THE URBAN PROBLEMATIC IN MOZAMBIQUE:

INITIAL POST-INDEPENDENCE RESPONSES, 1975-80

Barry Pinsky

Major Report No. 21

Centre for Urban and Community Studies

University of Toronto

December 1982

ISSN: 0319-4620

ISBN: 0-7727-1239-5

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Dat~ Pinsky, Barry, 1948-

The urban problematic in Mozambique

(Major report I Centre for Urban and Community Studies, University of Toronto, ISSN 0319-4620 ; no. 21) ISBN 0-7727-1239-5

1. Local government - Mozambique. 2. Urbanization -Mozambique - Political aspects. 3. Mozambique -Politics and government - 1975- 4. Underdeveloped areas - Urbanization - Political aspects. I. University of Toronto. Centre for Urban and Community Studies. II. Title. III. Series: Major report (University of Toronto. Centre for Urban and Community Studies) ; no.21

JS7729. 3 .A8P46 352.067'9 C83-094163-0

THE URBAN PROBLEMATIC IN MOZAMBIQUE:

INITIAL POST-INDEPENDENCE RESPONSES 1975-80

Contents:

1. Preface: A Celebration

2. Background: Political Economy of Urbanization in Mozambique

3. Inside the Cities and Towns

4. Struggling for Political Control: the Grupos Dinamizadores

5. First Steps 1975-77

6. FRELIMO Third Congress: Basis for the Future

7. The National Housing Directorate

8. Shantytown Upgrading in Maxaquene, Maputo

9. City Assemblies and Executive Councils

10. FRELIMO Mobilization in Hulene Bairro

11. First National Meeting of Cities and Neighbourhoods

12. Results and Impressions 1980

13. Towards the Future

FOREWORD

The obscure history of Portuguese colonialism in Mozambique covers up, sometimes one thinks deliberately, a multitude of strategies for economic exploitation and oppression that have compounded the difficulties of building a new nation. It has also left a dearth of background literature which makes efforts such as this report especially dependent upon assistance from many other people.

Particular thanks are due to the National Housing Directorate of Mozambique for the opportunity to live and work in Maputo from 1977-79. The assistance of its Director, JoseForjaz, and of the Ministry of Information was also crucial to the success of the field trip in 1980 upon which much of this document is based. During that time, over eighty members of neighbourhood groups, municipal administrators, FRELIMO Party members, national directors, and others responded with generous openness to my questions and obvious needs for logistical assistance.

The research for this paper was made possible in part by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and grants from CUSO and OXFAM Canada provided the time necessary to assemble my thoughts, for which I am very grate-ful. I am also indebted to my colleague, Meyer Brownstone for his suggestions and to the Centre for Urban and Community Studies which has provided an academic base for this work.

Finally, in the spirit in which this series has been published, I would like to emphasize that this is a report of work in progress. Criticisms and suggestions, addressed to the Centre, are most welcome and will contribute to a second report which will detail some of the structures of local government.

ABSTRACT

Mozambique won its independence from Portugal in 1975, following a 10-year guerilla war led by FRELIMO (Front for the Liberation of Mozambique). Modelled on FRELIMO committees in liberated areas, neighbourhood 'dynamizing groups' organ-ized against political and economic sabotage by departing settlers, and the urban population began to define the future of the neighbourhoods. By 1977, with the virtual collapse of colonial municipal government, People's Assemblies assumed political direction of the cities. In early 1979, the First National Meeting about Cities and Communal Neighbourhoods proposed a series of measures to consolidate people's power in local government. This paper examines the effectiveness of these resolutions in the face of continuing difficulties inherited from the colonial era, ongoing rural-urban migration, and class differentiation; and looks at Mozambique's continuing success in developing participatory structures.

1. Preface: A Celebration

On a sunny afternoon in June 1979, several hundred people gathered under

the shade of some large cashew trees to celebrate the selection of the last

block committee in the Maxaquene neighbourhood of Maputo, the capital city of

Mozambique. At my request, after nearly two years of working with the community,

all the Canadians living and working in Maputo were also invited to participate.

About a dozen were able to attend and we were seated under a temporary shelter

with some of the neighbourhood leaders.

Before settling down to the business part of the meeting, several maqwaela

groups performed. Their dances were in the style first learned by migrant workers

in the South African mines, but the content had changed considerably. The

rhythmic chorus from the Vidreiro glass company sang about the Mozambican lit-

eracy campaign and other groups sang of support for the Zimbabwe freedom fighters.

Even more interesting was the exercise in local democracy which followed.

Guided by the Maxaquene neighbourhood secretary, a committee was to be selected

to represent the 300 block residents and to help continue the work of neighbour-

hood improvements which had begun 18 months earlier with assistance from the

National Housing Directorate. The residents were advised to choose men who didn't

beat their wives or spend their salary on alcohol, and to choose women who didn't

gossip or push their way into queues. Three men were nominated by the women

living in the block and three women were selected by the men. The merits of the

six were discussed by all those present and it was agreed that they would make up

the block committee. In this way, it appeared that people were selected who had

the confidence of their neighbours; further, the still reluctant participation

of the women was to some extent assured.

The dancing continued after the Canadian contingent had an opportunity to

thank the Maxaquene residents for their invitation to share in that extra-

ordinary occasion. Not many years earlier, the shantytown areas of then named

Louren~o Marques were patrolled by police and army surveillance units and people

were forced to flee from their homes when bulldozers cleared out areas for

development. The day's events were just one example of the many efforts being

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made to overcome the difficult urban problems inherited from the colonial period

and exacerbated by its rude ending.

2. Background: Political Economy of Urbanization in Mozambique

Before describing the situation within the urban areas of Mozambique in

any more detail, it will be useful to consider upon what basis the cities and

towns developed. In so doing, we will discover that the nature of, and the

solution to many urban ills is inextricably linked to a colonial pattern of

severe regional and town/country inequalities. This pattern was in turn tied

to foreign investment in Mozambique and the colonial government's role in

servicing the economic interests of neighbouring countries.

This pattern started as early as the 8th century when Arab traders began

to establish small coastal outposts at Sofala, Angoche, and Ilha de Mo~ambique. ;,

The last was to be the main town and capital for hundreds of years. These small

settlements became ~he conduit for goods flowing out of the country, notably

ivory, animal pelts, gold and other minerals. They became also the route for

the introduction of a new religion, Islam, as well as new technologies, weaving

and boat building, and new fruits and grains.

The Portuguese, who first arrived at Ilha in the person of Vasco da Gama in

1498, displaced the Arab traders. Unable very successfully to penetrate the

interior which was controlled by great tribal kingdoms, they continued to open

up trading and military posts along the coast, moving south to Quelimane, Sofala

and eventually Delagoa Bay, the future site of Louren~o Marques. Precariously

situated, the Portuguese skirmished with the French, the Dutch, and tribal rulers

for almost three centuries while developing and exploiting trade in gold, ivory

and1particularly in the first half of the 19th century, slaves.

It was not until after the imperialist partitioning of Africa at the Berlin

Conference in 1885 that the few small trading posts started to grow. As the

boundaries with Southern Rhodesia and the Union of South Africa were consol-

idated through a process of military escapades between colonial powers, the

Portuguese could turn the full force of their military against tribal resistance

which was so strong that before its defeat in 1895, the Gaza state of Gungunhana

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almost took Lourenlo Marques.

In the same year, as military battles gave way to the development of

commercial relations, the Anglo-American Company completed the first railway

from the Transvaal to Lourenco Marques. )

The growth of this small settlement,

the status of which had been raised from village to town only in 1887, was

assured in a series of treaties running up to 1965 guaranteeing that 50 per

cent of all Rand transport traffic would run through its port. In exchange,

the Portuguese guaranteed recruitment for the South African mines. The Port-

uguese also collected both railway and port tarrifs, and a fee for each mine

recruit. The development of Mozambique south of the 22nd parallel, the limit

for mine recruitment, thus became closely linked with and dependent upon re-

lations with South Africa. Most peasant families were at least partially depend-

ent on income from the mines; the effects upon independence were to be almost

d . 1 isastrous.

