Samora Machel: Biografia

Samora Moisés Machel (29 September 1933 – 19 October 1986) was a Mozambican military

commander and political leader. A socialist in the tradition of Marxism–Leninism, he served as
the first President of Mozambique from the country's independence in 1975.

Machel died in office in 1986 when his presidential aircraft crashed near the Mozambican-

South African border.

Early life[edit]

Machel was born in the village of Madragoa (today's Chilembene), Gaza

Province, Mozambique, to a family of farmers. His grandfather had been an active collaborator
of Gungunhana. Under Portuguese rule, his father, like most Black Mozambicans, was
classified by the demeaning term "indígena" (native). He was forced to accept lower prices for
his crops than White farmers; compelled to grow labour-intensive cotton, which took time
away from the food crops needed for his family; and forbidden to brand his mark on his cattle
to prevent thievery. However, Machel's father was a successful farmer: he owned four plows
and 400 head of cattle by 1940. Machel grew up in this farming village and attended mission
elementary school. In 1942, he was sent to school in the town of Zonguene in Gaza Province.
The school was run by Catholic missionaries who educated the children in Portuguese
language and culture. Although having completed the fourth grade, Machel never completed
his secondary education. However, he had the prerequisite certificate to train as a nurse
anywhere in Portugal at the time, since the nursing schools were not degree-conferring
institutions.[citation needed]

Machel started to study nursing in the capital city of Lourenço Marques (today Maputo),
beginning in 1954. In the 1950s, he saw some of the fertile lands around his farming
community on the Limpopo river appropriated by the provincial government and worked by
White settlers who developed a wide range of new infrastructure for the region. Like many
other Mozambicans near the southern border of Mozambique, some of his relatives went to
work in the South African mines where additional job opportunities were found. Shortly
afterwards, one of his brothers was killed in a mining accident. [1][2][3][4][5] Unable to complete
formal training at the Miguel Bombarda Hospital in Lourenço Marques, he got a job working as
an aide in the same hospital and earned enough to continue his education at night school. He
worked at the hospital until he left the country to join the Mozambican nationalist struggle in
neighbouring Tanzania.

Independence struggleMachel was attracted to anti-colonial ideals and began his political
activities in the Miguel Bombarda hospital in Lourenço Marques, where he protested against
the fact that black nurses were paid less than whites doing the same job. Machel decided to
leave Lourenço Marques (Maputo), when a white anti-fascist, the pharmaceutical
representative João Ferreira, warned him that he was being watched by the Portuguese
political police, the PIDE. He slipped across the border, and made his way to
join FRELIMO in Dar es Salaam, via Swaziland, South Africa and Botswana. In Botswana, he
hitched a lift on a plane carrying recruits of the African National Congress of South Africa to
Tanzania. Impressed by the young Mozambican, a senior ANC official J.B. Marks (according
to Joe Slovo) bumped one of the ANC recruits off the flight to let Machel on. [6]
In Dar es Salaam, Machel volunteered for military service, and was one of the second group of
FRELIMO guerrillas sent for training in Algeria. Back in Tanzania, he was put in charge of
FRELIMO's own training camp, at Kongwa. After FRELIMO launched the independence war, on
September 25, 1964, Machel soon became a key commander, making his name in particular in
the grueling conditions of the eastern area of the vast and sparsely populated province
of Niassa. He rapidly rose up the ranks of the guerrilla army, the FPLM, and became the head
of the army after the death of its first commander, Filipe Samuel Magaia, in October 1966.

Frelimo's founder and first president, Eduardo Mondlane, was assassinated by a parcel bomb
on February 3, 1969. His deputy, Rev Uria Simango, expected to take over – but instead the
FRELIMO Executive Committee appointed a presidential triumvirate, consisting of Simango,
Machel and veteran nationalist and poet Marcelino dos Santos. Simango soon broke ranks, and
denounced the rest of the FRELIMO leadership in the pamphlet “Gloomy Situation in Frelimo”.
[7]
 This led to Simango's expulsion from the liberation front, and the election, in 1970, of
Machel as Frelimo President, with dos Santos as Deputy President.

