FRELIMO (; from , ) is a democratic socialist political party in Mozambique. It has governed the country since its independence from Portugal in 1975.
Founded in 1962, FRELIMO began as a nationalist movement fighting for the self-determination and independence of Mozambique from Portuguese colonial rule. During its anti-colonial struggle, FRELIMO managed to maintain friendly relations with both the Soviet Union and China, and received military and economic assistance from both. Independence was achieved in June 1975 after the Carnation Revolution in Lisbon the previous year. FRELIMO formally became a political party during its 3rd Party Congress in February 1977, and adopted Marxism–Leninism as its official ideology and FRELIMO Party () as its official name.
FRELIMO has been the ruling party of Mozambique since then, initially as the sole legal party in a one-party system and later as the democratically elected government in a dominant-party system. FRELIMO fought a protracted civil war from 1976 to 1992 against the anti-communist Mozambican National Resistance or RENAMO. RENAMO received support from the white minority governments of Rhodesia and South Africa. FRELIMO approved a new national constitution in 1990, which ended one-party rule and established a multi-party system. FRELIMO has since become the dominant party in Mozambique and has won a majority of the seats in the Assembly of the Republic in every election since the country's first multi-party election in 1994.
History
War of independence (1964–1974)
After World War II, while many European nations were granting independence to their colonies, Portugal, under the Estado Novo regime, maintained that Mozambique and other Portuguese possessions were overseas territories of the metropole (mother country). Emigration to the colonies soared. Calls for Mozambican independence developed rapidly, and in 1962 several anti-colonial political groups formed FRELIMO. In September 1964, it initiated an armed campaign against Portuguese colonial rule. Portugal had ruled Mozambique for more than four hundred years; not all Mozambicans desired independence, and fewer still sought change through armed revolution.
FRELIMO was founded in Dar es Salaam, Tanganyika, on 25 June 1962, when three regionally based nationalist organizations: the Mozambican African National Union (MANU), National Democratic Union of Mozambique (UDENAMO), and the National African Union of Independent Mozambique (UNAMI) merged into one broad-based guerrilla movement. Under the leadership of Eduardo Mondlane, who was elected president of the newly formed organization, FRELIMO settled its headquarters in 1963 in Dar es Salaam. Uria Simango was its first vice-president.
The movement could not then be based in Mozambique as the Portuguese opposed nationalist movements and the colony was controlled by the police. (The three founding groups had also operated as exiles.) Tanzania and its president, Julius Nyerere, were sympathetic to the Mozambican nationalist groups. Convinced by recent events, such as the Mueda massacre, that peaceful agitation would not bring about independence, FRELIMO contemplated the possibility of armed struggle from the outset. It launched its first offensive in September 1964.
During the ensuing war of independence, FRELIMO received support from the Soviet Union, China, the Scandinavian countries, and some non-governmental organisations in the West. The mobilization of all, regardless of gender, motivated the initial inclusion of women into the war. Initially women were used to carry goods from Tanzania, but over time they were tasked with "making the first contacts with the population in a new area." Women were expected to engage with the locals and politicize them. This discourse helped legitimize female cadres as real revolutionaries.
Frelimo founded the Women's Detachment, a part of the Department of Defense, as a way to encourage the mobilization of women and enlarge Frelimo's support. Women cadres brought "a new and decisive force to the revolutionary struggle."
Frelimo's initial military operations were in the North of the country; by the late 1960s it had established "liberated zones" in Northern Mozambique in which it, rather than the Portuguese, constituted the civil authority. In administering these zones, FRELIMO worked to improve the lot of the peasantry in order to receive their support. As liberated areas grew, colonial governmental structures were replaced, as Frelimo activists and local chiefs assumed roles of authority. Traditional leaders were accustomed to controlling "the productive and reproductive capacity of women." They "rejected women's rights to participate in armed struggle and defended the bride price system, child marriage and polygamy." These traditional practices "were all viewed as incompatible with the tenets of revolutionary society."Cabrita, Mozambique: The Tortuous Road to Democracy (New York: Palgrave, 2000), 116. Over time, traditional power structures were delegitimized by their association with Portuguese colonization and their inability to accommodate key components of revolutionary ideology. Frelimo encouraged the creation of collectives and greatly increased peasant access to education and healthcare. Often FRELIMO soldiers were assigned to medical assistance projects.
Its members' practical experiences in the liberated zones resulted in the FRELIMO leadership increasingly moving towards a Marxist policy. FRELIMO came to regard economic exploitation by Western capital as the principal enemy of the common Mozambican people, not the Portuguese as such, and not Europeans in general. Although it was an African nationalist party, it adopted a non-racial stance. Numerous white people were members.
