MOZAMBIQUE LIBERATION FRONT
(FRELIMO)
Dar es Salaam 6 August 1965
PRESS CONFERENCE
FRELIMO Action Forces Portuguese Ban
on African Organisation
/    As was announced in the press, the Centro Associativo dos
fNegros de Mopambique, the most important African civic organisation in Mozambique, was recently banned by the Salazar Government.
This is the latest in a series of desperate, oppressive measures
carried out by the Portuguese authorities as a show of power in
a country that for the last ten months has been beseiged by the
liberation forces led by the Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO).
In trying to justify the banning of this non-political organisation, the Salazar regime said that it was disturbing the
social and political order, and that many of the leaders and
members of the organisation were involved in the politico-military
activities of FRELIMO.
Previous to this statement, the Portuguese Government arrested
the entire Executive Committee of the Centro Associativo, after the
authorities had tried in vain to load it with government stooges.
They trumped up charges against the Executive Committee, and
accused them of being members of FRELIMO, which they consider a
terrorist and subversive movement.
Among the Centro leaders thus arrested were the following:
Luis Bernardo Honwana, author and journalist
Malangatane Valente Ngwenya, artist and poet
Domingos Antonio Arouca, lawyer
Abner Sansao Muthemba, medical assistant
Daniel Tome Magaia, municipal clerk, etc.
and other well-known civic personalities, such as:
Joao Correia dos Reis, founder of nThe Tribune",
a leading Lourenpo Marques paper
Rui Nogar, author and poet
These arrests were part of a series which resulted in the
arrest of more than 2,000 Mozambican citizens and which began soon
after the start of the armed struggle in September 1964.
The mass arrests of innocent Mozambicans is one of the many
high-handed tactics of the fascist regime of Salazar.  Before the
armed struggle began, the Portuguese colonialist government tried
to instill fear in the people by increasing its armed forces, importing more than 35,000 European soldiers into our country;  by
establishing a network of well-paid PIDE spies all over Mozambique;
by creating the "Psycho-Social BranchM of the police force to
organise anti-FRELIMO communities all over the country, as well
as pseudo-nationalist organisation abroad,aimed at creating con-