Like the late Mondlane, Machel identified himself with Marxism–Leninism, and under his
leadership these positions became central to FRELIMO, which evolved from a broad front into
a more Marxist party.[8]

The new commander of the Portuguese army in Mozambique, Gen. Kaúlza de Arriaga, boasted
that he would eliminate FRELIMO in a few months. He launched the largest offensive of
Portugal's colonial wars, Operation Gordian Knot, in 1970, concentrating on what was
regarded as the FRELIMO heartland of Cabo Delgado in the far north. Kaúlza de Arriaga
boasted of destroying a large number of guerrilla bases – but since such a base was just a
collection of huts, the military significance of such supposed victories was dubious. Machel
reacted by shifting the focus of the war elsewhere, stepping up FRELIMO operations in the
western province of Tete. This was where a massive dam was being built at Cahora Bassa, on
the Zambezi, to sell electricity to South Africa. Fearful that FRELIMO would attack the dam site,
the Portuguese set up three concentric rings of defence around Cahora Bassa. This denuded
the rest of Tete province of troops, and in 1972 FRELIMO crossed the Zambezi, striking further
and further south. By 1973, FRELIMO units were operating in Manica and Sofala Province and
began to hit the railway from Rhodesia to Beira, causing panic among the settler population of
Beira, who accused the Portuguese army of not doing enough to defend white interests. [9]

The end came suddenly. On April 25, 1974, Portuguese officers, tired of fighting three
unwinnable wars in Africa, overthrew the government in Lisbon. The coup was almost
bloodless. Nobody came onto the streets to defend Prime Minister Marcelo Caetano. Within
24 hours, the Armed Forces Movement (MFA) was in full control of Portugal.

Independence[edit]
 Independent Mozambique with Maputo as capital

Frelimo's immediate warning was that there was no such thing as democratic colonialism, and
that nobody should imagine that Mozambicans would tolerate Portuguese rule just because
there had been a change of government in Lisbon. Frelimo's fears were well-founded. The MFA
allowed General António de Spínola to become the first post-coup President. He had been
commander of the Portuguese forces in Guinea-Bissau, then Portuguese Guinea, and was
believed to be deeply implicated in the assassination of the Guinean nationalist leader, Amílcar
Cabral.

Spinola had no intention of letting Mozambique and Angola go. He dreamed of

a Lusophone commonwealth run from Lisbon, and wanted a referendum on independence.
Machel rejected such plans with the pithy remark: "You don't ask a slave if he wants to be free,
particularly when he is already in revolt, and much less if you happen to be a slave-owner". [10]

Initial discussions between Frelimo and the new Portuguese government, held in Lusaka in
June 1974, proved fruitless. It was clear to Machel that the Portuguese foreign
minister, Socialist Party leader Mário Soares, had no power to negotiate independence. So
Machel sent one of his top advisers, Aquino de Bragança, to Lisbon to find out who really held
power in Portugal. His answer was that Frelimo should really be talking to the MFA, particular
to military intellectuals such as Col. Ernesto Melo Antunes, whose power was on the rise, as
that of Spinola waned.

Machel refused to give the Portuguese the ceasefire they wanted. For as long as there was no
commitment to Mozambican independence, the war would continue. Frelimo re-opened its
front in Zambezia province, and stepped up operations throughout the war zone. There was
little resistance. Following the collapse of the Caetano government, rank and file Portuguese
soldiers saw little point in continuing to fight, preferring to stay in their barracks. [11]

More serious talks between the Lisbon government and Frelimo ensued, and this time the
MFA played a dominant role. The result was an agreement, signed in Lusaka on September 7,
1974, which agreed to transfer full power to Frelimo with the date for independence set for
June 25, 1975. That day there was a short-lived settler revolt against the agreement, put down
within a day by Portuguese and Frelimo troops acting jointly. A transitional government was
set up, containing ministers appointed by both Frelimo and Portugal, but headed by Frelimo's
Joaquim Chissano as Prime Minister. Machel continued to run Frelimo from Tanzania. He
returned home triumphantly, in a journey "from the Rovuma to the Maputo" (the rivers
marking the northern and southern boundaries of the country), in which he addressed rallies
in every major population centre in the country.