In a similar way, the history of the port and city of Beira, now the second

largest urban centre, was tied to the process of colonization and exploitation

of the vast central regions of Southern Africa. The nearest navigable port to

Southern Rhodesia, it was founded in 1887. The overall development of the town

and a vast territory comprising one-fifth of the area of Mozambique was handed

over for a period of 50 years (1892-1942) to a great concessionary company con-

trolled by British, French and Belgian capital. A railway link was opened to

Umtali by 1900, although the development of permanent port facilities lagged

considerably until 1929, from which date until 1949 both the railways and port

were controlled by the London-based Trans-Zambezi Railway. With the completion

of links to Nyasaland in 1922 and the coal mines of Moatize in 1949, the cen-

trality of the city and its dependence on transit trade were assured.2

The establishment of the smaller towns was also linked to foreign con-

cessionary companies which realized their profits more from slavery and forced

labour than from ~apital investment; the countryside remained severely under-

developed. In this way fQr example, Tete grew up around rich coal deposits

and Quelimane's port complemented the sisal and cocoa plantations of the Zam-

bezi Company while also serving the northern third of the country. These and

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other small towns such as Nampula also played a role as economic and admin-

istrative centres.

These developments were reinforced in the post World War II period after

the concession companies lost their political jurisdiction under Salazar's

policies of economic nationalism. The companies did, however, continue their

economic activities with some participation of Portuguese capital. With

the whole country now in Portuguese hands, immigration of impoverished peasants

from Portugal was encouraged mostly in the form of (agricultural

settlement) schemes in the south of the country. Institutionalized forced

labour and forced cultivation of cash crops supported these initiatives which

in turn provoked a minor expansion of local transformative industries and

civil construction, mostly in Louren50 Marques.

The period following the founding of the Front for the Liberation of

Mozambique* (FRELIMO) in 1962 really consolidated the spatial pattern of develop-

ment which was to be inherited upon independence. Faced with a capital short-

age as armed struggles were launched in its African colonies and military ex-

penditures increased, Portugal was once again forced to open up Mozambique to

foreign investment. Much of this went into the speculative urban development

in Lourenso Marques and Beira necessary to house an expanding war-time admin-

istrative apparatus and to provide facilities for increasing transit and

tourist trade. Further openings for both settler and foreign capital also

resulted in expanding commercial and industrial activity. This was especially

significant in Beira, where the completion of a new pipeline to Umtali in 1965

and the United States' increased demand for Rhodesian chromium to build up its

own Viet Nam war machine also fed expansion of port facilities. The shanty-

towns surrounding the two main cities grew as did the need for a reserve of

cheap labour for the war-led "boom", particularly in service, transport, indust-

rial and construction jobs.

* The Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO) was formed in Tanzania on 25 June 1962 from the fusion of three exiled nationalist groups. The first president of FRELIMO, Eduardo Mondlane, was elected in September of the same year and an armed struggle for the liberation of Mozambique was launched on 25 September 1964.

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To a lesser extent, similar activity took place in the smaller provincial

capitals, especially Nampula, the principal staging point for the Portuguese

war effort in the north. Lichinga, Tete and Pemba all assumed new strategic

importance and grew in size as infrastructure works were extended to facil-

itate war-related movement.

The countryside, where over 90 per cent of Mozambicans lived, already

victim of severe underdevelopment for the benefit of the towns and the Port-

uguese metropole, underwent further important changes during this last period

before independence. More than 500,000 people, or 50 per cent of the population

of the three northern provinces, Niassa, Caho Delgado and Tete, were herded

into aldeamentos ("strategic resettlements") as part of what proved to be an

ineffective counter-insurgency campaign. Various other schemes were attempted,

with limited results, to settle both new Portuguese immigrants and ex-soldiers

in areas where they could serve as a bulwark against advancing FRELIMO forces. 3

Some greater success of these schemes in the south might be linked to the develop-

ment of settler agriculture to feed the burgeoning towns as well as to the

greater distance from the front lines. Most important, the experience of collect-

ive life and active participatory politics in the liberated and semi-liberated

zones ofthenorth was to have a profound effect on the future direction of

FRELIMO policies for the resolution of urban problems.

With the end of the war of liberation and the signing of the Lusaka Accords

between FRELIMO and the new post-coup government in Lisbon in September 1974,

the structural weaknesses of the pattern of urban development and urban/rural

inequalities began dramatically to evidence themselves. Mai1y local Portuguese

settlers connnitted themselves to a continuation of reactionary and racist pol-

itics through their sometimes violent support of two brief attempts to seize

power, despite the metropole's agreement to a transitional government leading

to independence on June 25, 1975. Additionally provoked by false rumours of

FREMILO reprisals against whites, a massive exodus of some 90 per cent of the

250,000 settlers began. As virtually no Mozambicans had access to technical

or university training, this meant that most of the technical, professional,

and administrative personnel left the country. In the process, they launched a

massive campaign of economic sabotage, stealing what they could and destroying

what they could not - machinery, vehicles, production lines and even plumbing

fixtures.

By early 1976 a serious unemployment crisis was already developing in the

cities as industries closed down due to lack of technical skills, raw materials

and/or spare parts (often compounded by South African manoeuvers to delay

needed goods). The nationalization of all rental housing on February 3, 1976

only confirmed the crisis in civil construction which was virtually paralyzed.

Many jobs disappeared in the service sector as the proprietors of hotels, bars and

restaurants, and the employers of domestic servants left the country. FRELIMO's

decision to honour UN trade sanctions against Rhodesia resulted in closing

down much of the activity of the port of Beira; thousands more were put out of

work.

An unemployment crisis in the rural areas of southern Mozambique was

initially averted by an increase in recruitment to South Africa necessary to

offset the withdrawal of Malawi's miners in 1975. But the next year, when

recruitment plummeted from 115,000 to 32,000, rural unemployment began to

increase, compounded by other factors. Jobs lost on the farms of departing

settlers were partially offset by the establishment of state farms, but the

breakdown of the Portuguese-dominated rural commercial network severely affected

peasant farmers, who lost their access to markets and to the purchase of basic

necessities. As the returning miners' spending power was reduced, artisan-

peasants, already having difficulties with materials supplies, lost their 4

customers.

Soon many more people abandoned the countryside to join the first flood of

people that moved to the cities when colonial pass laws were relaxed in the

transition year. The initial group included the remaining family members of

earlier job-seeking migrants, young people in search of secondary school

education not available in rural areas, and people already dislocated by the

liberation war and later by Rhodesian attacks on Mozambique. Serious food

supply problems were an additional result of this movement, particularly since

many of the later arrivals had once produced food for the towns.

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The dependent position of Mozambique vis-~-vis South Africa and Rhodesia

thus combined with severe town/country imbalances to provoke migration to the

two major cities which were already experiencing an unemployment crisis in part

related to the same factors. Here, it is perhaps necessary to clarify that

rural-urban migration in and of itself is not necessarily a bad thing. Rather,

it is historically "natural" that, as technology develops and productivity

increases, people are freed from agricultrual work and move to the industrial

and service sectors. A rational society might then choose the degree and rate

at which it wishes to industrialize and urbanize, applying some politically

determined criteria of human and ecological compatibility to this process which

is primarily motivated by profitability in capitalist societies. The crisis

in Mozambique lies precisely in its very limited ability to make rational choices

because of its inherited dependent form of underdevelopment. Policies to stem

migration by redressing the equilibrium between town and country would seem to

be a necessary first step to create "breathing room" to develop other options.

Migration to the towns is also evident in the north of the country, where

the disruptions of the war were most severe and the rural areas were the poorest,

having been cut off even from mine wages as a ploy to maintain a very cheap

labour pool for the foreign-dominated plantation economy. The collapse of the

commercial network hit particularly hard in areas of peasant cash-crop pro-

duction, and the liberated and semi-liberated areas did not "benefit" from

the last efforts of the colonial regime to develop infrastructure. Small

squatter areas around the provincial capitals swelled; unemployment and food

supply problems became severe.

