Samora Machel: Extraordinary contribution to the liberation of Southern Africa

By Bob Newland

October 19th is the 37th anniversary of the untimely death of Samora Machel. While nothing has been proven, it is believed that the fatal plane crash over the Transvaal which killed Machel and other Mozambican Government Ministers was as a result of South African military action.

Samora Machel came from humble beginnings in the Mozambican village of Chilembene. His relatives were forced to work as migrant labourers in the South African mines after their farmland was taken from them and given to Portuguese settlers.

One of the few professions open to Mozambican blacks was nursing and Machel followed that path. He actively campaigned on behalf of his fellow medical workers saying that “the rich man’s dog gets more in the way of vaccination, medicine and medical care than do the workers upon whom the rich man’s wealth is built”. After a tip off that Portugal’s secret police, the PIDE, were after him he fled overseas where he joined the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO) and received military training.

On returning to Mozambique in 1964 Machel led some of the first guerrilla attacks on the colonial Portuguese forces. By 1966 he had become FRELIMO commander in chief. Machel was by then a committed Marxist, a revolutionary determined not only to throw out the Portuguese from Mozambique but also to radically transform the country. He expressed this saying “of all the things we have done, the most important – the one that history will record as the principle contribution of our generation – is that we understand how to turn the armed struggle into a Revolution; that we realised it was essential to create a new mentality to build a new society”.

Assassination was much favoured by the Portuguese and South African colonialists and their CIA aides, claiming among others Patrice Lumumba (Congo), Amilcar Cabral (Guinea-Bissau), and Thomas Sankara (Burkina Faso). In 1969 FRELIMO’s founder, Eduardo Mondlane was killed by a parcel bomb. Machel replaced him as President. The success of FRELIMO and the liberation movements in other Portuguese colonies in Africa prompted a military coup in Lisbon in April 1974 which overthrew the fascist dictator Caetano.

Sadly initial negotiations did not succeed in reaching agreement on independence for Mozambique. FRELIMO launched a massive new offensive, and with Portuguese troops largely remaining in their barracks, in September agreement was finally reached for independence to be granted in June 1975. Machel became the first President of independent Mozambique. A new constitution was drawn up, in line with his Marxist-Leninist ideology, declaring the creation of ‘the People’s Republic of Mozambique which in Machel’s words would be “a State of People’s Democracy, in which, under the leadership of the worker-peasant alliance all patriotic strata commit themselves to the destruction of the sequels of colonialism, and to annihilate the system of exploitation of man by man”.

After independence Machel’s government set in motion a massive programme of nationalisation of mineral resources, factories and land. It created a national health service and invested heavily in education. The new Mozambique also provided a safe haven and training ground for other southern African national liberation movements. Prompted by these policies, former landowners and colonial forces in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) sponsored an invasion followed by civil war with an armed revolt by Apartheid South African supported Renamo. This was widely backed by the CIA.

Machel was a giant of his time. A true internationalist – with big political ideas, a clarity to his expressions and an enormous sense of humour. His political development reflected the poverty of his upbringing and the exploitation of his people by the colonial forces. He always rejected tribalism and nationalism in favour of revolutionary class ideology. Albie Sachs in his foreword to ‘Mozambique’s Samora Machel: A Life cut Short.’ (See below), recalls when Samora would lead the ‘singing of freedom songs, and then the “vivas”: “Long live the just struggle of the oppressed people of South Africa!”-“Viva!” “Long live the emancipation of women!”-“Viva!” “Down with racism, tribalism, and regionalism!” –“Abaixo!” “A luta …,” Samora would declaim and pause, and we would respond, “continua!”

Machel’s assassination occurred as he returned from Zambia where he had been engaged in efforts to persuade Zairean dictator Mobuto to end that country’s support for UNITA and Renamo, South African supported opposition forces in Angola and Mozambique. This criminal act means that we will never know what kind of Mozambique may have followed if Machel had continued to lead the country. What will be long remembered was his extraordinary contribution to the liberation of Southern Africa.