The journey was interrupted at the beach resort of Tofo, in Inhambane Province, for a meeting
of the Frelimo Central Committee, which drew up Mozambique's first Constitution. This gave
the outline of the one-party, socialist state which Frelimo intended to establish. Frelimo was
constitutionally the leading force in Mozambican society, and the President of Frelimo would
automatically be President of Mozambique. [12] On June 25, 1975, Machel proclaimed "the total
and complete independence of Mozambique and its constitution into the People's Republic of
Mozambique". This, he said, would be "a state of People's Democracy, in which, under the
leadership of the worker-peasant alliance, all patriotic strata commit themselves to the
destruction of the sequels of colonialism, and to annihilate the system of exploitation of man
by man".[13]

Machel's government moved quickly to bring key areas under state control. All land was
nationalized – individuals and institutions could not hold land, but leased it from the state. On
July 24, 1975, just a month after independence, all health and education institutions were
nationalized.[14] National health and education services were set up, and all private schools and
clinics were abolished. The Catholic Church immediately lost the privileged position it had held
in these areas. On February 3, 1976, the government nationalized all rented housing.
“Landlords? What do we want landlords for in our country for?”, asked Machel at the rally
announcing the measure. Private ownership of houses was not banned. Anyone, Mozambican
or foreign, could own a house for their own use - but building private property for rent was
forbidden. This changed the face of Mozambican cities – black Mozambicans moved from the
suburbs into blocks in the centre of the cities, occupying houses and flats, once owned by
Portuguese landlords, and many of which had now been abandoned.

In February 1977, at its 3rd Congress, Frelimo declared that it was now a Marxist–Leninist
party, dedicated to the building of socialism, based on the “worker-peasant alliance”. The
Congress re-elected Machel as President of Frelimo, and thus automatically as President of the
Republic.

Frelimo was reorganized into celulas (“branches”) throughout the county. The party was to be
a Leninist vanguard, and state institutions, at whatever level, were to be subordinate to the
party. In 1978 elections were held. Since this was a one-party state, there was no organized
opposition. Instead, candidates were presented by Frelimo at meetings – and were sometimes
rejected when people complained of offences ranging from wife-beating and drunkenness to
acting as an informer for the PIDE during the colonial government.

Frelimo faced a hostile environment, with the white minority governments of Ian Smith's
Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa on Mozambique's borders. In March 1976, Machel's
government implemented United Nations sanctions against the Smith government, and closed
the borders with Rhodesia. In retaliation, Smith's Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO)
recruited dissatisfied Mozambicans and former Portuguese settlers and helped set up an anti-
Frelimo movement. Initially this “Mozambique National Resistance” operated as an auxiliary
branch of the Rhodesian armed forces. Frelimo dismissed them as “armed bandits”. [15]
As part of the measures accompanying the new Frelimo government, Machel introduced
"reeducation centers" in which petty criminals, political opponents, and alleged anti-social
elements such as prostitutes were imprisoned, often without trial. These were later described
by foreign observers as "infamous centers of torture and death." [16] It is estimated that 30,000
inmates died in these camps.[17]

Rhodesian Bush War[edit]

Frelimo had longstanding links with Zimbabwean nationalist movements. Even during the
independence war, guerrillas of ZANLA (Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army), the
armed wing of ZANU (Zimbabwe African National Union), were able to operate from Frelimo-
held areas in Tete province into northern areas of Rhodesia. After the implementation of the
UN sanctions against the Rhodesian government, the entire length of the border was now
available for nationalist incursions into Rhodesia.

