How Frelimo Betrayed Samora Machel’s Dream Of A Free Mozambique

FORTY-SIX years ago, Samora Machel, the leader of Mozambique’s liberation movement and the country’s first president, stood before a euphoric crowd at Machava Stadium and declared the complete and total independence of Mozambique.

He inspired the people of Mozambique to imagine and build a new nation in which development, social justice, and solidarity with – and care for – the oppressed took centre stage.

Four decades later, Machel’s declarations ring hollow. His words and the new dawn they heralded have since disintegrated.

I’m a Mozambican political sociologist. I have been a keen observer of the country’s changing economic, social and political structures since the early 1990s.

The declaration of independence in 1975 proclaimed a social contract that contained the ideals of freedom. These included economic and social justice, eradication of hunger and poverty, health and education for all, equality of all people regardless of ethnicity, race and gender, emancipation of