Before he became Mozambique’s first president, Samora Machel was an anti-colonial freedom fighter who led the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo) in the fight for Mozambique’s independence against Portugal.
Born on 29 September in 1933, Machel ventured into political activism when he was practising as a nurse at the Miguel Bombarda hospital in Lourenço Marques. When he discovered that black nurses earned less than white nurses, he protested. After ten years, he quit working at the hospital after he was told that the Portuguese political police were watching him.
He then slipped away from Mozambique and joined Frelimo in Dar es Salaam. He had to travel through Swaziland, South Africa and Botswana, where he got on a plane carrying South Africa’s African National Congress recruits.
He rapidly rose the ranks of Frelimo’s military faction in Dar to become the leader after the death of Filipe Samuel Magaia, in October 1966. Four years later, he was voted as the leader of Frelimo, and became the lead negotiator of independence between Mozambique and Portugal.
Once independence was scheduled for June 25, 1975, Machel was able to return home to Maputo, where he received a hero’s welcome. He became Mozambique’s first president and declared that the country will be “a state of People’s Democracy, in which, under the leadership of the worker-peasant alliance, all patriotic strata commit themselves to the destruction of the sequels of colonialism, and to annihilate the system of exploitation of man by man”.
His presidency would, however, be cut short when he was killed in a plane crash on this day in 1986 on his way to Maputo from a summit in Zambia. Many theories about his death have been raised with the most popular being that a conspiracy between apartheid South Africa and the Soviet Union caused his death. Others have stated that the reckless behaviour of the pilots on the plane led to his death.
Here are some quotes from Mozambique’s first president.
Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton has said that his little brother was subjected to racial abuse,…
Reggie Bush has regained his place as the 2005 Heisman Trophy winner after over a…
Since 2012, actor Nick Cannon has openly shared his struggle with lupus to support others…
Former USC superstar Caleb Williams has been drafted by the Chicago Bears as the No.…
Stephen A. Smith is an ESPN analyst. People widely regard him as the face of…
Lil Durk is an American rapper and one of the most influential voices in the…
In 2022, Kevin Hart added a new title to his impressive resume: a tequila entrepreneur.…
AEW's latest pay-per-view, Dynasty 2024 on Sunday night saw Swerve Strickland defeat Samoa Joe to…
Renowned civil rights activist Opal Lee, known as the "Grandmother of Juneteenth," will be awarded…
Violet Horne lost her two sons to gun violence within the space of a month.…
An Ohio man said a K-9 bit him seven times after he was pulled over…
Three male foreign tourists who were spotted posing naked in a popular dune in Namibia…
Will.i.am is partnering with other prominent figures to revolutionize the digital media scene by forming…
Sabelle Beraki's childhood was inundated with the lack of representation when it came to a…
Benjamin Harvey is the founder of AI Squared, a third-party software company that helps organizations…