Compounding these difficulties was the start of an ongoing shortage of

foreign exchange for imports necessary to encourage development. The loss of

mine jobs, food imports both for victims of natural disasters and because of

rural migration and slow start-up on state farms, a severe drop in traditional

agricultural exports, military spending to support the Zimbabwe war and economic

sabotage combined to provoke this crisis and resulted in strong central control

of foreign currency allocation. Shortages of trained personnel and the

inability to create streamlined bureaucratic procedu:i:es soon led to import/export

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bottlenecks and, in a circular way, this would serve to increase the problem

of overcoming inherited underdevelopment patterns.

3. Inside the Cities and Towns

Keeping in mind the relationship between town/country and overall colonial

development, we find in addition that the internal dynamics of the cities and

towns provide very dramatic evidence of the impact of racist, colonial-capitalist

policies. The four largest cities, Maputo (estimated total population 800,000),

Beira (250,000), Nampula (60,000), and Quelimane (50,000), and to a lesser

extent all the smaller towns, have modern core areas of office buildings, hotels

and apartment blocks, as well as expansive residential areas all previously

reserved for the settler population. As already noted, rapid growth of these

so-called "cement cities" was fuelled by foreign investment in the 1960s and 5

the early 1970s.

This growth produced enormous speculative profits for landowners, the lar-

gest of whom (or their corporate heirs) had acquired their holdings many years

earlier when the land around the cities was originally ceded for agricultural 6

purposes. The owners cashed in as the city expanded and land was converted to

urban uses, sometimes even selling it back to the municipal government as was

the case when land was acquired for Louren~o Marques' airport and a second rail-

way station. City officials, despite laws to the contrary, were often financially

involved in these deals and the direction of expansion was undoubtedly determined

in part by their personal interests. 7

Expanding urban development added to the misery of the 75-85 per cent of

the population which lived precariously in shantytowns surrounding the cement

cities. Since Mozambicans were not permitted to own land, many families were

forced to occupy illegally or "squat" on land unsuitable for building or on

both public and private lands slated for future development. Some rented tiny

plots from landowners, and many were subject to periodic flooding or were bull-

dozed out of their homes at the whim of speculators and government bureaucrats.

In one particularly degrading scheme, families dislodged by various investment

projects, some of them for the second or third time, were then permitted to rent

plots in a special area later named "Hulene", set aside by the same developers

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on the far side of the railway tracks at the very edge of Maputo.

On independence, most of the shantytown areas did not have basic water,

sanitation or connnunity services, despite a "psycho-social" program initiated

in the early 1970s as a last-gasp attempt at cultural integration of the urban

population and to develop a more skilled and loyal work force. The program's

new schools and bath-houses were too few to convince the population of Port-

uguese "concern" for their welfare, and newly paved roads were mostly used by

the police.

Speaking in Maputo in March 1980, President Samora Machel dramatically

recalled the feelings of living in the racially divided city of Louren~o

Marques:

Louren~o Marques, city of cement, built high to mark the difference between us and the colonists ••• Louren~o Marques city of reeds and tin, relegated to the flood plains, storehouse of human labor and suffering used to create luxury for the colonists ••. On the one side; cement, opulence, the brilliantly clean streets, on the other side; the insecurity of social injustice, the discrimination, the poverty and the gloom of misery.8

The enormous physical problem of improving basic living conditions for

increasing numbers of shantytown dwellers was initially made even more difficult

by the gradual collapse of local government in the first two years after indepen-

dence as the professional and administrative staff abandoned the country.

Originally created to serve only the cement city, the Camaras (City

Councils) combined inefficiency and corruption with an inability to finance the

enormous infrastructure works necessary to match the level of building activity. 9

The unfortunate site conditions of some of the cities, situated in the first

instance for their ports, added to the burden. Beira and Quelimane are just

barely above sea level in the dry season and large parts of Maputo are regularly

inundated by flood waters from the rivers flowing into Maputo Bay. All three

cities require massive drainage works, and the limited areas of buildable land

helped bid up the price of the best sites and increase landowners' profits.

Services declined dramatically as the Camaras closed down, especially as

early attempts were made to extend services to hitherto neglected shantytown

zones. Garbage collection, emptying septic tanks, and the maintenance of

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drainage, sewage, water and electricity systems all suffered from the lack of

materials and spare parts or even the know-how to order and install them.

Competing private municipal service companies complicated the issue.

The colonial division of local government responsibilities added further

confusion to the situation. Not considered part of the city, most of the shanty-

town areas were in fact under a separate administration - usually the rural dis-

trict administration, or as in the case of Maputo, a special "2nd Administration"

( h . 11' ) lO h f d d i h b f d' t e name is te ing • T e racture a ministrat on, t e a sence o co-or in-

ated planning and the general' disregard for shantytown dwellers had all added

to the concentration of jobs, commercial and community facilities in the central

areas of the towns already typical of "free-market" urban growth. Inadequate

public bus systems began to collapse under the weight of passengers and as

always, most people had to get up very early in the morning to walk to work.

The move from country to town was sometimes complemented by a move from the

fringe to more densely crowded shantytowns closer to the centre of the cities.

Even the possibility of amenities such as parks and green areas were being

squeezed out and sanitary conditions declined.

A number of forces put additional stress on the "informal" commercial and

economic life of the towns. The closing of the borders to tourism and a decline

in shipping activity in the ports combined with deliberate policies to put an

end to significant, although normally unaccounted for, sources of income, how-

ever degrading, from begging, prostitution and a lively drug trade. Dwindling

supplies of materials further affected the many small artisans working in the

shantytowns already facing a shrinking settler market for furniture, household

utensils and other goods. An early but very sensible FRELIMO prohibition

against building permanent houses in the shantytowns intended to avoid unne-

cessary demolitions when re-planning these areas, resulted in the loss of an

opportun"'ty to employ displaced construction workers. In any case, building

materials, particularly cement, were also becoming scarcer.

Perhaps the most visible sign of difficulties were long queues for food and

other basic necessities (e.g. soap and matches) resulting from rural migration

and the drop in food and industrial production, poor distribution of available

goods, and FRELIMO-controlled prices designed to give more people access to goods.

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The situation was exacerbated by deliberate black marketeering, speculation and

withholding of supplies by private merchants in order to drive prices up.

Attempts to de-stabilize and unsettle the urban population were in fact

all part of a generalized settler strategy to provoke a reaction against FRELIMO

which, before the Lusaka Accords, had only very limited opportunities even for

clandestine operations and mobilization in the tightly-controlled cities. Higher

salaries and quick promotions for often underqualified Mozambicans represented

another effort to consolidate a small anti-F~ELIMO bourgeois group

already affected by the settler "Joe Cool" urban culture, particularly in

Maputo and Beira. These manoeuvres also planted the seeds of future problems

when personal opportunism, lack of administrative skills and routine imitation

of colonial bureaucratic procedures could combine to produce unsympathetic and

unresponsive state and commercial agencies.

In short, the cities and towns were in crisis - migration, unemployment,

long queues, street fights and assassinations were all laid on top of the

structured misery of cement city and shantytown inequities. The situation

demanded a forceful political and organizational response. Fortunately and not

surprisingly for those familiar with the liberation struggle, this was FRELIMO's

essential strength.

4. Struggling for Political Control: The Grupos Dinamizadores

As a guerilla movement, poorly equipped relative to the NATO-supplied

Portuguese forces, FRELIMO relied on the continuing support and active engage-

ment of the rural population in the expanding struggle for national freedom

which continued over ten years (1964-74). This support was mobilized by com-

mittees of FRELIMO militants active from the circulo or local level up to the

national level. Collective agricultural production was organized to feed both

peasants and soliders, and also for export to raise funds for military equip-

ment and other supplies. People's stores, schools and health posts provided

services in newly liberated areas and "counting on our own forces" was the

watchword as ways were sought to spread meagre resources.

