the united
nations:
ONE
STEP
FORWARD
Over the years the UN has gradually been
made to give ever more decisive support
to action aimed at ensuring respect for
the fundamental and inalienable right of
the peoples in the Portuguese colonies to
freedom and national independence. Following the condemnation of Portuguese
colonial policy and the recognition of the
right of the colonial peoples to self-
determination and national independence,
and following the declaration condemning
apartheid and racial discrimination as a
crime against mankind, the UN has recognised the legitimacy of the wars of national liberation; it considers the colonial
war Portugal is waging in Angola, Guine
and Mozambique to be a threat to peace
and world security. The UN has even
gone further to declare all kinds of aid to
the liberation movements to be both lawful and necessary and, finally, it has adopted concrete and positive measures, committing the specialised agencies to giving
material support.
This evolution of UN positions on the
question of the Portuguese colonies is due
to the real and objective advance of the
liberation struggle in Mozambique, Guine
and Angola, on the one hand, and to the
development of political consciousness of
of world opinion and the action of the
progressive and democratic countries in
the UN, on the other.
ADVANCE OF THE STRUGGLE
We can take the example of Mozambique
to show the visible progress made in the
armed struggle for national liberation.
Launched on 25 September 1964, the
guerrilla war has now spread to vast regions of our country, more than one-third
of it, comprising Cabo Delgado, Niassa
and Tete provinces. One quarter of the
country, i.e. about 200,000 square kilometers and a million people, are under
FRELIMO's effective control. The colonial state, the superstructure of the system of exploitation of man by man existing in our country, has ceased to exist in
the FRELIMO areas. The crippling colonial taxes imposed on the people have
been abolished. Portuguese laws are no
longer applied there and their administrative and legal machinery has been
destroyed. The economy has been organised, on a popular base. Together with
the development of internal and external
trade, education and health services have
been set up and consolidated. Under the
leadership of FRELIMO, the Mozambican
people are thus progressively giving material form to their sovereignty. In the
areas under FRELIMO's control, a new
and embryonic state machinery is already
in operation, based on a new correlation
of forces, now favourable to the working
masses.
The emergence of this new political, social and legal reality in Mozambique -
and also in Angola and Guine - has had
its international impact and has been
accompanied by a steady development of
the world solidarity movement. At the
United Nations, in December 1960, the
progressive and democratic countries,
through their persevering efforts, got the
international organisation to adopt the
historic declaration on decolonisation, i.e.
the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples.
A year later, in November, 1961, these
countries won a further victory in the.
UN - the setting up of the Special Committee for the Implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence
to Colonial Countries and Peoples. Spurred on by the Special Committee, fresh
impetus was given to UN action aimed at
ensuring respect for the fundamental and
inalienable right of the peoples in the
Portuguese colonies to freedom and national independence. Basing themselves
on the progress made in our struggle, the
progressive and democratic countries were
able to make of the Committee of 24 an
instrument which, within the limits and
possibilities of the UN, won victories over
Portuguese colonialism and its allies and