O Level Revision : History - The Struggle for Majority Rule and Democratisation in Mozambique

The  Struggle for Majority  Rule and Democratisation in Mozambique

The  colonisation of Mozambique

Mozambique was colonised by three companies which operated in specific areas. The companies were:

-     The  Niassa  Company:  ruled  over  Niassa Province including Cabo Delgado.

-     The   Mozambique   Company:   ruled   over Manica Province including Sofala.

-     The  Zambezia  Company:  ruled  over  Tete Province including Quelimane.

• The    Portuguese    government    used    chartered companies as this reduced administrative costs.

• Portugal, as the colonial power, ruled directly over Gaza Province including areas around Lourenco Marques (Maputo) and Inhambane.
• By 1889 (five years after the Berlin Conference) the companies had already established themselves.

• Portugal itself had its own area of operation.
• Company rule ended in 1930.
• These companies exploited and abused the African peasants and workers.

Reasons for resistance in Mozambique

(a)  Land alienation

• Large  pieces  of  fertile  land  were  taken  by  the settlers and companies.

• Africans  remained  with  little  and  unproductive land.

(b)  Forced labour (chibharo)

• Africans were forced to work like slaves for the  settlers.

• They worked in sugar, rice and cotton plantations.
• They also collected rubber for six months per year for very little or no pay.

• They were flogged with a chicote (sjambok) made from hippo hide to force them to work without resting.
• They were given very little or no food.
• Portugal obtained its labour and resources from its colonies.

• Africans were forced to work in mines, plantations and farms  in  Rhodesia,  Sao Tome,  Cape Verde Islands and South Africa.
• The Portuguese settler government was paid money by these countries for giving them labour.

• By the 1950s there were over 100 000 chibharo workers.

• Chibharo workers suffered from diseases such as tuberculosis (TB).

• Some were injured and others died.
• Africans died when mines collapsed on them in South Africa.

(c)   Heavy taxation

• Was used as a means of obtaining cheap labour.
• Every adult male had to pay hut tax.
• Evaders were flogged and their wives and children were brutalised, abused and taken hostage till the man paid.
• People evaded paying taxes by running away and hiding away from tax collectors.

• The Portuguese were helped by chiefs who gave the sipais (police) names of those who ran away.

• So chiefs became people’s enemies and were killed during the war.

• Taxes were paid in European currency or through labour or in kind to force African farmers to leave their farms where they grew maize, sorghum, sesame seeds and millet for food, and work on settler farms called prazos.

(d)  Forcing Africans to grow cash or export crops

• Portugal needed cash or export crops like cotton, sugar-cane and rice.

• Each  African  family  was  forced  to  cultivate  a stipulated acreage of cotton.

• State officials set a timetable for planting, a daily work schedule and how often weeding was to be done.
• Africans had no time to grow their food crops like nuts, vegetables and sesame seeds.

• Famine and malnutrition resulted and many died of starvation.

• Some African farmers refused to grow cotton and were arrested, beaten up and exiled.

• Those who failed to produce the required amount of cotton were forced to work on sisal, tea and sugar plantations for little or no pay or deported to work on cocoa estates in Sao Tome, another Portuguese colony.

(e)  Oppressive system of government

• There   was   racial   discrimination   in   housing, education and employment.

• White  workers  earned  twenty  times  more  than black workers.

• In education, schools for whites were given more resources than schools for blacks.

• Whites received better education than the blacks.
• Very few schools were built. By 1958, 98% of the African people were illiterate. By 1960 about 400 000 out of 3 million African children were in school. The missionaries provided most of the schools.

(f)  Racial discrimination in residential areas

• Separate  residences  for  the  Europeans  and  the Africans in both rural and urban areas.

• In cities like Beira and Lourenco Marques, Africans lived in dilapidated and substandard houses.

• Separate amenities, restaurants, theatres, parks and other public places for whites and blacks.

(g)  Legal discrimination

• They  applied  the  law  selectively  against  the Africans.

• Separate   legal   systems   applied:   one   for   the ‘civilised’   Europeans    and    another    for    the ‘uncivilised’ Africans.

