Mozambican War of Independence

From 1964 to 1974 FRELIMO fought a successful guerrilla war against Portuguese rule in Mozambique.

Overview

Eduardo Mondlane united exile movements into FRELIMO in 1962 and launched the war in September 1964 from bases in Tanganyika. As fighting spread from the northern provinces toward the center, Mondlane assassination by parcel bomb in Dar es Salaam in 1969 failed to stop the movement; Samora Machel led expanding liberated zones with schools, clinics, and people assemblies. The Portuguese army, stretched across three fronts, could hold towns but not the countryside. The April 1974 Carnation Revolution in Lisbon ended the war, and the Lusaka accord set independence for 25 June 1975 with Machel as president. FRELIMO Marxist modernization and Rhodesian and South African sponsorship of the RENAMO rebels then dragged the new nation into sixteen more years of civil war.