Countless meetings with the population gave focus to their continuing

involvement in solving everyday problems and the development of a collective

consciousness of the overall situation. Confidence in the most progressive

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wing of the FRELIMO leadership grew as did the practice of popular participation

or "people's power". This alliance passed a severe test in 1968-69 when an

opportunistic grouping within FRELIMO failed in its attempt to use racist

and tribalist tactics to divide the movement and seek a neo-colonial com-

promise with the Portuguese.

Moving quickly into the urban areas after September 1974, FRELIMO members

and FPLM* forces helped organize the selection of Grupos Dinamizadores (GDs or

"dynamizing" groups) in all neighbourhoods, factories, institutions and sections

of the bureaucracy. Sometimes militants known to FRELIMO from underground act-

ivities, more often "natural" leaders with some sense of organization and engage-

ment, the GD members were confirmed in their posts by public meetings. Paralleling

the connnittees, they then undertook the massive task of mobilizing and organizing

the transition to independence in hundreds of locales while occasionally com-

batting extreme forms of sabotage by departing colonialists. The stories of two

neighbourhood GDs, the first in the cement city of Maputo, the other in the

h f B . . 'dl ·11 h . ff d d d' . 11 s antytowns o eira, v1v1 y i ustrate t eir e arts an e ication.

In 1974, Alto Mae was an almost all-white working class neighbourhood of

20,000 policemen, functionaries, col1ll1lercial and bank employees and their families

living in two or three storey blocks of flats with a sprinkling of higher build-

ings. The newly "officialized" GD, including some sympathetic whites, first met

on November 15 and decided to launch information sessions in the schools, streets

and parks. Eventually this effort included the distribution of 7,000 pamphlets

explaining the Lusaka Accords and the FRELIMO program.

As this work evolved so did the reaction of many of the residents. Bombs

were placed in garbage pails during community clean-up campaigns, and GD members

were physically threatened and photographed as a form of intimidation. In

response, the GD set up a vigilance sector which helped dismantle an organized

ring of foreign exchange dealers. The GD also met with workers of the factories

located in Alto Ma~ and unmasked acts of economic sabotage, in the presence of

the owners: Another campaign limited drinking hours in the bars which were

centres of prostitution and petty crime.

*FPLM: Popular Forces for the Liberation of Mozambique - the FRELIMO military.

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All the while, white residents were leaving and new tasks were assumed.

Working with runaway children who lived by begging and stealing, GD members wit-

nessed many dramatic reunions with families who had long since given up hope of

seeing their children again. Literacy and adult education classes were started

in the neighbourhood,

About this time, a major crisis occurred in the GD. A national FRELIMO

seminar held at Mocuba decided that the comportment of every dynamizing group

should be analyzed as it was found that some former secret police agents and

other collaborators had infiltrated the GDs in order to advance themselves

opportunistically while creating mistrust in the GDs and, by inference, FRELIMO.

During a long neighbourhood meeting, several such people were discovered to have

been obstructing the work of the GD. They were dismissed and it was decided

to institute political courses for GD members and to assign specific tasks which

could be monitored. The Mozambican idea of each one being a "responsible" took

on more significance.

With the nationalization of rental housing in 1976, Alto Mae became over

95 per cent Mozambican as people were relocated from flooded shantytown areas

into housing left empty by departing Portuguese residents. The GD initiated

many projects with the new residents including a consumer cooperative, health

post and cultural centre, while also organizing local women's and youth organ-

izations.

By contrast, Munhava is a very poor shantytown on the edge of Beira. Its

20,000 people from all parts of Mozambique were subject to vicious exploitation

and manipulation by tribalism. Their rickety wood and mud plaster houses are

perched on higher bits of ground - little islands surrounded by water in the

rainy season. Under the rural administration before independence, the people

were lorded over by Portuguese administrators and regulos , "chiefs" who

collaborated with the Portuguese and did the landowner's dirty business. The

landowner, lawyer Palinha,having acquired a vast tract of land years earlier

for the small cost of the tax stamps on his formal petition, charged rent to

build houses or to plant small fields. Those who could not pay had their houses

demolished or their rice crops confiscated.

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After the April 1974 coup in Portugal, the colonial government suddenly

permitted people in the neighbourhood to make beer despite previous laws to

the contrary. It was sold and sometimes even given away. Robberies and

banditry increased as did problems for the new members of the dynamizing

group, many of whom emerged from clandestine FRELIMO work which had been

supported by a Protestant church in the area. Initially it was quite dangerous

to be a GD member and help from the FPLM was required to assist in mobilization

efforts that eventually brought the situation under control.

Rumour campaigns started by the departing settlers were additional

challenges to the GD~ political capacity. Parents were reluctant to send

their children to schools after hearing that "FRELIMO will nationalize all

children". There was a lot of resentment among men over FRELIMO policies for

the emancipation of women as they started to attend literacy and adult education

classes organized by the GD. An abortive settler coup late in 1975 created a

lot of "noise" in the neighbourhood but the GD remained firm. The crises

passed and the groundwork was in place for the future. Children were able to

go to schools, women began to get involved in the neighbourhood, people's lives

and livelihoods were no longer threatened and the GD was capable of embarking

on an ambitious program of working with Munhava residents to tackle the diff-

icult problems facing the bairro.

5. First Steps: 1975-77

As the GDs began to provide an organized and stabilizing political presence

in the towns, other measures were introduced to consolidate the gains of the

liberation struggle. A dramatic and tumultuous journey by Samora Machel from

the northern Rovuma River boundary of Mozambique to the independence cele-

brations in Maputo, stopping in the major urban centres, symbolized the take-

over of the towns which had remained Portuguese strongholds during the war.

Then, following the proclamation of independence, a new constitution was adopted

which realized many of the aspirations of the struggle, including the end of

private land ownership in Mozambique.

-15-

As we have already seen, the control of land was crucial to the develop-

ment of the colonial economy largely dependent on the majestic companies,

large plantations and extensive individual land concessions in both rural

and urban areas. Although not a very densely populated country, Mozambique

experienced a relative land shortage, especially in the south of the country

where the settler farmers took up more fertile areas so that subsistence

agriculture was jeopardized.12

The associated hunger, forced labour, repression

and insecurity in the towns made recuperation of the land a central FRELIMO

objective linked directly to the end of colonial exploitation.

Thus according to Article 8 of the Constitution, "the land and the natural

resources in the soil and sub-soil ••• are property of the State" acting in

the name of the Mozambican people who became collective owners of the territory

of their own country. This disposition brought an immediate end to speculation

in urban land which can no longer be bought and sold, although every Mozambican

family is guaranteed the right to own ·.a house and to free use of land for this

purpose. Historic family agricultural rights are recognized, and rights of use

are transmissable to heirs, although the State has first right to expropriate

land for development purposes, in which case the owner or heirs must be comp-13

ensated for any improvements made on the land.

The "revolutionary" impact of such a measure is perhaps difficult to

gauge from a North American perspective where the concept of private land

ownership is so firmly entrenched and mystified. Examples of some of the

possibilities for reversing the spatial inequities inherited from the colonial

period in Mozambique might be indicative.

The allocation of social investment in infrastructure and hence the

direction of town planning and development becomes an open-ended political

discussion which is not limited by the necessity to respond to "market forces"

(i.e. protecting the interests of private land owners). Shantytown dwellers,

no longer "squatters" on private land, can have their situation legalized and

improved, assuming the land is not needed for an over-riding conununity use

(e.g. a new secondary school) or the cost of infrastructure is not so high as

-16-

to prejudice other projects (e.g. the massive drainage works required in Beira

and other towns). Job opportunities, commercial and community services can be

developed in shantytown neighbourhoods to minimize the necessity for travel to

the "cement cities" and the associated strain on already over-loaded transit

systems. Pollution can be reduced and people's time saved as is scarce foreign

exchange otherwise needed for petroleum and vehicle imports. Finally, with

market pressures eased, more green space can be allocated for both recreation

and production in and around the towns. We will see that many of these measures

have been adopted and are in the process of implementation.

