Eduardo Chivambo Mondlane born 20 June 1920 died 3 February 1969 served as the founding President of the Mozambican Liberation Front (FRELIMO) from 1962, the year that FRELIMO was founded in Tanzania, until his assassination in 1969. He was an anthropologist by profession but worked as a history and sociology professor at Syracuse University. Mondlana was the fourth of 16 sons of a tribal chief of the Bantu-speaking Tsonga, Mondlane was born in "N'wajahani", district of Mandlakazi in the province of Gaza," in Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique) in 1920. He worked as a shepherd until the age of 12. He attended several different primary schools before enrolling in a Swiss–Presbyterian school near Manjacaze.
However, he ended his secondary education in the same organisation's church school at Lemana College at Njhakanjhaka Village above Elim Hospital in the Transvaal, South Africa. He also worked for a while as a teacher at nearby Shirley Primary School at Shirley Village near the township of Waterval, above Elim Hospital. He then spent one year at the Jan Hofmeyer School of Social Work before enrolling in Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg but was expelled from South Africa after only a year, in 1949, following the rise of the Apartheid government. In June 1950 Mondlane entered the University of Lisbon, at Lisbon, the capital of Portugal.
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| Left to Right : Samora Machel with Eduardo Mondlane |
By Mondlane's request he was transferred to the United States, where he entered Oberlin College in Ohio at the age of 31, under a Phelps Stokes scholarship . Mondlane enrolled at Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, in 1951, starting as a junior, and in 1953 he obtained a degree in anthropology and sociology. He continued his studies at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Mondlane earned an MA and a PhD from Northwestern University and married Janet Rae Johnson, a white American woman from Indiana who then lived in the Chicago suburbs.
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| Eduardo Chivambo Mondlane |
After graduation, Eduardo Mondlane became a United Nations official. One of António de Oliveira Salazar's most important advisers, Adriano Moreira, a political science professor who had been appointed to the post of Portugal's Minister of the Overseas (Ministro do Ultramar), met Mondlane at the United Nations when both were working there and, recognising his qualities, tried to bring him to the Portuguese side by offering to him a post in Portuguese Mozambique's administration. However, Mondlane showed little interest in the offer and latter joined the Mozambican pro-independence movements in Tanzania, who lacked a credible leader. In 1962 Mondlane was elected president of the newly formed Mozambican Liberation Front (Frente de Libertação de Moçambique or FRELIMO), which was composed of elements from smaller independentist groups. In 1963 he settled FRELIMO headquarters outside of Mozambique in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania. Supported both by several Western countries and the USSR, as well as by many African states, FRELIMO began a guerrilla war in 1964 to obtain Mozambique's independence from Portugal.
In FRELIMO's early years, its leadership was divided: the faction led by Mondlane wanted not merely to fight for independence but also for a change to a socialist society; dos Santos, Machel and Chissano and a majority of the Party's Central Committee shared this view. Their opponents, prominent among whom were Nkavandame and Simango, wanted independence, but not a fundamental change in social relations: essentially the substitution of a black elite for the white elite. The socialist position was approved by the Second Party Congress, held in July 1968; Mondlane was re-elected party President, and a strategy of protracted war based on support among the peasantry (as opposed to a quick coup attempt) was adopted.
Legacy
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| Mozambican currency Metical |
Eduardo Mondlane University
In 1975, the Universidade de Lourenço Marques founded by the Portuguese and given the name of the capital of Portugal's Overseas Province of Mozambique, Lourenço Marques (now Maputo, Mozambique), was renamed Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, or Eduardo Mondlane University. It is still located in the capital city of independent Mozambique.
In 1975, the Universidade de Lourenço Marques founded by the Portuguese and given the name of the capital of Portugal's Overseas Province of Mozambique, Lourenço Marques (now Maputo, Mozambique), was renamed Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, or Eduardo Mondlane University. It is still located in the capital city of independent Mozambique.
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edited by dumbanenguebyceleste : 4 feb 2016. Stockholm Sweden
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