SAMORA MOISES MACHEL - MOZAMBIQUE

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 06762106
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: March 8, 2023
• Document Release Date: August 29, 2019
• Case Number: F-2018-01461
• Publication Date: July 29, 1985

Approved for Release: 2019/07/30 C06762106
Samora Moises MACHEL MOZAMBIQUE
(Phonetic: maSHEL)
�
President
(since June 1975)
Addressed as:
Mr. President
President of the ruling Front for the
Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO) since
1970, Samora Machel directed his country's
liberation struggle and has been Mozambique's
only president since independence. Mozambique�
large (twice the size of California), drought
stricken, and underdeveloped�is currently beset
by a poor economy and an ongoing insurgency that
infests most of the country. In an effort to reduce
tensions in the region, Machel concluded a
nonaggression pact called the Nkomati Accord with South Africa in March
�1 regularly discusses regional issues with other African leaders.
After attending a mission school in Mozambique in the late 1950s, Machel worked in a
hospital and took nursing classes at night. He joined FRELIMO in 1963 and subsequently
received nine months of guerrilla training in Algeria. He then went to Tanzania to train 250
guerrillas, whom he later led in the initial attack against the Portuguese Government in his
61 homeland in 1964. The following year Machel assumed responsibility for FRELIMO
(01 military training in Tanzania, and by 1966 he had become chief of guerrilla operations�a
post he held until the end of the war in 1974. He did not participate directly in the transition
a government that oversaw Portuguese withdrawal from Mozambique from September 1974
until June 1975. Instead, from FRELIMO headquarters in Tanzania, he laid the plans for
433 his country's first independent government and returned to Mozambique only the day before
his inauguration as President. Currently, in addition to his other duties, he is Commander in
Chief of the Mozambican Armed Forces. He holds the military rank of marshal.
1984. He
Machel, 51, speaks Portuguese and several tribal languages. Married, he has eight
children. His wife, Graca, is Minister of Education and Culture.
CR M 85-13991
29 July 1985
�
Approved for Release: 2019/07/30 C06762106