The nationalization of all rental housing in February 1976 complemented

the process begun with recovering the land. This move was motivated in part

by the necessity of organizing the use of housing abandoned by the departing

Portuguese. Philosophically, it represented a commitment to ending speculative

rents which had acted as a barrier to Mozambicans living in the very flats

which they had constructed. A state agency was established to administer and

maintain the units and rents were set according to incomes and the size and

type of accommodation. With over 25,000 units in Maputo alone, this would 14 prove to be a formidable undertaking.

This measure was particularly timely in the capital as thousands of

families were relocated from shantytown areas to newly nationalized flats in

the cement city following extraordinarly heavy rains and flooding in early

1976. Of course with over 80 per cent of all urban dwellers living in the

growing shantytowns, this still left tremendous problems, and some additional

early initiatives were taken by the various ca\naras "Municipais and by the old

Louren)o Marques Office for Urbanization and Housing.

In Maputo, these efforts included laying out an additional 600 plots for

flood victims on empty land and starting up a model self-help housing scheme

based on collective construction by groups of 8-10 families assisted by trained

construction workers. Several towns tried to open up new shops, markets and

consmner cooperatives in shantytown areas and various ministries began to plan

for schools, health posts and other facilities. Notably a concerted attempt

-17-

to re-organize the municipal councils was not undertaken. Although recognized

as a definite problem, it was overshadowed by the very difficult job of re-defining

the national and provincial level state structures.

Just as the nationalization of land was an important pre-condition for

reversing spatial inequities in the towns, it also complemented rural develop-

ment policies intended to reduce rural to urban differences and migration. As

settler farmers abandoned the countryside, many larger farms and plantations

were converted to state farms. This was considered a necessary step to ensure

food supplies to the cities, to provide rural employment and to maintain export

levels.

A communal village program was launched as the basis for bringing services

to the rural population while developing collective agricultural production.

Capitalizing on FRELIMO's mobilizing capacity and making the best of disastrous

situations, over 1,000 villages were very quickly established. Half of these

were the old 'strategic resettlements' converted to self-governing villages, many

of the remainer were formed after flooding of the Limpopo and Zambezi Rivers in

1976 and 1977 respectively, and some were made up of refugees returning from Malawi

and Tanzania.

A commitment to building at least one textile plant in each province,

greatly expanded activity in the coal-mining area of remote Tete province, and

the start of road work to complete north-south links were further evidence of

a concern to redress the imbalanced heritage of colonial development.

In general the first two years of independence were characterized by

remarkable vitality, energy and optimism even in the face of a declining economic

situation. Many initiatives, however disorganized and uncoordinated, were

considered or attempted; but it was not until the 3rd Congress of FRELIMO in

February 1977, the first to be held in the newly-liberated country (some nine years

after the 2nd Congress) that a keener sense of political direction and planning

developed.

6. FRELIMO Third Congress: Basis for the Future

The primary achievement of the Third Congress was to constitute FRELIMO in the

form of a political party with a more explicit focus than was possible during the

liberation war when, as a "Front", it incorporated a very broad range of political

-18-

perspectives. These included some dangerously reactionary and opportunistic

people such as those who had helped engineer the assassination by the Portuguese

secret police of the first president, Eduardo Mondlane, shortly after the Second

Congress. The essential task of the Party is to continue the process of mobiliz-

ing and organizing in villages, towns and workplaces, working towards the object-

ive of creating a socialist society in Mozambique.

Although membership in the Party is intended to be limited to developing the

most militant and politically conscious people, initially selected by their fellow

workers or neighbours, the Congress also clearly affirmed FRELIMO's long-standing

commitment to popular democracy and participation. Party members must work in

constant contact with the people; collective leadership and open discussion are

the basic principles for internal Party democracy.

At the same time, the State apparatus is to function in such a way as to

guarantee "full democracy and the possibility for each and any Mozambican citizen

to participate in taking decisions at the level of various sectors of society. 1115

The main instrument proposed for achieving this goal was the democratic election

of local, town, provincial and national assemblies which would define and control

the tasks of the bureaucracy at their respective levels. Continuing Party support

to the mass organizations of women, youth and workers provide yet more avenues

for the active engagement of the population.

Economic and social objectives adopted by the Congress in effect constituted

the first national plan and consolidated many early initiatives. Increased

production and productivity in the agricultural sector was seen as the crucial

step for development and the improvement of living conditions. The socialization

and mechanization of agriculture is to be complemented by industrialization both

to produce farm implements and machinery, and to supply basic goods in part as

a stimulus to production.

The desired balance between agriculture and industry mirrors the commit-

ment made to achieve equitable development between town and countryside, and

"to create a balanced and harmonious development of all parts of the national

territory so as to liquidate the regional imbalance that was left ••• by colon-

ialism". 16

The future creation of agro-industrial complexes in communal

-19-

villages is intended to diversify and compl~ment rural activities and gradually

diminish the differentiation between the countryside and the city.

Although the remainder of this discussion focusses on efforts to improve

conditions in the urban areas, some of which are specifically designed to reduce

the drain on the rural areas by discouraging migration and encouraging urban

self-sufficiency, we must keep in mind that if village, rural industrialization,

health and education programs fall far short of the Congress' hopes, solving

urban problems will become an impossible Sisyphus-like task as the urban pop-

ulation increases uncontrollably.

Referring specifically to the situation in the towns, the Congress first

congratulated itself on the important steps of nationalizing land and rental

housing. Along with state control over credit and construction companies, this

provided the basis for eliminating the racist character of the city, organizing

·collective life in communal bairros (neighbourhoods), and developing a housing

policy to serve the whole population. 17

In the initial period, the State is to assume responsibility for the estab-

lishment of infrastructure (i.e. roads, water, electricity, sanitation) and social

amenities. But the improvement of housing conditions is to rely primarily on

people's own efforts due to severe shortages of technical and material resources.

The civil construction sector was additionally charged with the vital tasks of

finishing apartments, office buildings, schools and hospitals under construction

at independence, and establishing a distribution network for building materials.

Cement was in especially short supply because of low productivity at a poorly

constructed plant in Maputo corrnnissioned by the colonial government. Other

materials were affected by limits on foreign exchange, disorganization and delib-18

erate sabotage.

In all of these measures, the Congress gave heavy emphasis to the State sector

in leading the process of economic recovery. A new national planning commission

was to be established to prepare both annual and long-range production targets.

In part this was a response to very severe difficulties facing Mozambique at

the time, necessitating a very careful allocation of scarce resources. Simul-

taneously, there was recognition both of the possible dangers of over-central~

ization and bureaucratization in both Party and State, and of the difficulties

-20-

in developing a state/technical apparatus responsive to local needs: hence, the

desire to reinforce democratic process and participation in decision-making.

Among many other suggestions, the Congress also recommended the formation

of a State agency to define guidelines and strategies for planning urban centres

and developing popular housing programs. The old Urbanization and Housing Office

for Lourengo Marques became the Direc~ao Nacional de Habita~ao (DNH-National

Housing Directorate) which was established two months after the Congress. I was

assigned to the DNH in October 1977 soon after my arrival in Mozambique, and from

this vantage point I was able to participate in and observe how the concerns of

the Congress played themselves out in the cities and towns over the next three

years.

7. The National Housing Directorate

Despite its imposing name, the National Housing Directorate in mid-1977 had

a professional staff of 12, of whom 10 were recently arrived expatriates from

five different countries. Seniority was only a matter of months. Fortunately,

in our enthusiasm, we had a quite unrealistic idea of the tasks which faced the

Directorate, otherwise we could quickly have become very discouraged.

