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VISITORS IN FREE MOZAMBIQUE Having grown up a few miles from the Pentagon at the heart of western bourgeois materialist culture, there are several immediate observations which stand out as a result of my trip to Free Mozambique. Someone from another part of the world travelling with us might have singled out other aspects of what we experienced to emphasise. One observation was the relative unimportance of material things in the personal lives of those directly involved in the struggle for independence. Personal possessions are kept at a minimum: no more than can be packed and carried away in a few minutes; the single most important possession being the one on which everything else depends, your gun. The important things are friendships, children, actions and particularly those actions directed towards the realisation of the common goal. I sensed a strong feeling of familiness between everyone I travelled with and met during my eleven days in the country. A second observation follows directly from the first. This closeness between people includes both combatants and and villagers. It is impossible to draw a line which will leave combatants on one side and villagers on the other. Many of the villagers are armed and many of the combatants come from the areas in which they live and work. While there is very definite military organisation and discipline, life in the FRELIMO camps is relaxed and the contact with the surrounding population also relaxed and productive. While military confrontation with the Portuguese is a major FRELIMO preoccupation on the southern fronts of Cabo Delgado and Niassa and in Tete, it is only a small part of their work in the liberated areas. It was obvious to me that political education and organisation is well developed. Education and medical treatment, though limited, is more available than it ever was under Portuguese rule. The elimination of indigenous class structures and exploitation has progressed alongside the removal of Portuguese exploitation. Instrumental in this has been the establishmentof production and marketing co-operatives. We passed many people carrying produce north to the Tanzania border for export. On their return they bring back purchased items and war material. 'FRELIMO AND THE PEOPLE ARE ONE' Nash Basom, an American photo journalist working for the Church World Service of New York, who visited Cabo Delgado recently as a guest of FRELIMO in order to collect material for a book about Free Mozambique writes about his observations of life in the regions he visited. All of this is evidence that the people are in full support of the struggle and that the FRELIMO program is committed to the establishing of a truly egalitarian^ society in which all have a voice and a productive role to play. There was additional evidence of the popular support which FRELIMO has earned. Water and gifts of food were offered us in many villages we passed through. The people bring unsolicited food to the camps for the combatants, which supplements the food they grow themselves. In addition to many villagers having fire arms, there are numerous small bomb shelters hidden in the woods close to village houses. The people have a militia which protects people working in the fields and carrying produce to the border. Withthe-supportof the people, FRELIMO forces have little difficulty avoiding the occasional Portuguese raids and ambushes and in confining the Portuguese troops to their isolated posts and small enclaves. One quickly becomes used to the guns everyone carries and to the occasional small Portuguese plane searching vainly for signs of activity beneath the dense foliage. The things of primary interest remain the carrying out of daily domestic and political responsibilities. Thus, while the combatants themselves, and the people, are well prepared to fight when necessary, their life in the liberated areas is devoted primarily to normal peace time activities and the strengthening of social and political organisation. During eleven days and 150 miles of walking in Free Mozambique we visited eight FRELIMO centres of various types. These included military camps, a food production camp for disabled combatants a local cell headquarters, two district headquarters which included infantry training, a school, health unit, militia division, a chapter of the Organisation of Mozambican Women, production of various articles, and care of orphans; and a large «pilot» centre which included a three-year primary school, a monthly newspaper for the region, and a medical post for the local people. At the pilot centre we met another temporary visitor to Free Mozambique. This was a Portuguese prisoner of war captured about five weeks earlier. He has been living with FRELIMO combatants and villagers. His revised opinions of FRELIMO and the people with whom he was living were freely shared. On one thing in particular we both agreed. The final victory will certainly belong to FRELIMO and the Mozambican people. 19
Object Description
Title | Mozambique revolution, no. 50 (1972 Jan.-Mar.) |
Description | Contents: Editorial - Building up victory (p. 1); On the 3rd anniversary of the assassination of FRELIMO's first president - Nothing can stop what Mondlane began (p. 3); Tanzania's tribute to Mondlane (p. 4); War communique (p. 5); After the massacres of Mukumbura - A victim's relatives join the struggle - A priest describes Portuguese butchery (p. 9); Interview with a Portuguese prisioner (p.11); FRELIMO at the Security Council (p.13); What is the Mozambican culture? FRELIMO's first cultural seminar (p.15); Angola's National Day - Statement on the 4th february (p.16); Visitors in free Mozambique - Chinese guests praise FRELIMO's success; FRELIMO and the people are one (p.17); FRELIMO at the all Africa fair (p. 20); $435,000,000 - Nixon's investment in Portuguese colonialism (p. 22). |
Subject (lcsh) |
Nationalism -- Mozambique Self-determination, National Mozambique -- History Portugal -- Politics and government -- 1933-1974 |
Geographic Subject (Country) | Mozambique |
Geographic Subject (Continent) | Africa |
Geographic Coordinates | -18.6696821,35.5273470 |
Coverage date | 1951/1972-01 |
Creator | Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO) |
