Intemacionalismo militante de Moçambique: estudo de caso contribuição das FPLM para a libertação do Zimbabwe -1975-1980

Abstract

The independence of Mozambique in June 1975 was a far-reaching historical event in the southern African region. It was the first country in the region to free itself from colonial domination. In a gesture of intemationalist solidarity, it provided the space for Southern Rhodesia to become what is now known as the Republic of Zimbabwe and for thousands of South Africans, represented by the ANC, to see Mozambique as an example of African nationalism to follow. The essence of this work is in the search and understanding of the reasons that led the People's Republic of Mozambique to send the military to fight alongside the guerrillas of the Zimbabwean National Liberation Movement. And whether this military presence of the Popular Liberation Forces of Mozambique effectively contributed to the end of the war inside Rhodesia. The collaboration between the FRELIMO government and the Zimbabwe Liberation Movement, while falling within the efforts advocated by the OU A, which was the decolonisation of Southern Africa, was damaging to the interests of the Apartheid regime and Southern Rhodesia - to deny Africans the principle of majority rule. In this light, the Ian Smith regime and its ally found themselves in the position not only of fighting the Zimbabwean freedom nationalists, South Africa's ANC, and Namibia's SWAPO, as well as the regimes of the neighbouring independent African governments - Zambia, Botswana, Tanzania, Angola and Mozambique, on the grounds that these offered the nationalist movements a secure backdrop for their political, diplomatic and military activities. Were the attacks launched by the Rhodesian regime against Mozambique in an alleged persecution of Zimbabwean nationalists or the slow pace of the war inside Rhodesia the reason for sending the PFLM to Rhodesia or not? The answer to this question is developed throughout the dissertation. On the other hand, we find that the geopolitical environment at the time of Mozambique's independence was characterised by the cold war, which divided the world into a capitalist and a socialist bloc, in which the preponderance of the USA and the former USSR as the main world powers was notorious. Independent Mozambique, as a member of the OU A, involved in a tense regional climate, felt privileged to contribute to the liberation of Southern Africa from South African and Rhodesian domination, thus offering all possible help to nationalist movements in the name of militant intemationalism, especially that of Zimbabwe. It is in the combination of all these factors that we find the RPM's opportunity to give political, diplomatic and military support to the Zimbabwean freedom fighters. For the unshakeable conviction, just as Tanzania shared that without independent Mozambique, its independence was not secure, so Mozambique would not be secure without the independence of Zimbabwe.(TRADUÇAO NOSSA)