Happy Independence Day Mozambique

“Do not try to fight a lion if you are not one yourself” - Mozambican Proverb

(Mozambique flag (1983-Present))

Mozambique is located in southeast Africa.

(Map of where Mozambique is located)

Its capital is Maputo. Maputo is also its largest city. The official language is Portuguese. The country is 309,496 square miles. Mozambique is 97.8% African and 2.2% is European. 56.1% of Mozambique practice Christianity, 17.9% practice Islam, 7.3% practice animism, and 18.7% are athiest. The total population is 24,692,144. The climate is tropical in Mozambique. Mozambique is a unitary presidential republic.

(Maputo, capital of Mozambique)

Mozambican cuisine consists of cassava, cashew nuts, Portuguese style French buns, maize, millet, potatoes, rice, and sugarcane.

(Mozambican cuisine)

Mozambique's music is similar to reggae and West Indian calypso.

(Mozambicans performing)

Mozambique’s most popular sport is soccer.

(Mozambique’s soccer team)

In the 1st century AD the Bantu people migrated into Mozambique.

(Bantu people)

They brought with them the technology for smelting and smithing iron. In 1498 the Portuguese came to Mozambique.

(A painting of the Portuguese arriving in Mozambique)

The Portuguese gained control of the Island of Mozambique and the port city of Sofala in the early 16th century. The city was then captured by Somalians. The city was recaptured and by the 1530s, small groups of Portuguese traders and prospectors seeking gold penetrated the interior regions, where they set up garrisons and trading posts at Sena and Tete on the River Zambezi and tried to gain exclusive control over the gold trade. The Portuguese then started to enslave Mozambicans. The Portuguese began to give tribal chiefs the option to either help the Portuguese with the slave trade in trade for weapons or become slaves themselves.

(A drawing of slavery in Mozambique)

During the 19th century the English and French became more involved in the slave trade in Mozambique. At the end of the 19th century slavery had been abolished. At the end of the 19th century the Chartered companies enacted a forced labor policy and supplied cheap often forced African labour to the mines and plantations of the nearby British colonies and South Africa.

(Portuguese overseeing the Mozambicans working)

By the early 20th century the Portuguese had shifted the administration of much of Mozambique to large private companies. In 1951 the Portuguese overseas colonies in Africa were rebranded as Overseas Provinces of Portugal. Many clandestine political movements were established in support of Mozambican independence. In 1964 the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO) initiated a guerrilla campaign against Portuguese rule.

(Mozambican soldiers)

From a military standpoint, the Portuguese regular army maintained control of the population centres while the guerrilla forces sought to undermine their influence in rural and tribal areas in the north and west. The Portuguese government began to pay more attention to creating favourable conditions for social development and economic growth. On June 25th, 1975 Mozambique gained its independence.

(Mozambique flag (1975-1983))

A law had been passed on the initiative of the then relatively unknown Armando Guebuza of the FRELIMO party ordering the Portuguese to leave the country in 24 hours with only 44 pounds of luggage.The new government, under president Samora Machel, established a one party state based on Marxist principles. In 1977 began the Mozambican civil war between the opposition forces of anti Communist Mozambican National Resistance (RENAMO) rebel militias and the FRELIMO regime.

(Mozambican soldiers)

This conflict combined with sabotage from the neighbouring white ruled state of Rhodesia and the apartheid regime of South Africa, ineffective policies, failed central planning, and the resulting economic collapse, characterised the first decades of Mozambican independence. The central government executed tens of thousands of people while trying to extend its control throughout the country and sent many people to re education camps where thousands died. An estimated one million Mozambicans perished during the civil war, 1.7 million took refuge in neighbouring states, and several million more were internally displaced.

(Destruction caused by the civil war)

The new constitution enacted in 1990 provided for a multi party political system, market based economy, and free elections. In 1992 the civil war ended.

(Declaration of the end of the civil war)

By 1993 more than 1.5 million Mozambican refugees who had sought asylum in neighbouring Malawi, Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Zambia, Tanzania and South Africa as a result of war and drought had returned. In 1994 Mozambique held elections. FRELIMO won under Joaquim Chissano.

(Joaquim Chissano)

In 1995 Mozambique joined the Commonwealth of Nations. In 1999 FRELIMO won the second elections. In 2000 a cyclone caused widespread flooding in the country, killing hundreds and devastating the already precarious infrastructure.

(Destruction due to the cyclone)

In 2004 FRELIMO candidate Armando Guebuza won with 64% of the popular vote in the elections.

(Armando Guebuza)

In 2015 Filipe Nyusi became the 4th President of Mozambique.

(Filipe Nyusi)

Today marks the 42nd anniversary of Mozambique’s independence and we would all like to say happy independence day Mozambique.

Videos of Mozambique independence

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1AUc-OGIWs  “Día de la Independencia de Mozambique”
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJLnexhRW7s  “Performance at Mozambique Independence Day Celerations”