(h)  Restrictive legislation

• Was enforced by African collaborators such as the sipais (African police).
• Sipais were at each post in the colony.
• Their work was to intimidate the people, to collect taxes, to recruit labour and to transmit and enforce the administrator’s orders.
• Sipais were allowed to terrorise African trouble causers (politicians).
• They intimidated people through violence, rape, whipping and extortion.

Problems faced by urban workers

• People worked long hours.
• They were given low wages.
• Lived in shanty shelters.
• Engaged in alcoholism and prostitution.

Passive resistance

• Withdrawal of labour by workers by:

-     pretending to be ill;

-     fleeing to mountains and swampy areas;

-     going to live in neighbouring countries like Nyasaland,  Rhodesia  and  South Africa.  By

1944  over  one  million  Mozambicans  were living in these countries;

-     lying that their tools were stolen;

-     falsifying records of work done.

• Working slowly (go-slow).
• Withholding crops to protest low pricing.
• Attacking labour recruitment officers.
• Boiling seeds to stop them from germinating.
• Avoiding paying taxes by falsifying the number of people and animals in a village.

• Bribing overseers by promising them beer or sex.
• Forming  trade  unions  to  defend  their  rights.

Workers formed trade unions like the Unia Africano (African Union) in 1911 in Lourenco Marques

• Organising  strikes   and   boycotts   against   poor working conditions and low wages. Examples of strikes and boycotts: in 1947, 7 000 women of Buzi went on strike and refused to accept cotton seeds the administrator had ordered must be planted; Gaza Province cotton growers organised boycotts in 1955 and 1958; 1918-1921 seaport workers staged more than seven strikes.
• Formation of independent churches.

-     Africans  were  unhappy:  Christianity  taught equality but there was no equality.

-     There  was  exploitation  of  man  by  man, segregation and discrimination.

-     So   Africans   formed   their   own   churches which preached the gospel of liberation from colonialism.

-     By 1945 there were more than 350 independent African churches in Mozambique.

Why passive resistance failed

Strikes were short lived and failed to effect changes because:

-     Union  members  were  forced  out  of  urban areas.

-     They were replaced by unemployed ‘blackleg’ labour that was prepared to work quietly.

-     More skilled Mozambican workers preferred to work in South African mines where wages were higher.

-     The  regime  and  white  trade  unions  were ruthless to opposition.

-     Lack of experience in organising trade unions.

-     The working class was still very small and could be easily ignored.

• Educated assimilados were very few and out of touch with the life of the ordinary workers and peasants.
• Some of the assimilados escaped into exile.
• Chiefs and sipias collaborated with the whites.
• The Africans were not united.
• Those who escaped forced labour had their families held hostage, and women relatives sexually abused.

The  armed struggle

• Started in the 1960s but even before that defiant Mozambicans formed armed rebel groups and attacked Portuguese officials like labour recruiting officers, plantation overseers and tax collectors.
• After attacking them, they hid in the mountains and forested valleys. For example, Mapondera’s group operated on the Rhodesian-Mozambican border for over a decade attacking both countries. Mapondera was captured in 1904.
• Between  1917  and  1921  rebel  peasants  in  the Zambezi Valley fought the Portuguese.

• Rebels were led by descendants of the Barwe and numbered about 15 000.

• Revolts failed because peasants had poor weapons.
• There was an armed uprising in Manbone, south of Beira, in 1953.

Reasons for the  decline in armed uprising

• After 1920 revolts were rare.
• Continuous failure to defeat the Portuguese.
• Death of  old  pre-colonial  leadership  and  their replacement by younger leaders who were born and grew up during colonial era.
• Presence of many collaborators in the communities.
• The growing strength of Portugal when Salazar, a fascist dictator, came to power in 1928. Salazar tightened control over the colonies, used spies widely and enforced law and order.
• Passive  resistance   weakened   the   effects   of colonisation and made the regime less effective economically and politically.

Assimilados

• Were educated Africans of mixed ancestry/mulatto/ coloured.

• Africans who had adopted Portuguese culture.
• They  acted  in  a  ‘civilised’  manner  and  spoke Portuguese fluently.

• They had white collar jobs.
• By 1974, less than 1% of Mozambican population was assimilado because there were few schools and few jobs for Africans.
• They were a very small group.
• They could buy property, amass wealth and claim legal protection.