The war of liberation was viewed as a rejection of "obstructionist, traditional-feudal and capitalist practices."Cabrita, Mozambique: The Tortuous Road to Democracy, 116. The transformation of "social and economic relations" had significant implications for women. Women's liberation was "not an act of charity," but rather "a fundamental necessity for the revolution, the guarantee of its continuity and the precondition to its victory."Samora Machel as quoted in Stephanie Urdang, The Last Transition? Women and Development in Mozambique, 90. This perspective recognizes the immense labor force that women constitute. Frelimo acknowledged that women's involvement in the formal economy would result in an economically stronger Mozambique. The population was encouraged to view women's emancipation as vital to the amelioration of Mozambique's society.
The early years of the party, during which its Marxist direction evolved, were times of internal turmoil. Mondlane, along with Marcelino dos Santos, Samora Machel, Joaquim Chissano and a majority of the Party's Central Committee promoted the struggle not just for independence but to create a socialist society. The 2nd Party Congress, held in July 1968, approved the socialist goals. Mondlane was reelected party President and Uria Simango was re-elected vice-president.
After Mondlane's assassination in February 1969, Uria Simango took over the leadership, but his presidency was disputed. In April 1969, leadership was assumed by a triumvirate, with Machel and Marcelino dos Santos supplementing Simango. After several months, in November 1969, Machel and dos Santos ousted Simango from FRELIMO. Simango left FRELIMO and joined the small Revolutionary Committee of Mozambique (COREMO) liberation movement.
FRELIMO established some "liberated" zones (countryside zones with native rural populations controlled by FRELIMO guerrillas) in Northern Mozambique. The movement grew in strength during the ensuing decade. As FRELIMO's political campaign gained coherence, its forces advanced militarily, controlling one-third of the area of Mozambique by 1969, mostly in the northern and central provinces. It was not able to gain control of the cities located inside the "liberated" zones but established itself firmly in the rural regions.
In 1970 the guerrilla movement suffered heavy losses as Portugal launched its ambitious Gordian Knot Operation (Operação Nó Górdio), which was masterminded by General Kaúlza de Arriaga of the Portuguese Army. By the early 1970s, FRELIMO's 7,000-strong guerrilla force had opened new fronts in central and northern Mozambique.
The April 1974 "Carnation Revolution" in Portugal overthrew the Portuguese Estado Novo regime, and the country turned against supporting the long and draining colonial war in Mozambique, Angola and Guinea-Bissau. Portugal and FRELIMO negotiated Mozambique's independence, which resulted in a transitional government until official independence from Portugal in June 1975.
FRELIMO established a one-party state based on socialist principles, with Samora Machel re-elected as President of FRELIMO and subsequently the First President of the People's Republic of Mozambique. The new government first received diplomatic recognition, economic and military support from Cuba and the Socialist Bloc countries. Marcelino dos Santos became vice-president of FRELIMO and the central committee was expanded.
At the same time FRELIMO had to deal with various small political parties that sprung up and were now contesting for control of Mozambique with FRELIMO along with the reaction of white settlers. Prominent groups included FICO ("I stay" in Portuguese) and the "Dragons of Death" which directly clashed with FRELIMO.Unknown Author, "Mozambique Radio Seized by Ex‐Portuguese Soldiers", The New York Times, 7 September 1974 Government forces moved in and quickly smashed these movements and arrested various FRELIMO dissidents and Portuguese collaborators who were involved in FICO, the Dragons and other political entities that conspired or aligned against FRELIMO. These included prominent dissidents such as Uria Simango, his wife Celina, Paulo Gumane, Lazaro Nkavandame and Adelino Gwambe.
Marxist–Leninist period (1975–1989)
Mozambique's national anthem from 1975 to 1992 was "" ().
Immediately after independence, Mozambique and FRELIMO faced extraordinarily tough circumstances. The country was bankrupt with almost all of its skilled workforce fleeing or already fled, a 95% illiteracy rate and a brewing counter-revolutionary movement known as the "Mozambique National Resistance" (RENAMO) was beginning its first strikes against key government infrastructure with the assistance of Ian Smith's Rhodesia.Various, Comissão de Implementação dos Conselhos de Produção 1977 As the RENAMO movement grew in strength, FRELIMO and RENAMO began clashing directly in what would quickly turn into the deadly Mozambican Civil War which did not end until 1992.
Large steps had already been taken towards the construction of a Mozambican socialist society by time of the 3rd Party Congress in February 1977, including the nationalisation of the land, many agricultural, industrial and commercial enterprises, rented housing, the banks, health and education.
FRELIMO transformed itself into a Marxist–Leninist vanguard party of the worker-peasant alliance at the congress. The congress laid down firmly that the political and economic guidelines for the development of the economy and the society would be for the benefit of all Mozambicans.Directivas Económicas e Sociais Documentos do III Congresso da FRELIMO, 1977 FRELIMO was also restructured extensively, the central committee expanding to over 200 members and the transformation of FRELIMO from a front into a formal political party, adopting the name "Partido FRELIMO" (FRELIMO Party).Samora Machel, O Partido e as Classes Trabalhadoras Moçambicanas na Edificação da Democracia Popular Documentos do III Congresso da FRELIMO, 1977