda massacre
- June 25, 1962 — FRELIMO founded in Dar es Salaam
- September 25, 1964 — Armed struggle begins
- February 3, 1969 — Eduardo Mondlane assassinated
- September 7, 1974 — Lusaka Accord
- June 25, 1975 — Independence under Samora Machel
Aftermath
Most of the Portuguese settler population, some 170,000–200,000 in the early 1970s by Portuguese High Commission figures reported in 1975, left around independence. RENAMO, created with Rhodesian backing and later supported by South Africa, waged a civil war (1977–1992) that displaced millions and in which perhaps a million people died, largely from famine and disease. Machel was killed in an air crash at Mbuzini, South Africa, on 19 October 1986.
Legacy
FRELIMO's single-party state faced a destructive war fuelled by Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa that displaced millions and ended with the Rome General Peace Accords of 4 October 1992. Since 2017 an insurgency by militants linked to the Islamic State in Cabo Delgado province has caused a humanitarian crisis in the north.