To start, the most basic planning information was not available. No one

really knew whether there were nine, ten, twelve or fourteen million Mozambicans,

much less where they lived or what they did. Despite some assistance from the

United Nations Development Program (1JNDP), the directorate was terribly short of

equipment, supplies and transportation. The budget was still being drawn up

and passing through recently initiated national budgeting procedures. Nonethe-

less, the Directorate was responsible for developing physical planning policies,

standards, programs and projects for villages, neighbourhoods, towns, two large

cities, and various regional development schemes. It was also charged with

defining strategies to have newly arriving technicians, at least one million

shantytown residents, and the rural population moving into villages and onto

state farms.

All of this had to be accomplished in the absence of any clearly defined

philosophy or strategy for physical planning. To compound matters, after two

weeks of seminars to define more closely a strategy and an organizational response

to the situation, we discovered that there were deep philosophical differences

among the staff and insufficient knowledge of even the possibilities ahead. With

-21-

some sense of the various options which were discussed, it may be easier to

evaluate later the approach which was eventually adopted.

The basic issue was how to translate the political direction set by the

FRELIMO Third Congress intoconcretepolicies and activities, given the con-

straints imposed by limited resources. Did "counting on our own forces" imply

building factories to pre-fabricate concrete houses, or finding ways to improve

the use of traditional building materials and encourage self-help schemes? If

self-help were to be encouraged, who should benefit from limited materials and

finances? Alternatively, should all efforts be focussed on neighbourhood plan-

ning, infrastructure and community facilities before even considering housing in

the cities? In any case, what could be done without unduly benefiting the towns

at the expense of the countryside while demonstrating a commitment to solving

urban problems? Could a program concerned with ecological balance, achieving

an appropriate relationship between neighbourhoods and production activities,

and reducing spatial inequalities also contribute to the creation of communal

neighbourhoods? Finally, how would the experience of participation in the lib-

erated zones of northern Mozambique be translated into theday-to-day work of the

Directorate and the development of national planning standards and procedures?

Faced with so many unanswerable questions, it was decided to proceed in a

number of directions in order to find out both what the actual problems were

and the real possibilities for overcoming them. Constant evaluation and feed-

back was to be an essential component of this method. In fact, this was how the

self-help construction groups of 8-10 families had been initiated in 1976.

Although quite successful in terms of community mobilization, the project was

being re-evaluated as it was absorbing too many resources for the benefit of

relatively few families.

Projects already under way in the smaller towns of Pemba and Angoche were

continued with varying success, but efforts were focussed in and around Maputo

where it was felt that some concentration of resources and a cross-fertilization

of experiences might more rapidly test out options. The area set aside for re-

locating flood victims was expanded, efforts were made to improve the output of

two small pre-fabricated housing factories established before independence, and

-22-

the Directorate was required to respond to many requests for architectural

assistance - usually small planning or housing projects in conjunction with

economic development efforts. But the major new initiative was to develop

a strategy for gradual rehabjlitation of shantytown areas based on a pilot 19 project in the bairro (neighbourhood or district) of Maxaquene.

8; Shantytown Upgrading in Maxaquene, Maputo

The Maxaquene project was to look for ways to spread resources more widely

than the self-help program. It was also becoming obvious that people were

building permanent homes despite the Government's request that they wait until

the shantytown areas could be planned and unnecessary demolitions avoided.

To multiply the Directorate's capacities, active connnunity participation

was essential from the start. This meshed with the necessity of finding ways

to work that encouraged the process of political organization already under way

in the neighbourhood. The 45,000 residents of Maxaquene were divided into 17

cells, each with its own~ Dinamizadore working in conjunction with the

GD of the whole bairro. As we were to discover, the political capacities of each

GD varied considerably, although they were strengthened by organizing around con-

crete project tasks.

Following initial discussions, four cells housing 10,000 people were chosen

for the first intervention. Each cell selected members for a planning commission

which met regularly with the DNH project team. Priorities for action were soon

established:

- With only one water tap for every 2,000 people, women and children spent

hours every day just fetching and carrying water to their homes. Many

more public standpipes were needed.

- A road network was necessary to open the way for ambulances, buses, fire

engines and garbage collection.

- Schools and teachers were in short supply and classes had to be held in

three shifts, often outdoors. Child care centres, parks, clinics and

other community facilities were almost non-existent.

- Finally, people wanted to build permanent homes of cement block or brick.

80% of their houses were made of wood and reed walls with corrugated metal

roofs. Others were all corrugated metal - noisy in the rain, ovens in

-23-

the heat and damply chilling in the cool· season. About 10 per cent had

already built permanent structures despite government admonitions.

Before proceeding further, a long afternoon meeting of 700 Maxaquene resi-

dents endorsed the idea of the project. It was agreed that neighbours would

help one another move those houses in the way of new roads or in areas to be

reserved for schools and other communitv facilities.

A new plan for Maxaquene was then drawn up by the Housing Directorate. It

was organized around service corridors which include a 6 metre paved road with

space alongs;lde for water mains, electric lines, street lights, sewers and foot-

paths. Blocks housing 60-80 families were to be laid out on both sides of the

service corridors. These blocks are defined by a series of pedestrian paths

which were to be flexibly applied to accommodate existing housing clusters and

minimize relocations or loss of trees. Each block centres on a small square where

one standpipe with four taps is installed. A street lamp provides lighting for

evening activities. Finally, space was to be set aside for future use including

a small industries zone to encourage the growth of neighbourhood production co-

operatives.

The planning concept was discussed and accepted in principle by the planning

commission which then assisted in staking out the scheme on the ground using

simple instruments and procedures. Efforts by the DNH team to bend or move the

smaller paths to save houses were unexpectedly rejected. Families who had waited

for the area to be planned before starting construction felt little sympathy for

people who had built permanent homes. Planning commission members were accused

of accepting bribes to influence the DNH staff although this early lack of con-

fidence was firmly resolved when some of them were required to move their houses.

The residents also wanted straight streets and houses aligned parallel to

them, to which the DNR reluctantly agreed. This pattern adopted from the grid-

iron cement city was thought to indicate "good organization." Despite this

more rigid approach, the very few complaints were resolved by the GDs at public

meetings and many of those affected were helped to move and to rebuild their

homes.

Then a bulldozer, a menacing sight during colonial days, was brought in to

open up the service corridors and the new streets. Once the boundaries of each

block were roughed out on the ground, the planning commission decided to bring

-24-

more people into the rehabilitation process by forming block committees.

These were selected with assistance from the GDs (although not always to the

accompaniment of music as was the case when the last block committee was

selected).

The first task facing the new committees was to respond to growing demands

to parcel each block into individual plots. The DNH initially resisted the

idea because there were not enough land surveyors to do the job. Nevertheless,

with minimal assistance, one of the block committees redivided its block into

plots of approximately equal size. As a result, simple ground rules were estab-

lished by the DNH team and the planning commission, a picture-book guide was

prepared and a model was used to illustrate the process. More expert block

committees assisted those less geometrically inclined and the Directorate was

only called in when the existing arrangements were very complicated.

Once running smoothly the block committees began to organize other

activities. Working with Directorate staff, the residents of one block planted

fruit and shade trees and built a small play area in their public square. Once

again, this idea spread quickly and many blocks decorated their squares and

began to use them for meetings and other community events.

The initial success of the implementation process led to a decision to

extend the pilot project to include a total of 10 cells and 36,000 people. By

June 1979, an urban plan had been implemented in both the original project area

and its extensions. Over 100 block committees were functioning and about 90

per cent of them had undertaken plot division.

Unfortunately, infrastructure works proceeded at a slower pace although

this was more evidence of the serious problems facing Mozambique than an indi-

cation of lack of local initiative. Trenches were dug and standpipes constructed

with assistance from the block committees but the installation of main pipes

was delayed due to difficulties obtaining materials from the plant in Beira.

Water was finally available in the 29 blocks of the original four cells at the

end of 1979; but ifs distribution in the extension area depended on drilling

new deep wells because the municipal water system, originally built for the

cement city only, had reached its limit.

Maputo: the capital of the People's Republic of Mozambique. The city gretJ around the port which UJaB developed primarily to serve the transit needs of South Africa.

