Independence
After World War II, while many European nations were granting independence to their colonies, Portugal's Estado Novo regime headed by António de Oliveira Salazar issued a decree officially renaming Mozambique and other Portuguese possessions as overseas provinces of the mother country, and emigration to the colonies soared (Mozambique's ethnic Portuguese resident population was about 300,000 in 1973, which excludes the Portuguese military sent from the mainland and mulatto population). The drive for Mozambican independence developed apace, and in 1962 several anti-colonial political groups formed the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO), which initiated an armed campaign against Portuguese colonial rule in September 1964. This conflict, along with the two others already initiated in the other Portuguese colonies of Angola and Portuguese Guinea, became part of the so-called Portuguese Colonial War.
Mozambique became independent after ten years of sporadic warfare in Mozambique and Portugal's return to democracy through a leftist military coup in Lisbon on 25 April 1974 (partially as a result of the expenses from the wars in the overseas territories in Africa). FRELIMO took complete control of the territory after a transition period, as agreed in the Lusaka Accord which recognized Mozambique's right to independence and the terms of the transfer of power. Within a year of the Portuguese coup, almost all Portuguese population had left the African territory – some expelled by the new government of independent Mozambique, some fleeing in fear. Mozambique became independent from Portugal on June 25, 1975.
Portuguese population's rapid exodus left the Mozambican economy in disarray. In addition, after the independence day on June 25, 1975, the eruption of the Mozambican Civil War (1977–1992) destroyed the remaining wealth and left the former Portuguese Overseas Province in a state of absolute disrepair. In any event, as late as 2001, the economic outcome could still be seen in cities like Beira. Once a thriving vacation city on the coast, it is still the second largest city in Mozambique, with a population of 300,000. Many of these people live as squatters in unfinished 1970s era luxury hotels facing the Indian Ocean.
FRELIMO responded to their lack of resources and the Cold War politics of the mid-1970s by moving into alignment with the Soviet Union and its allies. FRELIMO established a one-party Socialist state, and quickly received substantial international aid from Cuba and the Eastern Bloc nations.
Read more about this topic: History Of Mozambique
Famous quotes containing the word independence:
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—Martha Shelley, U.S. author and social activist. As quoted in Making History, part 3, by Eric Marcus (1992)
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—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)