THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE IN MOZAMBIQUE - Page 7.
union was made agreed with the terms proposed, an ad hoc committee
was elected and entrusted with the responsibility of carrying on work
until the first congress of the new organization.  These were: Eduardo
Chivambo Mondlane, who was elected national president; Uria Simango,
vice-president; David Mabunda, secretary-general; Matthew Mmole,
treasurer; Paul Gumane, deputy secretary-general; Leo Milas, publicity
secretary, and four other people holding supporting positions.
It may be appropriate at this stage to give a brief description of my background as president of FRELIMO in the context of
my present functions in the movement.  I was born in southern Mozambique in the Gaza district, which lies on both sides of the Limpopo
basin.  My father was a leader of a section of southern Mozambique
known as Khambane, which is part of the Tsonga peoples described by
the great Swiss anthropologist, Philippe A. Junod, in his The Life
of a South African Tribe.  I v/as the last child of his third and last
wife.  Early in my life I joined my elder brothers in herding cattle,
sheep and goats like most young men in my country.  My father died
v/hen I was very young.  Therefore, I v/as brought up by my mothers and
my elder brothers.  When about 10 years of age, my genetic mother insisted that I attend a local government school because, she argued,
the old world of my father was on its way out, and it would be wiser
if I prepared myself for the new world.  I began learning to read and
write and to speak Portuguese in the government rudimentary school of
Manjacaze in 1931.  Then two years later I tranferred to a mission
school nearer my residence.  On finishing rudimentary education in
1936, I was taken to the capital city of Lourenco Marques, v/here I
continued my education until I obtained the primary school certificate.  This was the highest educational achievement allowed an African
in Mozambique.  But not being satisfied with it, I decided to continue in one way or another.  So I enrolled at an agricultural school
for dry farming.  Two years later I completed the courses given and
returned to the Gaza area, where I taught dry farming to the people
of the Manjacaze region for two years.  While I was taking agricultural training, I learned some English privately.  In 1944, I received a scholarship to study in a high school in the northern
Transvaal, where in 1947 I obtained the Matriculation Certificate of
the South African Joint Matriculation Board.  This enabled me to
enter Jan H. Hofmeyr School of Social Studies in Johannesburg in 1948.
However, soon after entering Hofmeyr School, I was offered a private
scholarship to enter the 7/itwatersrand University at Milner Park,
Johannesburg to continue my studies in the social science.
In 1949 the Nationalist Government, under Dr. Daniel F.
Malan, refused to renew my permit as a foreign student, obviously
because I was a black student in a v/hite university.  On returning
to Mozambique in October 1949? the Portuguese government had me
arrested for investigation.  At that time I had organized an African
students association v/hich drew its members from the few African
secondary, commercial and technical school students of Mozambique.
The government thought the organization was really a political group,
camouflaging as a social and academic, group.  They arrested as many
of the members of that organization as they could, and investigated
them to determine what relationship there was between my expulsion
from South Africa and the activities of the organization.  After
three days and nights of constant questioning, in v/hich the police
covered every phase of my student life in South Africa, they drew
up a report tc the attorney general of the Portuguese Republic of
Lisbon.  A few months later the attorney general issued an analysis
of the report with his office's conclusion, v/hich ran generally this
way:  (a) that I v/as politically a threat to the colony, but that
since there was nothing definite about my past history they could
not prefer charges against me;  (b) that I had been infected with a
Communist virus, which might affect others, especially the young
people who were members of my association;  (c) that I had an embryonic spirit of black nationalism which should be uprooted as soon