The urban planning concept adopted for the Ma:r:aquene project. A series of blocks 'have been defined on both sides of a service corridor. A standpipe and public lighting are located ·in the centre of each block. Areas 'have been reserved for community facilities.

-25-

FIGURE 1

FIGURE 2

-26-

Despite efforts by the newly nationalized power company, the electricity

project was held up by delays in importing materials. But eventually street

lights were installed in the public squares of the original project area and

along all main access routes. One new road was paved so that an additional

bus route could be extended into the bairro Blocks were numbered and names

for new streets selected by residents who can now receive mail for the first

time. New public telephones are also increasing the integration of the bairro

into the city.

Construction of collllilunity facilities is proceeding slowly as priority is

being given to rural areas. Even so, two houses are being converted into a

small child care centre and space has been set aside for other facilities.

Although Maxaquene residents are eager to proceed, a massive self-help

housing program has not been started because of severe limits on the availability

of conventional building materials. The Directorate has been forced to recon-

sider earlier optimistic projections made when materials were available because

of slow take-up in vital sectors. Instead, emphasis is now being placed on

improved use of traditional materials. Two model houses have been constructed

to demonstrate more effective use of space, and to experiment with better climate

and termite protection. Research is under way to design new latrines that will not

collapse in the sandy soil.

Despite the many tasks which remain, the Maxaquene project has succeeded in

demonstrating how a relatively modest state contribution could be multiplied

by local initiative to substantially improve people's living conditions. Block-

to-block and cell-to-cell exchanges that helped spread ideas such as the self-

help system of plot division were later reflected in visits with other neighbour-

hoods to discuss new projects. On-the-job training of staff was another element

from the start which provided important examples for the training of personnel

for provincial housing offices which began with 40 recruits early in 1978. (The

process of turning people with 6 to 9 years of schooling into "barefoot" village

and neighbourhood planners is its own story.) In addition, the political organ-

ization and mobilization skills acquired by Maxaquene residents are a resource

for the neighbourhood, and possibly for the city, to draw upon in the future.

-27-

Early in 1979, a ministerial commission visited Maxaquene in prepara~

tion for the First National Meeting of Cities and Neighbourhoods. Drawing

heavily from the Maxaquene experience, the delegates to this meeting later

adopted resolutions for the rehabilitation of shantytown areas and the imple-

mentation of block committees as national policies. Two other major initia-

tives, the election of city assemblies and a FRELIMO experiment in neighbour-

hood mobilization, also contributed heavily to the meeting discussions. We

will look at these briefly before returning to the full set of meeting resolu-

tions which set the framework for the future of Mozambique's cities and neigh-

bourhoods.

9. City Assemblies arid Executive Councils

While marking significant achievements in the establishment of national

ministries and directorates, the FRELIMO Third Congress stressed the urgency

of consolidating democratic control through the creation of provincial, dis-

trict, city and local assemblies, and their corresponding executive structures.

Particular emphasis was to be given to rural assemblies as a political counter-20

weight to the relatively privileged cities.

As a first step, the National Assembly was provisionally constituted

to pass the necessary electoral legislation. The bitter experiences of colon-

ialism had demonstrated that models of the state based on executive and ju-

diciary branches supposedly independent of elected bodies did not guarantee

political freedom and power for Mozambicans. Samora Machel characterized

the colonial model as "nothing more than a division of tasks among servants

of the same class camouflaging the power of the bourgeois class, power exer-

cised for the benefit of a few exploiters and to the detriment of the interests 21

of the broad mass of workers."

Instead, the new elected Assemblies are to exercise unitary power at their

respective levels and represent the broad base of the Mozambican population,

notably workers and peasants. Dedicated to solving people's concrete problems

by controlling and efficiently using state services at each level, the new

deputies are charged with finding ways to work in constant contact with the

-28-

population. Although the Assemblies are not to be in continuous session,

the executive and judicial apparatus at each level must periodically account

for their activities directly to the Assemblies.

With this model in mind, election commissions were created to organize

the first election ever to be held in Mozambique on the basis of universal

adult suffrage regardless or race, sex, religion or social position. The only

exceptions to this are Mozambicans who voluntarily collaborated with fascist

colonial organizations such as the PIDE secret police and can neither elect

nor run for office. In the first stage of the elections, 22,000 women arid

men were directly chosen at hundreds of public meetings to make up 894 local

and village assemblies. These people in turn elected deputies to 112 district

assemblies.

City elections in the ten provincial capitals also took place in two

steps. Typical of the first stage was a meeting of hundreds of workers which

took place in an industrial area of Maputo. Candidates to attend an electoral

conference which would later elect the actual city assembly were put forward

by the Grupo Dinamizadore in each factory. One named Machel had the misfortune

of being considered by the meeting when another Machel, President Samora,

arrived to assist in the proceedings. Upon ques~ioning, it was discovered

that Machel, although a good worker, still spent much of his time in Gaza

province attending his family farm. The President suggested that this might

make it difficult for him to properly represent workers in Maputo and the

meeting voted to reject him, although not without a good deal of humour based

on some awful presidential word-plays on the coincidence of names. Of course,

a serious point had been driven home in the process - delegates had to iden-

tify clearly with the people they represent.

The lively meeting continued for several hours. Other candidates were

rejected for poor attitudes towards fellow workers, sexual misadventures

in their neighbourhoods, or for affiliation with PIDE and similar organ-

izations. Despite their nomination by the GDs, the meeting clearly had the

final say on each candidate and most were eventually elected. This process

was repeated in neighbourhoods and workplaces throughout the city until all

the were chosen to participate in the electoral conference which,

-29-

following similar procedures, selected 70 deputies to Maputo's first assembly

from a list put forward by the FRELIMO committee. Members of the city and

district assemblies then met to elect the provincial assemblies which, on

December 4, 1977, unanimously approved the 226 candidates for the National

Assembly.

The final step ended a remarkable effort that ultimately involved over

3.2 million people. Workers and peasants clearly predominated in Assemblies

at all levels, and the election of 27 per cent women overall evidenced very

dramatic social changes in Mozambique. 22 . The lively debates that eventually

rejected about 8 per cent of all candidates, including GD and other respon-

sibles, indicated that this was clearly not a rubber-stamp exercise but was

the vital school in democracy that the provisional National Assembly had

hoped for.

Of course, putting elected assemblies in place, however extraordinary a

step, still left the equally difficult job of nurturing their development.

The first session of the elected National Assembly passed a resolution

directing its Permanent Commission to undertake the reorganization of the

municipal state apparatus to complement the election of the new city assem-

blies. This was formalized with the promulgation of two laws in April 1978,

the first of which took the somewhat overdue step of extinguishing the colonial

camaras Municipals whose functioning had already degenerated considerably.23

All existing services, personnel and equipment passed over to new structures

created by the second law, the City Executive Councils (CEC). The change-

over was to be supervised by the Governor in each province to ensure the

active participation of municipal workers while protecting their acquired

rights and salaries.

Conceptually, the City Executive Councils have a much more explicitly

political role and a wider scope for action than the Camaras Municipals, which

were typically run by a small business and professional group mostly concerned

with smoothing thewayfor speculators in the cement city. Composed of 3-5

members appointed for their administrative and political capacities, the CEC's

are responsible for carrying out the social, political, cultural and economic

tasks set by the city assemblies. There is also an implicit responsibility to

,/

_., /"

/

/ //'

6 /' ~-~~-

" + L /'. I Director - i

! Support & J ~ontr----· _

-31-

bring important issues forward to the inexperienced assemblies. The President

of the CEC is also the First Secretary of the Party in the city, and is

expected to have the political maturity and experience to ensure, for example,

that the assembly considers support for consumer cooperatives if there are

supply and distribution problems in the c

The Executive Council does not act alone but uses the resources of the

city administration which is made up of three bodies. First, the Office of

the President of the CEC provides executive support and prepares for the bi-

monthly sessions of the Assembly, ensuring that deadlines are met and tasks

carried out. Second, the Department of Support and Control helps coordinate

the work of the third section of the administration which consists of depart-

ments responsible for implementing decisions in specific areas such as health,

education or culture. These departments must also respond to provincial

authorities in their respective fields. So, to continue our example, the

Department of Commerce for the City would be responsible for working with various

provincial bodies - commerce, transportation and the consumer cooperatives

council - to help ensure supplies and support to cooperatives in the city; the

Department's progress would be monitored and reported to the Assembly.

