Word: frelimo
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...NOVEMBER 11, 1975, Angola will become independent after 400 years of Portuguese rule. But unlike Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau, the other recently liberated Portuguese colonies which have made a smooth transition to independence, Angola is racked by civil war. There is no single movement like Frelimo in Mozambique capable of assuming power in Angola. Instead, three armed factions battle for the country: the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA), and the Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA...
...understanding the contrast between Angolan chaos and Mozambican stability lies in the divergent pattern of Portuguese colonization in the two countries. In Mozambique Portuguese economic penetration was restricted to the coastal cites, leaving the agrarian interior relatively untouched. Frelimo was therefore able to mobilize the entire peasantry against Portuguese rule, creating alternative political institutions during the colonial war itself. So when independence came, Frelimo already controlled most of the population and was ready to take power immediately with a coherent plan for socialist development. Angola, on the other hand, is among the most industrialized countries in black Africa, so that...
...East African nation gained its independence from Portugal last June; and Graca Simbine, thirtyish, Mozambique Minister for Education and Culture; he for the second time, she for the first; in Lourenço Marques, the country's capital. As head of the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frelimo), Machel, a onetime hospital orderly, helped lead the bloody ten-year struggle that brought over 400 years of Portuguese domination to an end. Simbine formerly worked as an underground Frelimo agent, spying on Portuguese troop movements and military strength...
Machel has stressed sacrifice in his speeches. So has Prime Minister Joaquin Chissano, 36, who warned the people in a recent speech: "You must not think Frelimo will drop like a god from the sky to solve all your problems." Frelimo has forcefully put down the wave of strikes that followed formation of the transitional government last fall, and has even forced some salary rollbacks. There is also talk about dispatching armed soldiers to the docks to force greater efficiency, perhaps at gunpoint...
...will take more than an emphasis on the work ethic, however, to solve Mozambique's economic problems. Of its 8 million people, 80% live in rural areas and 90% are illiterate. With only about 1,000 trained administrators, both black and white, Frelimo will have a hard time running a country twice the size of California. Rail and road transport are already breaking down, and internal communications are chaotic. Even some of Machel's "dynamization committees," set up all over the country to sell the people on the new life in Mozambique, have broken up in disagreement. Hundreds...