CONVERSATION    WITH
EDUARDO    MONDLANE
M o r • •
In an interview with the editor of Africa
Report, FRELIMO'S President speaks
frankly of the strategy, tactics, ideology,
and prospects of the revolution which
began in Mozambique in September 1964
b\ Helen Kitch
n you tell
20  in   the
.
when
■
>*med   that   I
lucational
up i however,  and
I snat lw. I completed a
course in dry-land farming at an agricultural school, and perhaps more important.
I learned English, \fter teaching dry
farming foi  • in the Manjacaze
region, I managed to get a scholarship
to attend secondary school in Northern
Transvaal. In 1948. I entered Witwaters-
rand
other   pr <ibble
:i my
pern- dent was lifted by
the   South  African   Government,  and  I
and interrogated by the
Port' >n with my efforts
sdent
■
ng me
Phel;
undei
rooms searched from i be-
came   friends   with   A
s who are
ist leaders, in-
■
Cab-
nem-
1   Comm
to
•   •
ined
3 A from Oberlin (
y PhD are from
Northwestern University, in sociology,
and I spent another year at Harvard
doing research in role conflict. From
1957 until 1961, I worked for the United
research officer on trust
territories.
During those five years at the UN, 1
received many appeals from Mozambi-
cans   to   take  an   active   leadership  role
AFRICA REPORT, NOVEMBER  1967
in the nationalist movement. With Tanganyika's independence in 1961, I decided
the situation had changed completely and that independence for
Mozambique might he possible in my
lifetime. Now we had a base from
which   to   operate.   I  resigned   from   the
took a teaching post at Syracuse,
and prepared to return to Africa to enter
actively  into politics.
Kitchen: As I recall, there were at least
competitive Mozambique nationalist
merits in  196!.  Which one did you
■
Mondlane: There were several groups,
but the most important were the Mozambique African National Union (manu),
the Uniao Democratic a Nacional de
Mozambique (udenamo), and the Uniao
Nacional Africana de Mozambique Independence (unami). I had been associated with udenamo. but I was by 1962
absolutely convinced that the first condition for success must be to unify the
movements into a united front,
j single party.
Kitchen: And it was in this context that
freljmo was established in 1962?
Mondlane: Yes. After months of negotiation, we convened a meeting of the
parties in Dar es Salaam in mid-1962 and
formally established the Frente de
Libertagao de Mozambique on June 25 of
that year. The three existing parties were
dissolved and frelimo was established
on the basis of complete fusion into a
single movement. The new liberation
front had a unitary structure—that is,
any Mozambican who wished to be associated with the movement had to com-
31