• Most of  them  sided  with  the  Portuguese,  saw FRELIMO as a communist party and a threat to their privileged positions.
• They fled to Portugal at independence.
• They voiced their grievances through newspapers like the ‘O Brado Africano’ (The African Voice) which was published after 1936.
• They formed independent churches.
• They were reformists.
• They  were  not  Marxists  and  did  not  call  for independence.
• The rise of assimilado nationalism was spearheaded by the likes of Samora Machel, Eduardo Mondlane, Joacquim Chissano and Mariano Matsinhe.
• Assimilado was meant to show that Portuguese rule was multiracial.

Militant/protestant literature

• Militant poets and writers appeared from the 1940s.
• They had wide influence in high schools and were arrested in the 1950s.

• The Nucleo dos Estudantes Africanos Secundarios de Mozambique   (NESAM)   or   Mozambique Secondary Students Union was formed in 1959 by Joaquim Chissano, Eduardo Mondlane and others.
• NESAM was disguised as a social and cultural group but was a radical political club that educated and politicised its members.
• Its leaders went into exile and formed resistance movements.

Post  World War 2 reformism and radicalism

• ‘War  measures’  during  World  War  2  silenced opposition.

• After the war colonial regimes became very strong.
• Indicators that change was coming included the following:

-     Black soldiers and military equipment carriers returning from the war expected real change.

-     The  myth  that  white  people  were  superior disappeared during the war.

-     There   was   increased   communication   and contact among educated Africans so radical ideas opposed to colonialism spread quickly.

-     The USA and USSR, the superpowers, were against colonialism.

-     India and other Asian countries were moving towards independence and were attacking colonialism at the United Nations.

-     The size of the educated elite was increasing.

The  assimilado approach to colonialism

• It offered opportunities based on merit.
• It aimed to bring about a multiracial society.
• It was used to stop the spread of communism.
• Portugal   wanted   Mozambique   to   remain   its ‘overseas province’.

• From the 1950s and 1960s Britain and France were pulling out of direct involvement in Africa.
• Portugal was  encouraging  white  immigration  to its colonies and increasing the size of its colonial army.
• By 1960 there were 4 000 Portuguese troops in Mozambique and 70 000 by 1972.

Radicalism

• There were more whites in Mozambique than in other Portuguese colonies.

• The  educated  African  elite  expected  to  gain independence easily as Ghana did.

• They   organised,   wrote   and   protested   against colonialism.

• Portugal responded  by  sending  in  more  white settlers,          persecuting   students   and   intensifing exploitation of rural and migrant labour.
• People  became  more  politically  conscious  and more went into exile.

• Political parties like Uniao Democratica Nacioal de Mozambique (UDENAMO) were formed in exile.

• UDENAMO was based in Bulawayo in Rhodesia, and UNAMI was based in Nyasaland.

• The MozambiqueAfrican National Union (MANU) was formed in Tanganyika (Tanzania) by Makonde (northern Mozambique)   dock   and   plantation workers working in East Africa.
• It was the most progressive and realistic party.
• By  1959  it  had  realised  the  need  for  popular consciousness and mobilisation.

• It  sent  two  cadres  to  Makonde  to  mobilise  the peasants by holding bush political meetings.

• It staged a peaceful demonstration in Mueda in 1960.

• The demonstrators petitioned against forced labour, forced cultivation of crops and taxation.
• The regime killed 600 of them.

The  formation of FRELIMO

• The killing of the 600 people made Julius Nyerere of Tanzania and Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana see the need for a united front to fight the settlers.
• In June 1962 MANU, UDENAMO and UNAMI joined together to form The Frente de Libertacao de Mozambique or the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO) with its headquarters in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.
• A non-aligned  intellectual,  Eduardo  Mondlane became the first President and Rev Uria Simango of UDENAMO, the Vice President. Joaquim Chissano and Samora Machel were members.
• FRELIMO aimed to change the political, economic and social conditions in Mozambique.
• It followed Maoist ideas because Mozambique had a large peasant population.
• FRELIMO faced many problems:

-     No shared ideology.

-     No shared idea of achieving independence.