ZANU leader Robert Mugabe, released from Salisbury Prison, Rhodesia in 1974, made his way
into Mozambique the following year. Initially, Machel was suspicious of the apparent coup
within ZANU that had brought Mugabe to power, and he was effectively rusticated to the
central city of Quelimane, where he taught English.[18] Tired of the divisions within
Zimbabwean nationalism, Machel sponsored an alternative to both ZANU and its rival ZAPU.
This was the Zimbabwean People's Army (ZIPA), which took credit for many operations in
eastern Zimbabwe, and was enthusiastically promoted by the Mozambican media. But it soon
turned out that the dominant force within ZIPA were ZANLA guerrillas who had never
abandoned their loyalty to ZANU and to Mugabe. [19]

Machel accepted the reality that the people doing most of the fighting in Zimbabwe were
ZANLA. To bring the war to a successful conclusion, Machel embarked on a dual strategy,
military and diplomatic. He sent Mozambican units into Zimbabwe to fight alongside ZANU
guerrillas, while also insisting that the new British Conservative government, under Prime
Minister Margaret Thatcher, should resume its responsibilities as the colonial power. [20]

The UK Government hosted a conference at Lancaster House in London, aimed at ending

White minority rule and drawing up a constitution for an independent Zimbabwe.
Mozambicans, notably Machel's British-trained advisor, Fernando Honwana, were in London to
advise the ZANU delegation – and ensured that Mugabe accepted the Lancaster House
Agreement, despite its failure to solve the land question, with a small minority of white
commercial farmers still holding most of the country's fertile farmland. Machel, with his own
intelligence teams on the ground, was certain that ZANU would win any fair election. Indeed,
ZANU won 57 of the 80 seats reserved for Black Zimbabweans, while the second nationalist
movement, ZAPU, won 20. Ian Smith's Rhodesian Front took the 20 seats, which Mugabe had
reluctantly agreed to allocate to the Whites.

Machel was fully aware of the dangerous ethnic divisions in Zimbabwe, with ZANU drawing
most of its support from the Shona majority, and ZAPU from the minority Ndebele people. On
his first state visit to Zimbabwe, in 1980, Machel gave a warning: "To ensure national unity,
there must be no Shonas in Zimbabwe, there must be no Ndebeles in Zimbabwe, there must
be Zimbabweans. Some people are proud of their tribalism. But we call tribalists reactionary
agents of the enemy".[21]

Civil War[edit]
In 1977, a rebel army known as RENAMO launched a rebellion backed by Rhodesia, plunging
the country into civil war. Following the collapse of Smith's government, the rebel force began
to receive backing from South Africa.[22] The movement was initially known as the RNM
(translated into English as MNR), but as from 2003 adopted the acronym Renamo.

During the 1980s, the South African government took an increasingly hostile attitude to the
Front Line States. Mozambique, in particular, was accused of harbouring military bases of
the African National Congress. On June 30, 1981, South African commandos attacked three
houses in the southern city of Matola, killing 12 ANC members as well as a Portuguese
electrician. While those killed were members of the ANC's armed wing, Umkhonto we
Sizwe (MK - Spear of the Nation), the houses were not a guerrilla base, as visiting diplomats
and journalists soon confirmed. A fortnight later, Machel threw down the gauntlet. At a rally in
Maputo's independence square, he embraced ANC leader Oliver Tambo and declared "They
want to come here and commit murder. So we say: Let them come! Let all the racists come!...
Let the South Africans come, but let them be clear that the war will end in Pretoria!" [23]

Helped by weapons airdropped by the South African Defence Force (SADF), Renamo spread its
operations across the entire country with the exception of the far north. Frelimo reacted with
a series of authoritarian measures, some of which deeply shocked its supporters inside and
outside the country. The death penalty, already in force for serious security offences, was now
extended to a range of economic crimes. In addition, corporal punishment was imposed as a
penalty for a range of offences. Both laws fell into disuse within a year or so but had done
severe damage to Frelimo's image.[citation needed] It is widely believed that, at about this time,
former Frelimo officials regarded as “traitors” were executed, including Simango and his wife
Celina. To this day, Frelimo has published nothing about the circumstances of the execution,
though in the Mozambican parliament, in 1995, former security minister Sergio Vieira publicly
confirmed “the traitors were executed”. Renamo supporters published colourful versions
claiming that the executions happened in 1977, [24] but a date of 1983 seems more likely. In
either case, this violated a promise which Machel gave to
the Tanzanian and Zambian Presidents, Julius Nyerere and Kenneth Kaunda in 1975.

