The Movement for Freedom in Mozambique - Page 17.
predilection for constantly passing laws with very little interest
in setting up the proper machinery to carry them out.  It seems
to us that the Portuguese issue laws mainly in order to find something to quote when attacked by those concerned with certain injustices. When one reads a whole series of labour laws passed by
the colonial government from 1899 to today, one notices that all
of them are intended to correct abuses, and therefore are repetitive.  The philosophy behind all these laws has alv/ays been
the same, namely, forcing the African people to work, as if
otherv/ise they might not engage in any remunerative labour activity.
The 1928 Code tries to check abuses of the system while maintaining
it intact.  Therefore, it showed concern for the payment of wages,
transportation, lodging and feeding of the workers and the provision of health and educational facilities.  There v/as no intention
of putting these directives into effect either before or after.
The Portuguese colonial government ought to have known that
once the law demanded that the African should be forced to work,
and as long as that law remained, the door was open for those in
power to exploit the African worker.
Earlier in this paper v/e outlined some activities cf the
Portuguese colonial government which are aimed at the exploitation of the natural resources of our country for the benefit of
Europeans and Asians.  Later on we indicated that this exploitation included the use of the human resources as a direct instrument
of the exploitation of the natural resources.  The various labour
laws above outlined indicate the legal measures which the
Portuguese government felt compelled to promulgate in order to
justify its actions in forcing the African worker to serve
European and Asian interests to the detriment of his ov/n.  At
this point it is necessary to extend this analysis to include
the exploitation of Mozambique African Labour by the Portuguese
government, cooperating directly with foreign governments and
international economic interests.
It has often been indicated in international publications
and discussed in conferences dealing with southern African affairs,
that there exists an international chain of interests, economic,
administrative and political, which cooperate with each other to
control, hold and exploit not only the natural resources, but also
the African peoples living in southern Africa.  The Mozambique
people are probably the most directly affected by these interests.
The Mozambique African labour force, working in South Africa,
Northern and Southern Rhodesia, amounts to about 500,000 by the