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". 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. 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. On June 25, 1975, Machel proclaimed "the total and complete independence of Mozambique and its constitution into the
People's Republic of Mozambique". 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. 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”. 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 and drug users were imprisoned, often without trial. The conditions in these centers were harsh. Although there is a lack of reliable figures, Benedito Machava estimated that over a thousand inmates may have died due to starvation, disease, punishments or execution. In discussing Machel's role, Machava stated that the president took on a "salvationist stance", influenced both by Christianity and
Maoism, which led him to believe in the beneficial effects of reeducation for enforcing his vision of social and moral purity. Despite the abuses and harsh conditions, there was also an emphasis on
rehabilitation. For example, in 1979–80, three reeducation centers were closed, leading to the reintegration of 2600 former inmates (including hundreds of "
political offenders") into society. In an October 1981 speech, Machel himself acknowledged and criticized the existence of lengthy arbitrary detentions. However, Machel was unapologetic about the repression of dissidents inside and outside FRELIMO. In 1975, he had made a public appearance at the
Nachingwea military camp for a lengthy
show trial of former FRELIMO militants who had opposed the party's power consolidation, including
Paulo Gumane and
Uria Simango. Under pressure, the captives confessed to a variety of serious crimes. They are presumed to have been executed sometime in the years that followed; according to a 1995 report by Jose Pinto de Sa and Nelson Saute, they were burned alive by a convoy of soldiers in 1977. ==Rhodesian Bush War==