Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0251/02516.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 34KB | 527 lines

$Unique_ID{COW02516}
$Pretitle{264}
$Title{Mozambique
Chapter 1D.   The Colonial Regime}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Robert Rinehart}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{portuguese
mozambique
frelimo
colonial
government
african
africans
labor
africa
portugal}
$Date{1984}
$Log{Figure 6.*0251601.scf
}
Country:     Mozambique
Book:        Mozambique, A Country Study
Author:      Robert Rinehart
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1984

Chapter 1D.   The Colonial Regime

     The colonial administration of Mozambique was reorganized in 1907,
introducing a system that remained virtually intact until independence was
achieved in 1975. In response to complaints that little could be accomplished
as long as the colonial administration was directly dependent on apathetic
officials in Lisbon, the governor general, resident in Lourenco Marques (to
which the seat of government had been moved in 1898), was given greater
autonomy to act in the interests of the province, but ultimate financial
responsibility remained with the central government. Provision was made for a
provincial council, which possessed limited legislative powers, and for
subdivision of the province into districts and rural jurisdictions (see fig.
6). The district governors, replacing the old lieutenant generals, were
essentially responsible for implementing the policies of the governor general
and for overseeing both African and European local governments that functioned
at the next level. The constitution of 1911, written a year after the
establishment of the Portuguese Republic, reaffirmed the principal that
administration of colonial possessions should be decentralized.

     Direct management of African affairs came under the administrator of the
rural jurisdictions, each of which was composed of several subordinate units,
called posts, headed by a chief of post who might exercise authority over as
many as 40,000 people. The chief of post was in turn assisted by African
magistrates, usually traditional chiefs who were put in charge of collecting
taxes, recruiting labor, and imposing punishment for infractions in an
assigned cluster of villages. Magistrates also commanded uniformed African
police. The underpaid and poorly trained Portuguese officials developed a
reputation for incompetence, cruelty, and corruption. Because of their
frequent use of coercive measures to effect policy and enforce the law, the
whip and the cudgel became the recognized symbols of Portuguese authority
among the great mass of rural Africans. Rural parishes, organized as civil
jurisdictions in areas where Europeans had settled, and urban municipalities
were separately administered and enjoyed a degree of self government.

     In 1920 a high commissioner replaced the governor general as the chief
official in Mozambique. This change was intended to lessen Lisbon's control of
the colony because the high commissioners had financial autonomy. In fact very
little changed, and the financial burden of the colony may have increased as
each successive high commissioner abandoned his predecessor's programs and
launched new ones of his own. Reforms did nothing to decrease corruption,
which was present at all levels of the colonial government. The Portuguese
government and the colonial administration were eager to grant offices and
land concessions to friends and political favorites. Frequent changes of
government in Lisbon meant a rapid turnover in colonial personnel. There were
tax scandals and incidents involving officials in extortion and
counterfeiting. The Banco Nacional Ultramarino (National Overseas Bank), the
official bank for Angola and Mozambique, paid off officials in the colonial
administration. Corruption and the bank's policies caused high inflation and
a rapidly depreciating currency, which prevented Mozambique from becoming
commercially competitive with other colonies producing the same products.

[See Figure 6.: Portuguese Mozambique, 1907]

     Migration for employment in South Africa had been a practice since the
discovery of gold in the Witwatersrand region of the Transvaal in 1886.
Informal migration was regulated by a 1909 convention that provided for an
exchange of labor from Mozambique in return for the transit trade from the
Transvaal. A subsequent agreement in 1928 regulated the number of workers to
be employed in South Africa, as well as working conditions, repatriation
arrangements, and the amount of transit guaranteed Mozambique. This exchange
of labor and trade resulted in direct revenue and foreign exchange for
Mozambique and also reflected the dominance of British and South African
interests in the province.

     Anticlerical governments in Lisbon had in various ways discouraged Roman
Catholic missionary activities since the 1830s. International agreements
reached in the late nineteenth century, however, allowed Protestant
missionaries sent from Britain and Germany to enter Mozambique and contributed
to a relaxing of restrictions on expanding existing Roman Catholic missions.
The number of Portuguese missionaries, particularly the Jesuits, was increased
substantially as a result. The missions introduced some medical care and
education for Africans in the interior and improved facilities for both
Europeans and Africans in the towns.

World War I and the Zambezi Rebellions

     Portugal entered World War I on the side of the Allies in 1916, its
government arguing that a German victory would mean the loss of the African
colonies even if the country remained neutral. A largely African-recruited
Portuguese army joined British Empire forces in East Africa in pursuit of
German general Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck's elusive colonial army.

     Some areas in Mozambique had never been completely pacified, and
banditry, peasant revolts, and resistance to forced labor were all reminders
of continuing opposition to colonial rule. African workers were
forcibly recruited for a major roadbuilding project begun in 1914, and the
number of those inducted for construction work and as bearers (sometimes taken
by government raiding parties) increased sharply after Portugual's entry into
the war. In 1916 colonial authorities were told to provide 5,000 additional
African recruits for military service. When efforts to attract volunteers
failed, they resorted to conscription. Chiefs who were reluctant to cooperate
were replaced by collaborators.

     Conscription and the forced labor policy provoked bloody uprisings in the
Zambezi region in the spring of 1917. The Barue-by virtue of their tradition
of resistance-assumed leadership and sent emissaries to other groups to
revive the alliances that had been crushed by the Portuguese in 1902. The
Zambezi rebellions, directed as much against African allies of the Portuguese
as against the colonial regime itself, came as Lettow-Vorbeck had crossed with
his army into northern Mozambique and was thought to be marching toward the
Zambezi. The Portuguese were obliged to abandon Zumbo to the insurgents, and
Sena and Tete were threatened. More than 20,000 troops, most of them African
levies, were brought in to break the back of the rebellion with their superior
firepower. Retribution was brutal; villages suspected of supporting the
rebellion were burned along with their fields, cattle were confiscated, and
hostages were taken to prevent a recurrence of the uprisings. The rebellion
was a short-lived but fierce affair, and isolated guerrilla attacks continued
until 1920. Further pacification was required in the region as late as 1930.

     Despite the protest against conscription in the Zambezi region, the
Portuguese managed to field over 100,000 armed Africans during World War I.
Under the accords of the Treaty of Versailles, Germany paid Portugal
reparations for 130,000 African soldiers and laborers reported dead from all
causes as a result of the war in East Africa.

Salazar and the Colonial Statute of 1930

     A right-wing officers' coup overthrew Portugal's unstable parliamentary
regime in 1926. Two ye