-     Faction fighting/ power struggle.

-     Tribalism and regionalism.

-     Purges and defections.

-     Some decisions made were too divorced from reality.

-     Some people found FRELIMO too radical.

-     The Portuguese secret police (PIDE) infiltrated FRELIMO.

-     Use  of  divide  and  rule  propaganda  by  the Portuguese.

-     Lack of agricultural infrastructure in liberated zones.

The  armed struggle

• It began on 25 September 1964 when FRELIMO attacked a Portuguese administrative post at Charin in Cabo Delgado.
• FRELIMO  adopted  the  peasant  based  guerrilla campaign for the following reasons:

-     The ‘fish and water approach’ was adopted as taught by Mao Tse Tung.

-     The guerrillas were the fish and the peasants were the water.

-     The peasants provided the guerrillas with food, shelter, clothing, intelligence information and logistics.

• FRELIMO cadres were trained in Algeria, China and the USSR.

• Algeria also used the peasant-based armed struggle copied from Vietnam.

• In  1961  an  urban-based  uprising  in  Luanda  in Angola had failed.
• FRELIMO’s  network   of   cadres   in   Lourenco Marques (Maputo) was infiltrated by PIDE and broken up in 1964.
• FRELIMO fought   from Tanzania which was far away from urban centres.

• FRELIMO started the war from four fronts, namely Cabo Delgado, Tete, Zambezi and Niassa.

• The Cabo Delgado front succeeded because:

-     MANU and FRELIMO had been organising in the province.

-     The Portuguese were weak there.

-     The  Makonde  tribe  of  this  province  had  a tradition of resistance and had close ties with TANU, the Tanzanian ruling party.

-     The  Mueda  Massacre  (600)  was  a  rallying point.

-     It was a centre of extreme labour exploitation in the sisal plantations.

• In 1965 FRELIMO lost its conservative members to the Revolutionary Committee of Mozambique (COREMO). FRELIMO then began to take shape.
• FRELIMO  held  its  first  Congress  from  23-28 September 1962 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The congress:

-      Resolved to issue propaganda.

-     Agreed  to  co-ordinate  external  and  internal resistance.

-     Undertook to promote and increase the training of cadres.

-     Resolved    to    send    guerrilla    cadres    to conscientise and mobilise the peasants.

-     Condemned  Portuguese  political,  economic and social oppression.

-     Demanded independence for Mozambique.

-     Called  for  the  establishment  of  FRELIMO schools,          trade     unions,     and     women’s organisations.

-     Championed      cooperation      with      sister independence movements in Angola and Cape Verde.

Cadre-peasant relationship

• FRELIMO moved villagers to remote, defensive places to protect them.

• By 1967  about  one  million  people  lived  in FRELIMO liberated zones, a ‘mini-state’ or a state- within-a-state.
• The problem was to finance these ‘mini-states.’
• Local products like cashew nuts were exported via Tanzania and consumer goods like food, soap and matches were bought and brought into the area.
• Administration of  these  liberated  areas  was  a problem because when the Portuguese withdrew, a power vacuum was created.
• A black  bourgeoisie  class  emerged,  e.g.  Lazaro Nkavandane.

• These were Africans who were rich, had businesses, shops and plantations.

• They  had  trading  organisations  and  used  local labour.

• FRELIMO was against the emergence of a black bourgeoisie class because it would be a replacement of one form of exploitation by another.
• FRELIMO decided to:

-     Politicise  people  about  their  rights  and  the need to support FRELIMO.

-     Train  all  FRELIMO  cadres  politically  and militarily.

-     End the system of having a political wing and a military wing.

-     Establish local democratic structures such as elected village committees in liberated zones. The power of traditional chiefs and traditional law were thus reduced.

-     Establish  basic  literacy  and  primary  health care units. Literate and healthy people would help the armed struggle and act as effective propaganda against the Portuguese.

-     Organise food production on a collective and co-operative basis.

-     Arrange and run a commercial sector through FRELIMO.

• FRELIMO became popular because it aimed to:

-     create a fairer society where peasants produced food without being exploited;

-     protect the peasants;

-     improve the people’s quality of life.