With these guidelines in place, city assemblies began to meet with varying

degrees of regularity and organization, to establish priorities and begin to

take action to resolve the myriad problems the cities. The CEC's with

limited personnel, budgets and equipment coped as best they could and often

only continued to imitate colonial routines arid procedures as services degen-

erated. Partly as a result of this, less than one year later, planning began

for the National ~eting of Cities and Neighbourhoods which would more closely

define tasks and methods of work for the assemblies and executive councils.

FRELIMO political work in the bairro of Hulene in Maputo provides the last bit

of evidence we need to bring to bear on our discussion of this meeting.

10. FRELIMO Mobilization in Hulene Bairro

In the two months preceding the meeting, brigades headed by senior Party

responsibles were formed to get a first hand impression of the situation in

various neighbourhoods in Maputo. One of these visited Maxaquene and another

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was part of an active attempt by the Ideological Department of FRELIMO to work

with the population of Hulene.

We have already encountered this bairro (see Section 3). Created in 1971

by a land speculator, it houses some 36,000 people, mostly impoverished workers

who had been shuffled from place to place to make way for various development

schemes. Their lives, marked by gross insecurity, made them easy prey for the

authority of the landlords, the chiefs, "witch doctors", and churches in the

area.

The majority of Hulene's population greeted FRELIMO and the new government

Dinamizadores were largely weak and ineffective in

Hulene and the mass organizations of women and youth fared no better. Lack of

water, abuses of power by the local police, illegal brewing of alcohol, assaults

and inadequate food supplies were all becoming features of life in the...:::..===-==-

FRELIMO decided that the best way to win the support of the people of Hulene

would be to demonstrate the Party's genuine engagement in improving living con-

ditions by working with residents to help them solve their own problems. Follow-

ing a series of meetings and intensive discussions in the Party members

living there were selected to be responsible for commissions of residents. Each

worked on a specific neighbourhood problem and reported to a coordinating com-. . 25 mission.

Just four months later there were very visible signs of change. A host of

new community facilities appeared, including a consumer cooperative with 800

member families, a small animals production cooperative and a clothes-making

cooperative run by the Organization of Mozambican Women, a refurbished market

and health post, new public telephones and bus shelters, a public address system

for local announcements, and a GD office.

A festival celebrating these events was held in the new cultural centre -

housed in a former church building which had been taken over a few weeks earlier

by 2,000 bairro residents after it was discovered that the pastor had been

secretly sending money to church headquarters in South Africa.

Although some of these projects were not completed until after the nat-

ional meeting on cities, the process of organizing commissions and working with

explicit political objectives was reflected in the meeting discussions. Hulene

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provided a suitable counterpoint to the efforts in Maxaquene which started with

physical objectives and later contributed to organizational growth.

11. The First National Meeting About Cities and Neighbourhoods

The First National Meeting about Cities and Neighbourhoods was held in Maputo

in February 1979 in order to analyze the political, economic and social situation

in the twelve major cities and towns and to suggest means for resolving problems

still facing urban areas. Taking their cue from an address by Samora Machel to

the 3rd session of the National Assembly a few months earlier, the 200 delegates

examined ways in which the city assemblies and executive councils could help

"organize the life of the cities and promote the solution of their concrete prob-

lems. 1126 They also returned to a theme first raised by the FRELIMO Congress - the

creation of "communal bairros", the basic building block for the transformation to

collective life in the cities.

During the first two days, hard-hitting reports highlighted political problems:

the role of the Grupos Dinamizadores had to be clarified now that Party cells

were being formed; the city assemblies were not getting the support they needed

from the CEC's in order to maintain contact with their base in' the neighbourhoods,

factories, and institutions of the city; and the City Executive Councils had not

yet moved much beyond the functions of the Cthnaras Municipais. In Maputo, it some-

times seemed that only the name had changed. Consolidation of unresponsive state

structures was broadly interpreted as a sign of nsharpening class struggle", and

the need to continually organize the mass as base for change and vigilance was

emphasized.

Despite reports of successes in bairros such· as Alto Mae and Maxaquene, this

political disorganization ultimately meant that no systematic way yet eitisted to

deal with the long process of reversing the worst features of the colonial urban

heritage. Foremost among these was the continuing movement of people to the cities

and an associated increase in under- and un-employment, irregularities and

speculation in the supply of basic goods, lack of water, electricity, public tran-

sit and other connnunity facilities, and poor maintenance of the "cement city"

housing stock. Inadequate municipal finances added to the difficulties. These

problems were analysed by working groups during the next three days and resolutions

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,prepared for ratification at the plenary sessions which ended the week-long

gathering. As might have been anticipated, the major thrust of these reso-

lutions was political and organizational, returning to basic principles of

self-reliance and popular democratic control.

First, confusion about the future role of the Grupos Dinamizadores was

cleared up. With the creation of Party structures in workplaces following the

FRELIMO Third Congress, many GD members felt that they would be taking a back

seat once the Party was organized in neighbourhoods. On the contrary, the

meeting resolved that the GDs must be strengthened as the mass organization in

selected by and responsible to general assemblies of residents.

Party members would provide political animation and leadership, stepping in, as

in Hulene, to assist developing (or faltering) neighbourhood efforts.

The GDs were then charged with responsibility for transforming each

bourhood into a "communal neighbourhood". A new vision of urban life was put

forward:

"In communal bairros, people organize themselves in collective forms of life and work. In them, the population have a collective social and economic base made up of cultural and recreation centres, pro-duction and consumer cooperatives. The inhabitants of communal bairros organized by the Grupo Dinamizador, teach and learn to read and write ••• develop popular culture and sports ••• organize for collective pro-duction of food, raising small animals, and organize artisans, car-penters, shoemakers, clothesmakers, and others ••• tasks are realized by residents integrated into commissions led by the GD. In summary, new social relations are established in the communal bairros based on vol-untary and collective work, a new life is forged in the cities. 27

Concern that some neighbourhoods were too large to function as communities,

especially in Maputo and Beira, led to the futher suggestion that .::::=:=:..;:::._;;_ limits

be re-drawn to include at most 12,5000 people, divided in turn into "communal

units" of about 2,000 equivalent to the former "cells." Profiting from the

Maxaquene experience, blocks of 50 families were to be the basic element of

neighourhood organization.

Greater definition of neighbourhood administrative/participatory structures

was proposed to match similar clarifications of the City Executive Councils.

Each GD would be composed of a Secretary, Assistant Secretary and 10 members,

each responsible for a particular set of concerns and each working with a com-

mittee of interested residents along the lines tested out in Hulene. Whereas

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previously there had been considerable confusion in channelling local initiatives

or concerns, each committee would now relate to the appropriate city department

through the GD Secretary and deputies in the City Assembly. For example, if the

neighbourhood committee for production and supply needed help starting a food

cooperative, this request would be carried to the City Department of Commerce

which, as we might remember, could lend assistance, having already been instructed

to do so by a policy decision of the City Assembly.

The meeting took special care to specify that the City Executive Councils

proceed much more rapidly than they had been in setting up new city departments.

Functions and priority tasks were detailed for each department and emphasis was

given to training urgently needed personnel. The most critical task was to

support the new Assemblies which were urged to create committees of their dep-

uties to work on concrete issues. The deputies would also have to be more con-

scious of their role in controlling the city administration and remaining in close

contact with the urban population.

Schedules, deadlines and responsibilities were proposed for organizational

tasks and these were tied in turn to some very specific projects including one very

bold new initiative - the development of "green zones" around each city. These

are intended in the first instance to help solve food supply problems and make the

cities more self-sufficient while creating jobs for the urban unemployed