Samora Moises Machel Biography

Name: Samora Moises Machel

Birth Date: September 29, 1933
Death Date: October 20, 1986
Place of Birth: Chilembene, Mozambique
Place of Death: Muzimi, South Africa
Nationality: Mozambican
Gender: Male
Occupations: president, socialist revolutionary

A dedicated military man and socialist revolutionary, Samora Moises Machel (1933-
1986) presided over the independence of Mozambique from Portugal in 1975 and
became its first president.

Samora Moises Machel was born on September 29, 1933, in a village in the District of
Gaza in the south of Mozambique. Like the great majority of Mozambicans of his
generation, he grew up in an agricultural village and attended mission elementary
school. Machel completed the fourth class--the prerequisite certificate for any higher
education. Most youngsters aspired to complete elementary school and perhaps learn a
skill, but most found it difficult. Machel's hopes for higher education were frustrated by
Catholic missionaries who refused to grant him a scholarship. Without financial
assistance it was difficult for most Africans to pay school fees, room, and board. Many
families needed the income earned by all family members just to survive.

Machel hoped to train as a nurse--one of the few professions which had been open to
blacks, albeit on a subordinate basis, since the early 20th century. Unable to secure the
fees to complete formal training at the Miguel Bombarda Hospital in Lourenco Marques
(today Maputo), he got a job working as an aide in the hospital and earned enough to
continue his education at night school. He worked at the hospital until he left the
country to join the nationalist struggle.

income earned by all family members just to survive.

Machel hoped to train as a nurse--one of the few professions which had been open to
blacks, albeit on a subordinate basis, since the early 20th century. Unable to secure the
fees to complete formal training at the Miguel Bombarda Hospital in Lourenco Marques
(today Maputo), he got a job working as an aide in the hospital and earned enough to
continue his education at night school. He worked at the hospital until he left the
country to join the nationalist struggle.

The Progress of a Revolutionary

Machel, like so many others, suffered under colonial rule. He saw the fertile lands of his
farming community on the Limpopo river appropriated by white settlers. His family
worked unprofitable and arduous cotton plots to comply with the colonial government's
cotton cultivation scheme, and they lost loved ones to work accidents and illness
resulting from the unsafe and unhealthy work conditions prevailing in the mines, farms,
and construction companies which employed thousands of Mozambicans. As an
educated black working in the capital city in the heyday of colonialism, Machel faced
the arrogance and racism despised by black workers throughout the country.

The visit of Eduardo Mondlane to Lourenco Marques and Gaza in 1961 was a turning
point for Mondlane and many others. Samora Machel, among others, urged the educator
Mondlane to dedicate himself to the nationalist cause. Since the late 1950s
Mozambicans from many backgrounds had left the country to organize an offensive.
Mondlane accepted the challenge to unite the many currents of Mozambican
nationalism into a front with a better chance for success. In June 1962 Mondlane
accepted Tanzanian President Nyerere's invitation to convene the principal nationalist
groups in Dar es Salaam. The leaders of these groups agreed to form the Front for the
Liberation of Mozambique (Frelimo) under Mondlane's leadership. Thereafter, the
stream of Mozambicans making their way to Tanzania to take up arms became a river.
By August 1963 Samora Machel had made his way to Tanzania to join the insurgents.

Machel was a member of the first group of Frelimo soldiers sent to Algeria for military
training. Upon completion of training, Machel returned to Tanzania to serve as an
instructor at Freli launched the armed struggle, 250 guerrillas had been trained for
combat. Machel coordinated guerrilla strategy for the Niassa campaign. Two years later,
upon the death of Frelimo's Secretary of Defense Filipe Magaia, Machel became
secretary of defense and then commander-in-chief of the army--positions he held
throughout the war.
Machel developed Frelimo strategies from his positions within the war zone,
propagandizing revolutionary values among the population of areas held by the
guerrillas. Machel firmly held that political and social issues were as fundamental to the
viability of the guerrilla war as were military tactics. His qualities as a tough soldier and
a persuasive speaker won him favor among his cadres. He also enjoyed the confidence
and respect of Frelimo President Mondlane. By 1968, when tension due to conflicting
political visions among competing factions within the leadership reached crisis
proportions, Mondlane, sensing the imminent danger of assassination, remarked to a
close friend: "They are determined to kill me.... But I am not worried any more. We
really do have a collective leadership, a good leadership. Frelimo--the movement--is
greater than one man. They don't understand that.... That Samora, they don't know him.
That man is brilliant. He understands."