• FRELIMO held its second congress in 1968 in Niassa Province inside Mozambique. It brought in observers.

FRELIMO’s problems in the  period 1967-1969

• FRELIMO’s  leadership  was  paralysed  by  the following divisions:

-     Nkavandane and the reformists (conservatives) rejected the idea of politicising the peasants and prevented the peasants from supplying FRELIMO with food, clothing and information.

-     The conservatives did not want a policy of the liberation of women because it led to condemnation of polygamy.

-     The  issue  of  whether  educated  FRELIMO members should be trained militarily.

-     Mondlane   wanted   the   educated   members trained to prevent the emergence of a superior group that was divorced from fighting. Conservative members rejected this policy.

-     Reformists   wanted   to   rid   FRELIMO   of radical   non-Africans   in   senior   positions, like Marcelino dos Santos, Veloso (a former Portuguese        air-force    officer)    and    Janet Mondlane, an American who headed the Mozambique Institute, FRELIMO’s secondary school in Tanzania.

• The divisions resulted in:

-     Clashes, damage and ransacking of FRELIMO offices in Tanzania in May 1968.

-     Boycott of the second congress by reactionary forces.

-     Nkavandane   getting   TANU   to   close   the Tanzania-Mozambique border.

-     The war being stopped.

-     Nkavandane   formed   a   political   party   in Makonde.

-     Nkavandane established an army in Makonde.

-     Nkavandane  tried  to  create  an  independent state in Northern Mozambique.

-     Nkavandane  lost  his  post  in  FRELIMO  in January 1969.

-     When a letter bomb killed Mondlane in Dar es Salaam, Nkavandane fled and joined the Portuguese and worked as a propagandist attacking FRELIMO.

-     A  three-member  council  of  presidency  (a triumvirate)   comprising    Reverend    Uria Simango, Dos Santos and Machel was created. Machel was head of FRELIMO army.

-     Rev. Uria Simango then left to join COREMO.

-     FRELIMO intensified the war.

Portuguese response to the  intensified war

• Also   intensified  its   counter-offensive   through ‘Operation Gordian Knot.’

• Villagers were put into ‘aldeamentos’(concentration camps).

• ‘Aldeamentos’ failed because:

-     FRELIMO infiltrated them.

-     They were located away from fertile lands and water.

-     Were open to abuse by soldiers.

-     Peasants got help from FRELIMO.

-     The Portuguese made limited reforms

• More money was spent on the war and on bringing in more settlers to block FRELIMO advancement.
• Forced recruitment of Africans into the army.
• Use of propaganda: was effective as over 100 000 black collaborators joined the police, army and PIDE believing  that  FRELIMO  was  communist and anti-Christianity.
• Destroyed crops outside the protected villages.
• Introduced a system of roadblocks on the borders with neighbouring countries like Tanzania, Malawi and Zambia.

FRELIMO advancement: 1970-1974

• In 1970 FRELIMO established a war zone south of the Zambezi River.

• In 1972 guerrillas moved into the central provinces of Manica and Sofala.

• In  1973   the   Gorongosa   Mountain   base   was established from which white farming areas around Chimoio were attacked.
• Had effective supply of arms from USSR, Eastern Europe and China.

• The  Portuguese  obtained  help  from  Rhodesia, South Africa, the USA and Western Europe.
• Rhodesia and South Africa wanted cheap labour, the ports and power from Cabora Basa Dam in Tete.
• Settlers saw communism as a menace. Portugal got help from NATO, hence the United Nations did not condemn it.
• The Wiriyamu Massacre of 400 villagers south of Tete in December 1972 assisted FRELIMO to get help because the incident was published in The Times; the churches and NGOs condemned it.
• The Wiriyamu Massacre was a blow to Portuguese propaganda which said Mozambique was a non- racial colony.
• Business   people   in   Portugal   criticised   their government’s overseas policies.

• Morale in Portuguese forces went down.
• By 1974 the Portuguese were on the defensive.
• Settlers were angry that the government was not protecting them from FRELIMO attacks.

• In Portugal, radical young officer corps questioned the expensive and unpopular colonial policy.

