therefore, that today Your Excelencies are well acquainted with the
conditions of life of our people, with the methods of torture used
by the Portuguese authorities against our people, with the systems of
exploitation instituted in Mozambique.  These do not shaw great
originality in that they are, in all their various  aspects, typical
of the methods of exploitation, oppression and suppression used by
colonialist powers of all times; except probably the fact that the
Portuguese, in their desperate desire to continue to control Africa,
have shown a greater ferocity in their repression of the people and
a greater intensity in exploitation and a more absolute desdain for
the rights of the African peoples.
We are here simply to present an outline of our struggle against
the Portuguese, past, present and future, underlining certain elements
relevant to our present position.  In so doing, we wish to reiterate
the point that, Portugal has never wished to a) acceed to the idea
of self-determination, b) establish any contact v/ith the leaders of
the liberation movement and c) negociate a settlement of the problem.
On the contrary she is building a military force and using ever more
repressive techniques of controlling our people thus  preparing to
fight  against the freedom of our people.  As the result of this
attitude of Portugal, we have no alternative but to go ahead and fight
for our freedom in the best way we can.  In this outline we also wish
to present some recent facts to indicate that the elections carried
out last March in Mozambique v/ere geared to favour European settlers,
and to strengthen the political and economic hold of our country by
Portugal.
As we stated before, there are only two ways by which we can
obtain our independence: l) through negotiations or 2) through an
armed struggle.  Up till the end of the year 1963 there were some
individuals within our organization who still hoped that there could
be discussions between the Portuguese government and ourselves for
negotiations for independence.  From time to time we encountered
some representatives of African independent states who also believed in
the possibility of negotiations.   But after the private conversations
which took place at the United Nations, under the sponsorship of
Mr. U Thant, nobody in his right mind can still believe in this course
of action.