A frente de libertação de Moçambique e as conexões transnacionais da Guerra Fria : 1962-1969

Abstract

The Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO) moved in a unique way through the international context of the Cold War. Created in 1962, it brought together Mozambicans from diverse backgrounds, with different projects, ambitions, and access to very varied transnational connections. The unification of such divergent agents was only possible after a clash between their perspectives, which involved a continental rivalry between the political projects of Tanganyika and Ghana, which sponsored these conflicting Mozambicans. Finally established in Dar es Salaam in June 1962, the Front began to project itself to the world. Between 1962 and 1969 it achieved the feat of becoming the only African anti-colonial movement to receive support from the three international superpowers of the period. This was only possible from tortuous paths. In the United States, the president of FRELIMO, Eduardo Mondlane, resorted to old connections he had to get support for his humanitarian project, which became the creation of the Mozambique Institute in 1963. In the Soviet Union, Marcelino dos Santos, secretary of foreign affairs of the FRELIMO, was an important spokesman for the Mozambican anti-colonial movement, which began to receive substantial support in arms from Eastern Europe. In China, vice-president Uria Simango became a respected individual in that Asian country who soon sent instructors to FRELIMO military camps, becoming very influential among its militants. The Front did not go unpunished along such divergent paths. By laying solid foundations for its international recognition, it saw an explosion of its internal conflicts that almost led to its own demise in 1969.