Para a história do surgimento dos exércitos nos actuais estados africanos estudo do caso : a edificação das FAM-FPLM 1962-1977

Abstract

The occupation and colonial domination of Africa represented not only the subjugation of the anti-colonial resistance, but also the undermining of the forms of authority existing there, including the subversion and elimination of their armies. In the case of Portugal, its actions of conquest and colonial occupation in Africa, unlike those of the British and even the French, led to the destruction of the existing state or pre-state formations, the elimination and/or deportation of their sovereigns and the suppression of their armies. The process of struggle for the emancipation of the African peoples, which took various shapes, particularly after World War II, took on new forms of demands, and no longer placed on the agenda the restoration of the African armies existing at the time of colonial penetration and used during the prolonged resistance struggles. It is now an indisputable fact that the Portuguese, for example, despite having established themselves in the current territory of Mozambique in 1505, only succeeded in suppressing anti-colonial armed resistance in 1920; throughout this period, in a dispersed and discontinuous manner, they were confronted with native armies.1 Portugal, having penetrated and occupied Africa differently from Britain and France, ended up facing a different kind of decolonisation, in the sense that it did not decide the destinies of the post-colonial era in its former colonies. Portugal, unlike also the other colonial powers mentioned, neither conceived nor participated in the design of the future armed forces in its former colonies. Because its role in the world system was equally different from the other European countries with colonies in Africa, Portugal did everything to make the decolonization demand an impossible option.2 This paper aims to briefly discuss the emergence of the armed forces in the current African states, showing the differences between countries that decolonised peacefully and those that emancipated through armed struggle for national liberation. Using the case of Mozambique, we will try to show not only what constitutes the source of differences between the two cases, but, above all, to demonstrate how, due to the character of the decolonisation process, the internal and external conjuncture at the time, an army sui géneris ended up being created, without any link to the former metropolis and without the participation of the national citizens who, at the time of decolonisation, many of them by legal imperative, were in the service of the colonial troops. The aforementioned particularity compelled us to emphasize, in this work, the way in which the transformation of the guerrilla forces of the liberation movement, FRELIMO, were transformed into a regular army for the defence of the newly liberated country. For questions of methodology, it is presented in a first part, in a very generic way, the appearance of the armies in Africa, discerning the ones that appeared in countries decolonised in a pacific way, in which the metropolis draws the format of these armies and feeds them with the skeleton of the officer recruited among its old servants. In this same place, it seeks to contrast those armies with the armies that emerged from the guerrilla movements that organised themselves and fought militarily for the liberation of the homeland. The Mozambican case is then presented in a specific chapter. The main moments of the trajectory of the Popular Forces for the Liberation of Mozambique (FPLM), from its creation until the period of decolonisation, are referred to. The next step is to discuss the process of transformation of the PFLM guerrillas into a regular army. The aim here is to address, albeit briefly, the different circumstantial factors that influenced the process of building the Armed Forces of Mozambique (FAM-FPLM).

(TRADUÇAO NOSSA)