Mozambique: Independence and a Dirty War
The Conflict
Mozambique was a colony of Portugal for more than two hundred years. Following Mozambique's independence from Portugal in the early 1970s, the white minority governments of Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, and South Africa, began to fund and direct a campaign to destabilize Mozambique. Brutal warfare and massive destruction of the infrastructure left Mozambique impoverished.
Political
- Rhodesia and South Africa did not want successful black governments in neighboring states, because it undermined their claim that Africans could not govern themselves.
- FRELIMO turned to the Soviet Union for funding following independence, declaring itself to be a socialist organization.
- Some Western nations, including the Untied States, provided funding for the South African-sponsored RENAMO, as a way of fighting the socialist FRELIMO.
Modern Mozambique has been shaped by many forces, chief among these being its thirty-year war. The war began in 1962 and ended in 1992. Aspects of the conflict continue to impact Mozambique. Throughout the country, more than ten million antipersonnel mines make it risky to farm the large, fertile tracts of land. The mines continue to kill and maim long after the battles of the Cold War have ended. In addition, man-made famine, resulting in thousands of deaths, is a very recent memory.
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