At the Frelimo Fourth Congress, in April 1983, Frelimo reaffirmed its commitment to Marxism,
but admitted economic mistakes, particularly in agriculture. [25] Machel was re-elected
President of Frelimo, and once again warmly embraced Oliver Tambo.

But the deteriorating military and economic situation drove Frelimo to give the apartheid
government what it said it wanted – a non-aggression pact. On March 16, 1984, on a railway
carriage in the non-man's land between South Africa and Mozambique, Machel and South
African President P. W. Botha signed the Nkomati Accord on Non-Aggression and Good
Neighbourliness. The deal expressed in the agreement was extremely simple – South Africa
would drop its support for Renamo in exchange for Mozambique dropping support for the
ANC.[26]

Machel only partially honoured commitments to expel various ANC members from his
territory. South African support for Renamo did not stop – massive shipments of arms were
airlifted to Renamo immediately prior to the Accord, and a senior South African official, Deputy
Foreign Minister Louis Nel, even visited the Renamo base at Casa Banana in Gorongosa district,
using an airstrip which South Africa had helped Renamo build. In mid-1985, the Mozambican
and Zimbabwean armed forces launched a joint offensive to drive Renamo out of Gorongosa.
Zimbabwean paratroopers ensured the capture of Casa Banana, but Renamo leader Afonso
Dhlakama fled north, and re-established the Renamo HQ in the district of Maringue. Visiting
Casa Banana on September 5, Machel was optimistic. "We have broken the back of the snake,
but the tail will still thrash around," he said. [27]

But in fact, the war continued, although its focus shifted northwards to Zambezia and Tete
provinces, with Renamo operating with impunity out of Malawi. Machel loathed
the Malawian "life President" Hastings Kamuzu Banda, who was the only leader of an
independent African state who had established diplomatic relations with Pretoria. After an
unsuccessful meeting with Banda, Machel openly threatened to place missiles on the
Mozambique-Malawi border and to prevent trade from landlocked Malawi passing through
Mozambican territory.[28]

Fatal aircrash and investigations[edit]

Remains of the wreck

Main article:  1986 Mozambican Tupolev Tu-134 crash

On 19 October 1986, Machel attended a summit in Mbala, Zambia, called to put pressure

on Zairean dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, over his support for the Angolan opposition
movement UNITA. The strategy of the Front Line States was to move against Mobutu and
Banda in an attempt to end their support for UNITA and Renamo, who they regarded as South
African surrogates. Although the Zambian authorities invited Machel to stay in Mbala
overnight, he insisted on returning to Maputo. He had a meeting scheduled for the following
morning at which he intended to reshuffle the leadership of the armed forces. Machel thus
overrode the instruction from the Security Ministry that the President should not travel at
night – with fatal consequences. The plane never reached Maputo. That night it crashed into a
hillside at Mbuzini, just inside South Africa. Machel and 33 others died. Nine people sitting at
the back of the plane survived.[29]

The Margo Commission, set up by the South African government, but which included high-
level international representation,[citation needed] investigated the incident and concluded that the
accident was caused by pilot error.[30] Despite the acceptance of its findings by
the International Civil Aviation Organization, the report was rejected by the Mozambican and
Soviet governments. The latter submitted a minority report suggesting that the aircraft was
intentionally lured off course by a decoy radio navigation beacon set up specifically for this
purpose by the South Africans. Speculation about the accident has therefore continued to the
present day, particularly in Mozambique.[31]