On February 3, 1969, Mondlane was killed by a parcel bomb. It was then nearly
impossible to maintain unity among factions. In April 1969 a presidential council was
elected comprised of Uria Simango (former vice president), Samora Machel, and
Marcelino dos Santos (former secretary for foreign affairs). In November 1969 Simango
was suspended from the council, and in February 1970 he was expelled from Tanzania.
Machel became acting president and dos Santos acting vice president. At the fourth
session of Frelimo's Central Committee in May 1970 their positions were confirmed and
Simango was formally expelled from the party. The faction within Frelimo which
opposed the emphasis on a prolonged guerrilla struggle in favor of combining military
action with the establishment of socialism left with Simango and eventually organized
an opposition movement.

Machel, like Mondlane, was committed to the transformation of Mozambican society.

He claimed: "Of all the things we have done, the most important--the one that history
will record as the principal contribution of our generation--is that we understand how to
turn the armed struggle into a Revolution; that we realized that it was essential to create
a new mentality to build a new society." As Frelimo president he continued his efforts
to instill monew attitudes among the Mozambican people in the war zones. Observers
quipped that he travelled " ... with the headquarters in his pocket." Machel had a special
colleague in the person of his wife and comrade-in-arms Josina Abiatar Muthemba
Machel. They were married in May 1969.
Josina Muthemba Machel first tried to leave Mozambique to join Frelimo forces in
Tanzania in March 1964, but was apprehended and imprisoned by the Portuguese. She
finally escaped to Tanzania and in August 1965 she was assigned to organize political
education within the women's unit on the Niassa front. From 1965 to 1971 she
continued as a guerrilla and political organizer. By 1970 it was clear that her health was
deteriorating. Nonetheless, in March 1971 she undertook a march into Cabo Delgado,
but was ultimately evacuated to a hospital in Dar es Salaam where she died on April 7,
1971. Today she is remembered as a revolutionary heroine. In 1975 Machel married
Graca Simbine, also a Frelimo militant. Simbine became Mozambique's minister of
education.

Under Machel's leadership Frelimo's military made some key inroads and suffered some
devastating setbacks. He emphasized the expansion of the military effort, but insisted
that it proceed hand in hand with the political effort. The armed struggle gained
momentum in 1973-1974. In 1974 a combination of factors--not the least of which was
Frelimo's tenacious military drive--led to the 25th of April military coup in Portugal and
the subsequent collapse of Portuguese colonialism.

Independence and First President

At this key juncture Machel and the Frelimo leadership held out for full independence
and progress toward socialism, rejecting overtures toward compromise. They increased
military pressure, and by September 1974 Portugal agreed to grant Mozambique
independence under Frelimo rule on June 25, 1975.

During Mozambique's first decade of independence Samora Machel--President Samora,

as he was popularly known in Mozambique--faced the immensely difficult task of
national reconstruction. He spearheaded socialization of services and nationalization of
wealth and oversaw the transformation of Frelimo into a Marxist-Leninist party in 1977.
By the early 1980s, however, increasing guerrilla war waged by a somewhat motley
collection of opposition groups, a period of destructive floods followed by a devastating
regio's Kongwa militdrought, strategic errors in the state economic planning sector, and
a world-wide economic recession combined to create a crisis situation in Mozambique.
The government found itself increasingly unable to feed, defend, and service its people.
Machel remained characteristically pragmatic--taking responsibility for both popular
and unpopular decisions. He imposed economic sanctions on the Rhodesian
government, a popular act even though it caused severe economic consequences for the
Mozambican economy. He also signed the unpopular Incomati Accord, a non-
aggression pact with Mozambique's principal foe, the Union of South Africa. He signed
the accord hoping to alleviate the combination of economic and military pressure which
was increasingly undermining the viability of the Mozambican economy.

Machel remained committed to realizing a revolution from the armed struggle, but not
wedded to any single means for achieving that end. He consistently emphasized the
need to retain--and in some cases regain--the confidence of the people. He remained
popular, in part because Mozambicans related to Machel's personal experience as a
peasant, a worker, a guerrilla, and a political militant. His resilience may be due to
something highlighted by political observer John S. Saul: "What is impressive about the
Mozambican leadership ... is that the awareness of the need to sustain a genuinely
dialectical relationship between leadership and mass action remains very alive...."

Unhappily for Mozambique Machel was killed in an airplane crash October 20, 1986.
He was succeeded by Foreign Minister Joaquin Chissano (born 1939).

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