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of ambivalence they may have had and
want very much to be associated with
the movement and live with our guerrillas. Our military actions are also becoming more and more effective in keeping
the Portuguese administration completely
out of contact with the masses of the
African population.
We assume that our military control
of these areas involves certain administrative responsibilities toward the population
and we undertake to ensure the minimal
requirements of normal life in the bush.
These include drugs and medicines and
bush clinics to distribute them. Schools
for the children, especially in areas that
already had missionaries, are also important in establishing confidence. Even
in areas where the people had never had
any formal education, schools are wanted;
to these people "liberation" means having
schools for their children. We also help
the people in their agriculture and in
marketing their products within the
country. Now this. I think, is as much as
I should say on this subject.
Kitchen: To what extent has frelimo
created a "shadow government" for
Mozambique?
Mondlane: ere J imo"s structure is dictated
by the necessities v>t ;he revolution. The
main organizational body is the central
committee, which has both administrative and legislative responsibilities. It is
composed of 22 members, most of them
also directors or executive secretaries
of operational departments of the organization. The central department is the
president's office, which consists of the
president and vice-president and a secretary for the presidency as the responsible
officers. All actions—political, military,
and educational -are coordinated here.
In listing the other departments, I do not
mean to imply that the order of listing
indicates their relative importance.
Certainly one of the most important
departments is the one responsible for
clandestine political work within Mozambique. The executive secretary in charge
of this department is assisted by a committee of associate secretaries, one
representing each province. They prepare
for action everywhere—ahead of the
army, with the army, and after the army.
They are respoasible for formulating
political lines and transmitting them to
local leaders. They establish cells everywhere in Mozambique and make sure
that each cell knows what it must do
and how its function fits into the party's
strategy for the liberation of the whole
country. A department of organization
within Mozambique has the related task
of preparing the people psychologically
and politically for the long struggle that
we face. We do not make facile promises
to people, for it is absolutely essential
that they share with us the knowledge
that liberation from Portuguese rule may
take many years and many lives. Every
area of Mozambique has a team working
clandestinely to train leaders and to provide the kind of civic education that will
enable each Mozambican to understand
how he personally relates to frelimo's
overall strategy. Where the people organize themselves ahead of frelimo's
organizational team, the staff seeks to link
the existing setup with frelimo, emphasizing orientation on the need for
coordinating activities against an enemy
as powerful as Portugal.
The department of defense, which reports directly to the president on a daily
basis, recruits, trains, supplies, and provides political education for the youth
who are the guerrillas. It also plans and
directs military activities. The department
of external affairs, staffed with an executive secretary and an associate and other
personnel, is concerned with solidifying
ties with all foreign countries and organizations that are friendly to the
Mozambique liberation struggle. It formulates requests for help, circulates information, conveys all gifts from outside
into the organization, represents frelimo
in conferences abroad, and serves as the
formal link between frelimo and concp,
the organization that coordinates liberation movements in all the Portuguese
colonies [see below].
The department of finance, which is
also the treasury, collects all funds, prepares budgets, and, in collaboration with
the president's office, supervises the disbursement of funds to every department.
It is also responsible for planning the
economic action programs that must be
undertaken to assure the welfare of the
people in the liberated areas of
Mozambique.
The department of education is responsible for frelimo's growing program
of academic, political, and technical
education. It maintains a number of
schools within and outside Mozambique
and coordinates all scholarship programs
for our students abroad. It contacts
foreign governments, friendly educational
and philanthropic organizations, and
other potential sources of scholarship
assistance. It also screens and prepares
students, transmits their qualifying documents, and arranges travel documents,
clothing, and transportation as necessary.
This department is also the liaison between frelimo and the Mozambique
Institute in Dar es Salaam, which is the
main educational body within the Mozambique liberation struggle. A directorate of health, composed of a number of
doctors and nurses, operates frelimo's
medical   programs.  It  is  responsible,  in
cooperation with the Mozambique Institute, for training all the nurses who
are required to go into Mozambique
every year to help man our several clinics;
it also supervises these clinics, solicits or
buys the drugs and medicines required,
and conveys these supplies where they
are needed. A department of social welfare is primarily concerned with the feeding and clothing of refugees and displaced
persons within Mozambique, and with
soliciting help required to deal with these
problems.
A department of information, located
in our Dar es Salaam headquarters, collects and digests information on frelimo
activities and issues weekly press statements; it also prepares documents and
pamphlets for circulation abroad and
publishes a monthly English-language
magazine called Mozambique Revolution.
Other pamphlets are prepared for use
within Mozambique to keep the people
informed and to explain the line of action
required by the party. Radio news and
announcements are beamed to listeners in
Mozambique through friendly countries
in Africa and elsewhere.
Kitchen: You have spoken frequently of
frelimo policy decisions. How are
these reached?
Mondlane: frelimo not only functions as
an administrative body, but also as a
democratic party. The central committee
meets as a legislative body every six
months, and these meetings may last
from two days to a week to two weeks,
depending on the issues involved. Each
department reports on the work it has
been carrying out, and there is a free
discussion during which policy lines are
established. It is in the central committee
sessions that our problems are aired and
the people's views are expressed through
their representatives. A very forthright
exchange of views takes place before
policy decisions are reached by consensus.
Kitchen: A good many of our readers
may know that the Mozambique Institute
was founded by you and your wife Janet
in Dar es Sa'aam. Just what does the
Institute do, and to what extent is it independent of frelimo?
Mondlane: Portugal's education policy in
its colonies has favored the education of
the Portuguese, with the education of the
black man left almost exclusively to the
churches, especially the Catholic Church.
This government-subsidized missionary
education provides a very limited kind of
instruction for Africans, and its primary
aim is to convert us to Christianity and
inculcate us with Portuguese culture. In
preparing ourselves to be free, we had
little difficulty in reaching agreement
that we must give very high priority to
the creation of opportunities for higher
AFRICA REPORT, NOVEMBER 1967
49
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