Publisher (of the Original Version) | Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO). Department of Information |
Place of Publication (of the Origianal Version) | Dar Es Salaam, U.R. of Tanzania |
Publisher (of the Digital Version) | University of Southern California. Libraries |
Date issued | 1972-01/1972-03 |
Type |
texts images |
Format | 28 p. |
Format (aat) | newsletters |
Language | English |
Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
Part of collection | Emerging Nationalism in Portuguese Africa, 1959-1965 |
Part of subcollection | Mozambique Collection |
Rights | The University of Southern California has licensed the rights to this material from the Aluka initiative of Ithaka Harbors, Inc., a non-profit Delaware corporation whose address is 151 East 61st Street, New York, NY 10021 |
Physical access | Original archive is at the Boeckmann Center for Iberian and Latin American Studies. Send requests to address or e-mail given. Phone (213) 821-2366; fax (213) 740-2343. |
Repository Name | USC Libraries Special Collections |
Repository Address | Doheny Memorial Library, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0189 |
Repository Email | specol@usc.edu |
Filename | CENPA-350 |
Description
Title | CENPA-350~21 |
Filename | CENPA-350~21.tiff |
Full text | VISITORS IN FREE MOZAMBIQUE Having grown up a few miles from the Pentagon at the heart of western bourgeois materialist culture, there are several immediate observations which stand out as a result of my trip to Free Mozambique. Someone from another part of the world travelling with us might have singled out other aspects of what we experienced to emphasise. One observation was the relative unimportance of material things in the personal lives of those directly involved in the struggle for independence. Personal possessions are kept at a minimum: no more than can be packed and carried away in a few minutes; the single most important possession being the one on which everything else depends, your gun. The important things are friendships, children, actions and particularly those actions directed towards the realisation of the common goal. I sensed a strong feeling of familiness between everyone I travelled with and met during my eleven days in the country. A second observation follows directly from the first. This closeness between people includes both combatants and and villagers. It is impossible to draw a line which will leave combatants on one side and villagers on the other. Many of the villagers are armed and many of the combatants come from the areas in which they live and work. While there is very definite military organisation and discipline, life in the FRELIMO camps is relaxed and the contact with the surrounding population also relaxed and productive. While military confrontation with the Portuguese is a major FRELIMO preoccupation on the southern fronts of Cabo Delgado and Niassa and in Tete, it is only a small part of their work in the liberated areas. It was obvious to me that political education and organisation is well developed. Education and medical treatment, though limited, is more available than it ever was under Portuguese rule. The elimination of indigenous class structures and exploitation has progressed alongside the removal of Portuguese exploitation. Instrumental in this has been the establishmentof production and marketing co-operatives. We passed many people carrying produce north to the Tanzania border for export. On their return they bring back purchased items and war material. 'FRELIMO AND THE PEOPLE ARE ONE' Nash Basom, an American photo journalist working for the Church World Service of New York, who visited Cabo Delgado recently as a guest of FRELIMO in order to collect material for a book about Free Mozambique writes about his observations of life in the regions he visited. All of this is evidence that the people are in full support of the struggle and that the FRELIMO program is committed to the establishing of a truly egalitarian^ society in which all have a voice and a productive role to play. There was additional evidence of the popular support which FRELIMO has earned. Water and gifts of food were offered us in many villages we passed through. The people bring unsolicited food to the camps for the combatants, which supplements the food they grow themselves. In addition to many villagers having fire arms, there are numerous small bomb shelters hidden in the woods close to village houses. The people have a militia which protects people working in the fields and carrying produce to the border. Withthe-supportof the people, FRELIMO forces have little difficulty avoiding the occasional Portuguese raids and ambushes and in confining the Portuguese troops to their isolated posts and small enclaves. One quickly becomes used to the guns everyone carries and to the occasional small Portuguese plane searching vainly for signs of activity beneath the dense foliage. The things of primary interest remain the carrying out of daily domestic and political responsibilities. Thus, while the combatants themselves, and the people, are well prepared to fight when necessary, their life in the liberated areas is devoted primarily to normal peace time activities and the strengthening of social and political organisation. During eleven days and 150 miles of walking in Free Mozambique we visited eight FRELIMO centres of various types. These included military camps, a food production camp for disabled combatants a local cell headquarters, two district headquarters which included infantry training, a school, health unit, militia division, a chapter of the Organisation of Mozambican Women, production of various articles, and care of orphans; and a large «pilot» centre which included a three-year primary school, a monthly newspaper for the region, and a medical post for the local people. At the pilot centre we met another temporary visitor to Free Mozambique. This was a Portuguese prisoner of war captured about five weeks earlier. He has been living with FRELIMO combatants and villagers. His revised opinions of FRELIMO and the people with whom he was living were freely shared. On one thing in particular we both agreed. The final victory will certainly belong to FRELIMO and the Mozambican people. 19 |
Archival file | Volume23/CENPA-350~21.tiff |