Hans Louw, a Civil Cooperation Bureau operative, claims to have helped bring about Machel's
death.[32][33] Pik Botha, South African foreign affairs minister at the time, who later joined
the ANC, said that the investigation into the plane crash should be re-opened. [34]

The Portuguese journalist, José Milhazes [pt], who lived in Moscow from 1977 to 2015 and

currently[when?] works for the Portuguese newspaper Público and as a correspondent for the
Portuguese television channel SIC, maintains that the plane crash had nothing to do with any
attempt or any mechanical failure, but was due to several errors of the Russian crew (including
the pilot), who, instead of diligently performing their duties, were busy with futile things, like
sharing alcoholic and soft drinks unavailable in Mozambique that they had had the possibility
to bring from Zambia. In Milhazes' opinion, both the Soviet and the Mozambican authorities
had an interest to spread the thesis of an attempt by the South African government: the
Soviets wanted to safeguard their reputation (exempting the plane and the crew from any
responsibility), the Mozambicans wanted to create a hero. [35]

In 2007, however, Jacinto Veloso, one of Machel's most unconditional supporters within
Frelimo, had sustained in his memoirs that Machel's death was due to a conspiracy between
the South African and the Soviet secret services, both of which had reasons to get rid of him.
According to Veloso, the Soviet ambassador once asked the President for an audience to
convey the USSR's concern about Mozambique's apparent "sliding away" towards the West, to
which Machel supposedly replied "Vai à merda!" (Go to hell!). Having then commanded the
interpreter to translate, he left the room. Convinced that Machel had irrevocably moved away
from their orbit, the Soviets allegedly did not hesitate to sacrifice the pilot and the whole crew
of their own plane.[36]

People who died in the crash alongside President Samora Machel

Name Function

Luís Maria de Alcântara

Minister of Transport & Communication
Santos

José Carlos Lobo Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs

Fernando Honwana Special Assistant to the President

Alberto Cangela de
Head of the National Protocol
Mendonça

Cox. C. Sikumba Ambassador of the Republic of Zambia

Tokwalu Batale Ambassador of the Republic of Zaire

Director of the Center for African Studies, University Eduardo

Aquino de Bragança
Mondlane

Deputy Director of the Directorate of Legal & Consular Affairs of

João Tomás Navesse
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Muradali Mamadhusen Private Secretary to President

Ivete Amós Secretary of the President

Osvaldo de Sousa English interpreter of the President

 Bernardino Chiche French interpreter of the President

Gulamo Khan Press Attaché

Daniel Maquinasse President’s private photographer

Azarias Inguane Photographer of Jornal Notícias

Henriques Bettencourt Doctor of President

Ulisses La Rosa Mesa Personal Doctor of President

Capitão Parente
member of staff of the Presidency
Manjate

Nacir Charamadame member of staff of the Presidency

Adão Gore Nhoca member of staff of the Presidency

Eduardo Viegas member of staff of the Presidency

Albino Falteira member of staff of the Presidency

José Quivanane member of staff of the Presidency

Alberto Chaúque member of staff of the Presidency

Orlando Garrine Flight attendant

Esmeralda Luísa Flight attendant

Sofia Arone Flight attendant

Ilda Carão Flight attendant

Iuri Novdran Aircraft Commander

Igor Kartmychev Flight Engineer

Amatoli Choulipov Flight Engineer

Fernando Nhanquila Flight Engineer

Funeral and burial[edit]

Machel's state funeral was held in Maputo on 28 October 1986. It was attended by numerous
political leaders and other notable people from Africa and elsewhere, including Dr. Robert
Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Dr. Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania,
King Moshoeshoe II of Lesotho, Daniel arap Moi of Kenya and Yasser Arafat of Palestinian
State. Also present were the ANC leader Oliver Tambo, the U.S. President's daughter Maureen
Reagan, the First Deputy Prime Minister of the Soviet Union Heidar Aliyev, and the civil rights
leader, Jesse Jackson.[37]

At the funeral, the acting leader of Frelimo, Marcelino dos Santos, said in a speech: "The shock
of your journey from which there is no return still shudders through the body of the entire
nation. You fell in the struggle against apartheid… You understood apartheid as a problem for
all humanity."[37]