• On 25 April 1974, the Armed Forces Movement (MFA) staged a coup d’etat and toppled the government in Portugal.
• General Spinola became the President of Portugal and promised to end colonial wars. But General Spinola intensified the war in Mozambique.
• FRELIMO extended the war into new fronts.
• Many African collaborators were setting up neo- colonial organisations in Lourenco Marques to prevent FRELIMO from taking over power.
• MFA agreed  to  a  cease  fire with  FRELIMO  to prevent confusion and civil war.

• The 1974 coup d’etat brought self-determination to Mozambique but not independence.

Factors that  led to independence on 25  June 1975 under FRELIMO

• Anti-FRELIMO parties such as GUMO joined to form the National Coalition Party (NCP) in 1974 but had no support from workers and peasants.
• FRELIMO negotiated a ceasefire and a handover of power with MFA military officers.
• President General Spinola lost control in Portugal to more radical junior military officers of MFA.
• The  MFA  junior  officers wanted  FRELIMO  to govern an independent Mozambique.

• On 7 September 1974, Machel and Soares (the new Socialist Portuguese Foreign Minister) signed an agreement calling for: 

-     a ceasefire;

-     a      FRELIMO      dominated      transitional government to take office on 25 September

1974;

-     Mozambique to be independent on 25 June, 1975.

Reaction of white  settlers and  collaborators

• Opposed the agreement.
• Attempted a coup.
• Called for a Rhodesian type UDI.
• Soldiers  terrorised  black  townships  and  killed many Africans but FRELIMO increased its hold.

• From September 1974 to June 1975 many whites and African collaborators left the country.

• Over half of the 200 000 white population left the country which resulted in weakening the NCP.

• On 20  October  1974  FRELIMO  soldiers  were killed by white commandos and Africans killed many whites in revenge.
• This killing and fear of FRELIMO’s revolutionary economic and social programme forced many whites to flee the country.

FRELIMO programme

• Machel   called   for   reconciliation,   peace   and socialism.

• FRELIMO  set    up    ‘dynamising    groups’   of FRELIMO supporters to mobilise and politicise people on the FRELIMO policies in the southern provinces and urban areas that were not affected by the war.
• The ‘dynamising groups’assumed decision-making positions and created a form of local government.

• Samora Machel became the first African President of independent Mozambique.

• FRELIMO began a programme of nationalisation of the legal, medical, educational and funeral services; land, rented property, banks and several multinational corporations.

Mozambique’s economic problems after independence

• Lack of Western support due to communism.
• Africans’ wages  remained  low  due  to  years  of neglect by the Portuguese.

• Shortage of agricultural equipment like tractors, ploughs and inputs.

• Absence of industries and weak capital base.
• Poor infrastructure: poor roads and communication.
• High unemployment and poverty.
• A negative balance of trade: the cost of imports was higher than the income from exports.

• Declining national income due to war and falling world prices for Mozambican exports.
• Inflation.
• Corruption.
• Foreign currency shortages.
• Foreign ownership of industries.
• Dependence on South Africa for food and work.
• Brain-drain of skilled labour and managers when the whites and assimilados fled the country.
• Sabotage of  factories,  infrastructure,  agriculture and records by fleeing whites.
• Some  of  the  expectations  and  hopes  were  not realistic. Some of the hopes and expectations:

-     People  hoped  and  expected  to  live  in  city apartments, stop working and live like kings or to live like the colonisers.

-     FRELIMO   aimed   to   create   a   classless socialist   society   with   a   large   industrial sector, mechanised agriculture and a skilled workforce.

• The nationalisation  programme  was  selectively applied. It targeted companies where management had left and leaving those where managers were present.
• The  distribution  and  marketing  of  goods  and services collapsed due to brain-drain.

• Government had no experience in ordering imports, organising rural shops and the transport system.

• FRELIMO faced other challenges like:

-     lack of capital;

-     lack of education;

-     lack of health facilities;

-     a war situation with Rhodesia;

-     Mozambique  National  Resistance  (MNR  or RENAMO) attacks;

• Given all this FRELIMO chose to have a highly controlled and  centralised  government  –  a  one party state.

-     A socialist economy and society system were introduced in 1976.

-     Agriculture   was   reorganised   around   state farms and communal villages.

