home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
The Epic Interactive Encyclopedia 1998
/
Epic Interactive Encyclopedia, The - 1998 Edition (1998)(Epic Marketing).iso
/
M
/
Mozambique
/
INFOTEXT
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1992-09-01
|
4KB
|
106 lines
Country in SE Africa, bordered to the N by
Zambia, Malawi, and Tanzania, E by the Indian
Ocean, S by South Africa, and E by Swaziland
and Zimbabwe. government The 1975
constitution, revised 1978, provides for a
one-party socialist state, based on the
National Front for the Liberation of
Mozambique (Frelimo). The president heads its
political bureau and central committee
secretariat. There is a 250-member People's
Assembly, comprising 130 members of Frelimo's
central committee plus 120 others from
central and provincial governments, the armed
forces, and citizens' representatives. The
assembly is convened by the president and
meets twice a year. Its functions are
performed in its absence by a 15-member inner
group, called the Permanent Commission, also
convened and presided over by the president.
Frelimo was formed in 1962 by a merger of
three nationalist parties, the Mozambique
National Democratic Union (UDENAMO), the
Mozambique African Nationalist Union (MANU)
and the African Union of Independent
Mozambique (UNAMI). Frelimo was reconstituted
in 1977 as a `Marxist-Leninist vanguard
party'. history Mozambique's indigenous
peoples are of Bantu origin. By the 10th
century the Arabs had established themselves
on the coast. The first European to reach
Mozambique was Vasco da Gama in 1498, and the
country became a Portuguese colony in 1505.
Portugal exploited Mozambique's resources of
gold and ivory, and used it as a source of
slave labour, both locally and overseas.
Guerrilla groups opposed Portuguese rule from
the early 1960s, the various left-wing
factions combining to form Frelimo. Its
leader, Samora Machel, demanded complete
independence, and in 1974 internal
self-government was achieved, with Joaquim
Chissano, a member of Frelimo's Central
Committee, as prime minister. Becoming
president of an independent Mozambique in
1975, Machel was faced with the emigration of
hundreds of thousands of Portuguese settlers,
leaving no trained replacements in key
economic positions. Two activities had been
the mainstay of Mozambique's economy: transit
traffic from South Africa and Rhodesia and
the export of labour to South African mines.
Although Machel supported the African
National Congress (ANC) in South Africa, and
the Patriotic Front in Rhodesia, he knew he
must coexist and trade with his two
white-governed neighbours. He put heavy
pressure on the Patriotic Front for a
settlement of the guerrilla war and this
eventually bore fruit in the 1979 Lancaster
House Agreement and the election victory of
Robert Mugabe, a reliable friend of
Mozambique, as leader of the newly
independent Zimbabwe. From 1980 Mozambique
was faced with widespread drought, which
affected most of southern Africa, and attacks
by mercenaries, under the banner of the
Mozambique National Resistance (Renamo), also
known as the MNR, who were covertly but
strongly backed by South Africa. The attacks
concentrated on Mozambique's transport
system. Machel, showing considerable
diplomatic skill, had by 1983 repaired
relations with the USA, undertaken a
successful European tour, and established
himself as a respected African leader. In
1984 he signed the Nkomati accord, under
which South Africa agreed to deny facilities
to the MNR, and Mozambique in return agreed
not to provide bases for the banned ANC.
Machel took steps to honour his side of the
bargain but was doubtful about South Africa's
good faith. In Oct 1986 he died in an air
crash near the South African border. Despite
the suspicious circumstances, an inquiry
pronounced his death an accident. The
following month Frelimo's Central Committee
elected former prime minister Joaquim
Chissano as his successor. Chissano
immediately pledged to carry on the policies
of his predecessor. He strengthened the ties
forged by Machel with Zimbabwe and Britain
and in 1987 took the unprecedented step of
requesting permission to attend the
Commonwealth Heads of Government summit that
year. Mozambique's economic problems were
aggravated in 1987 by food shortages, after
another year of drought. In 1988 President
Chissano met South African state president
Botha and later that year, as tension was
reduced, Tanzanian troops were withdrawn from
the country. In July 1989, at its annual
conference, Frelimo offered to abandon
Marxism-Leninism to achieve a national
consensus and Chissano was re-elected
president and party leader.