Samora Machel was buried in a star-shaped crypt at Mozambican Heroes' Square, a traffic
junction in Maputo.[38]

Marriages and family life[edit]

Postage stamp issued by the Soviet Union in Machel's honor in 1986

In the late 1950s, when Machel was working as a nurse on Inhaca Island, he met a local girl,
Sorita Tchaiakomo, and set up house with her. Their first child, Joscelina, was born on Inhaca in
1958. Idelson (1959) and Olívia (1961) were both born after the family returned to the
mainland, where they lived in Mafalala, a suburb of Lourenço Marques. Machel returned to
the Miguel Bombarda Hospital and was accepted onto a course of further training. At the
hospital he began a relationship with another nurse, Irene Buque. She gave birth to their
daughter Ornila in February 1963, three weeks before Machel left Mozambique to join
Frelimo. N’tewane, Tchaiakomo's fourth child with Machel, was born that September, six
months after Machel had left the country. [39] Later, Machel expressed remorse for what he had
come to see as bad behaviour towards Sorita and Irene. [40]

Machel was not married to either Tchaiakomo or Buque. When he joined Frelimo in 1963 it
was widely believed that the war for independence would last years, if not decades, and that
the chances of Frelimo cadres being reunited with their families in Mozambique were
vanishingly small. Josina Abiatar Muthemba, who had been active in the anti-colonial student
organisation NESAM, arrived in Tanzania in 1965, on her second attempt to flee Mozambique.
In Tanzania she worked first as an assistant to Janet Mondlane, Eduardo Mondlane's wife and
director of the Mozambique Institute. She became one of the earliest recruits to the Women's
Detachment of the guerrilla army, and campaigned vigorously for women's full inclusion within
all aspects of the liberation struggle. She and Machel were married at Tunduru in southern
Tanzania in May 1969. In November their only son Samora, known as Samito, was born. Josina
returned to work as head of Social Affairs, with special responsibility for the welfare of war
orphans, and for the health and education of all children in the war zones of northern
Mozambique. But she felt increasingly unwell. In 1970 she travelled to the Soviet Union to seek
a diagnosis for her chronic ill-health, but to no avail. She was probably suffering
from leukaemia, although pancreatic cancer is another possibility. She died on April 7, 1971,
aged twenty-five. Machel was devastated. [41]

Machel's second wife, Graça Simbine, joined Frelimo in 1973 after graduating in modern
languages from Lisbon University. She worked as a teacher, first in Frelimo-held areas in Cabo
Delgado province, and then at the Frelimo school in Tanzania. She became Minister for
Education and Culture in newly independent Mozambique. She and Machel were married
three months after Independence, in September 1975. In April 1976 a daughter, Josina, was
born, and in December 1978 a son, Malengane. [42] At Independence Machel's five older
children joined Josina Machel's son Samito in the Presidential household. In 1998, twelve years
after Samora Machel's death, Graça Machel married Nelson Mandela, President of South
Africa, thus becoming the only woman to have been First Lady of two countries.

International relationships[edit]

Machel meeting Margot Honecker in Berlin, 1983

Samora Machel established a strong relationship with Italy, because of its interest in

fighting apartheid and Portuguese colonialism. In particular, the city of Reggio Emilia organized
many initiatives to draw Italian attention to the great political problems of southern Africa. On
24 and 25 March 1973, Machel took part in the first "National Conference of solidarity against
colonialism and imperialism for freedom and independence of Mozambique, Angola and
Guinea Bissau".[43] When Reggio Emilia sent the first solidarity ship "Amanda", Machel
welcomed it at the port of Maputo. He said: "Solidarity is not a charity act. It's cooperation,
mutual support between peoples striving to reach the same goal. This ship brings peace, it
brings the solidarity of the whole Italian people for every population." [44] He returned to visit
Reggio Emilia in 1981

Fuente WIKIPEDIA