Rural  reorganisation

• FRELIMO prioritised agriculture because 85% of the population lived in the rural areas and most of Mozambique’s exports were agricultural products.
• FRELIMO  created  state  farms  and  communal villagisation farms.

• Agricultural production increased and then fell in 1983 due to:

-     Falling world prices.

-     Lack  of  foreign  investment  resulting  in  no spare parts for machines, transport equipment, and shops lacked consumer goods.

-     RENAMO,    with    South    Africa’s    help, destroying the economy, social infrastructure and destabilising the country.

-     Droughts from 1982-84 and in 1992.

• When the agricultural sector collapsed in1990:

-     People left the state farms and villagisation farms.

-     Villagers hid the little food they produced and some of it was taken by RENAMO to feed its soldiers.

Industrial democratisation

• Industrialisation   was   to   be   the   vehicle   for development and transformation.

• However,  at   independence,   Mozambique   had consumer industries only like breweries, steel making, cigarettes and canned foods.
• FRELIMO   introduced   worker   education   and production councils:

-     To     increase     production     and     worker participation in decision-making and running of the companies.

-     To seek capital investment.

• Government faced the problem of lack of skilled people, so colonial managers were kept in their positions and   these   repressed   ex-FRELIMO combatants and made the production councils useless.
• Government  had  no  skills  and  money  to  run nationalised industries resulting in:

-     Not  having  much  external  funding  due  to Mozambique’s  lack  of  infrastructure,  war- torn situation, strict conditions on foreign investment and socialism which made foreign investment unattractive.

• By 1980 there was an industrial growth rate of 12% per annum.

• In the 1980s industry collapsed due to:

-     lack of capital;

-     lack of spare parts and new machinery;

-     poor local market. People were too poor to buy goods;

-     the repatriation of Mozambican miners from South Africa;

-     decreased use of Maputo port by South Africa.

-     rising foreign debt repayments;

-     escalation of the war against RENAMO;

-     reduced supply of raw materials due to drought;

-     the  collapse  of  its  major  trading  partners, USSR and East Germany, in late 1980s with which it conducted barter trade.

RENAMO, drought and  capitalism

• At independence, Mozambique adopted Marxist- Leninist ideology and was supported by USSR and East Germany.
• It followed a socialist policy because the USA and South Africa supported RENAMO.

• USSR  and    East    Germany    support    helped FRELIMO to resist South African aggression and destabilisation before and after the 1984 Nkomati Accord.
• The  Nkomati Accord  was  meant  to  end  South Africa’s destabilising activities.

South Africa’s behaviour after  Nkomati Accord

• It continued to supply RENAMO with weapons.
• Did not close RENAMO bases in South Africa.
• RENAMO increased  its  attacks.  Two  million people fled to neighbouring countries and about four million were displaced internally causing environmental damage and straining urban services.
• Drought forced many off the land.
• Machel died in 1986 in a plane crash allegedly arranged by South Africa.

• Machel was succeeded by Joaquim Chissano.

Joaquim Chissano’s policy

• He adopted a policy of a free market to attract foreign investment.

• Foreign investment increased.
• Investors were attracted by cheap labour, low costs and quick profits.
• Western aid in loans and food increased.
• Some enterprises, housing and land were returned to private ownership.

• State  programmes  on  industrial  democracy  and workers’ rights were removed.

• There was a ceasefire and the civil war ended in 1992.

• Democratic  elections  were  held  and  FRELIMO won.

• Chissano’s reforms  led  to  disillusionment,  high inflation, increase in crime rate and an increase in the rich-poor gap which had been narrowed.

Education and  health

• Colonial  policy  on  education  and  health  was characterised by segregation.

• During the colonial period, African education was left in the hands of missionaries.

• After independence, education was nationalised.
• Capital  and  manpower  challenges  affected  the provision of education.

• The health  system  was  also  nationalised  but suffered from a lack of health centres, qualified personnel and lack of equipment.

(a)  Give    six    qualities    of    assimilados    in Mozambique.                                               [6]

(b)  Outline the reasons why many assimilados did not support FRELIMO?                             [11]

(c)  To  what  extent  did  the  assimilado  delay independence in Mozambique?                   [8]