35 years of Mozambique

This Friday (June 25th) marks the 35th anniversary of Mozambican independance from the Portuguese in 1975.

Mozambican history from the 60s through the 80s was not pretty, including the war of independance, followed by the civil war which finally ended in the early 90s. Eduardo Mondlane (who the university is named after) was the first leader of the independance movement, but died during the war and was succeeded by Mozambique's first president - Samora Machel.

There is a torch of independance which has been slowing making its way around the country over the last few months and will arrive in Maputo this week for a big celebration. Coverage of the torch has been shown regularly on the TV stations here. It's a national holiday as well, so hopefully I will be able to check out the celebrations.

Mozambican history has a number of interesting stories, including one that I have heard often about when the current president (at the time, the minister of the interior) famously declared the 24/20 rule. A large number of Portuguese residents had 24 hours to leave the country with a maximum of 20 kg of luggage. However, this exodus caused a huge leadership gap, since most of the Portuguese were the business owners and managers and there were no obvious replacements prepared. National leadership is still an issue here as even now a lot of the big businesses are owned and managed by foreigners, mostly Portuguese, Nigerians, Indians and South Africans.

Now with 35 years of independance and almost 20 years since the end of the civil war, it will be interesting to see where Mozambique is headed next.