On Education: «We had the chance to
visit two day schools and one boarding
school and were most impressed; in fact
FRELIMO schools seemed to offer perfect examples of what President Nyerere
must have meant by 'education for self-
reliance'. We saw students growing their
own food and relying as little as possible
on their parents or outside supplies. We
found a curriculum that combined science,
mathematic and history lessons, political
and military training and agricultural
activity. And we talked with students
whose main goal seemed to be to finish
their training as quickly as possible so
that they might become teachers in their
turn! Of course, we could not ignore the
obvious difficulties which this education
programme faced, though in many ways,
this made the achievements all the more
impressive. As we saw, students too often
do face shortages of food, proper shelter
and clothes, and too often despite their
enthusiasm for education they also lack
sufficient education materials to read or
with which to write. But these particular
legacies of a bankrupt colonialism seem
merely i to spur FRELIMO to greater
efforts and indeed the teachers in the
liberated zones were among the most
impressive cadres whom we met in our
travels.
On Fighters: «In all our marching we
naturally spent much of our time with
the FRELIMO fighters themselves. Over
hours of contact with them we were continually struck by the degree of unity and
determination displayed by these militants, often younger than ourselves. We
realised, perhaps for the first time, what
it means to undergo genuine hardships-
marches of hundreds of miles through
swamps, sleep snatched for a few hours in
mosquito and tsetse fly infested forests,
and gnawing hunger. Yet what to us was
a mere excursion to be endured for a few
brief weeks, is the daily lot of the dedicated men of FRELIMO. We were therefore surprised to record that at no single
moment did we notice the least sign of
indiscipline, nor in more off-guard moments, anything resembling grumbling.
Discipline and organisation are central in
a revolution and it appeared to us that
FRELIMO is very much better disciplined
and organised than most of us had been
led to believe.
On the People: ((Equally impressive was
the relationship which we saw to exist
between FRELIMO soldiers and the peasants themselves. We were particularly
struck by the fact that the peasants were
voluntarily transporting ammunition from
the border to FRELIMO bases during our
march south and their commitment was
also apparent to us when peasants made
generous donations of such food-stuffs as
they could afford when we passed by,
like chicken, maize, nuts, etc.
But such examples from our own immediate experiences merely bore out the
general picture which was everywhere
conveyed to us: that the fighters of
FRELIMO can only make progress with
the full support of the people themselves and that it is just such support
which they have managed to earn.»
The students concluded their press conference by pledging their solidarity with
the struggle of the Mozambican people,
and by announcing, on behalf of the
students of the University of Dar Es
Salaam, the creation of a 'FRELIMO
fund'. In doing so they invited contributions of 'clothes, salt, sugar, almost
anything that could be of use' from 'any
person or group of persons who have a
conscience and are pained by injustice
in society.'