Samora Machel (1933 - 1986)

Fri Sep 29, 1933

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Samora Machel, born on this day in 1933, was a Marxist-Leninist revolutionary who served as President of independent Mozambique in 1975. “Marxism is a shining path, a sun of hope and certainty that never sets, that is always at its zenith.”

Before serving as president, Machel had led the Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO) against colonial forces from 1970 until the political aftermath of the Portuguese Carnation Revolution ended the war four years later.

On June 25th, 1975, Mozambique became a formally independent nation with Machel serving as its first President. He stated the new nation 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”.

On October 19th, 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. On his return trip to Maputo (the capital of Mozambique), Machel’s plane crashed near the Mozambican-South African border, killing him and 33 others.

“For the oppressed peoples and classes, for the peoples and workers who have taken control of their destiny, Marxism is a shining path, a sun of hope and certainty that never sets, a sun that is always at its zenith.”

- Samora Machel