Josina Machel (FRELIMO) - in The Liberation Struggle

In The Liberation Struggle

As she reached her 20th birthday, Josina was immediately assigned responsibilities within FRELIMO’s multifaceted quest for national independence. She began work at the Mozambique Institute, a residential education center for Mozambican students in Tanzania, as assistant to the director. The director is Janet Mondlane, the American born wife of FRELIMO president Eduardo Mondlane. A year and a half later, Josina turns down the offer of a scholarship to undertake university studies in Switzerland and volunteers for FRELIMO’s newly created Women’s Branch (Destacamento Feminino). The Women’s Branch is tasked with providing women with political and military training in order that they may be fully integrated into the liberation struggle. This initiative is little short of extraordinary in view of the fact that gender equality goes strongly against traditional African cultural norms.

Josina subsequently became one of 25 young women to go through three months of military training at Nachingweya in the liberated area of Cabo Delgado in northern Mozambique. Samora Machel, the future first president of Mozambique and Josina’s future husband, serves as the director of this training center.

Afterwards, Josina and other women combatants combine defensive roles in guarding supplies and facilitites behind the lines of combat with community organizing roles in which they explain FRELIMO’s history, goals, and purposes to the local liberated populations in the effort to win their moral and material support. This division of labor frees up additional men for direct military actions.

During 1968 the Women’s Branch evolves into a de facto social services program for FRELIMO in the liberated areas. It organizes health centers, schools, and child care centers. It helps families whose homes have been destroyed, and provides emotional support to wounded soldiers and peasant families traumatized by the warfare. Josina plays a visionary role in identifying the need for child care centers to look after children who have been orphaned or separated from their families by the war.

In mid-1968 Josina is named a delegate to the Second FRELIMO Congress where she is a strong advocate for the full inclusion of women within all aspects of the liberation struggle. She is then appointed head of the Women’s Section in FRELIMO’s Department of International Relations. In this position she travels periodically to international meetings on women’s rights and the role of women in development where she uses examples of FRELIMO experiences to advocate for women’s equal participation in all aspects of the development process. She is now 24 years old.

1969 proves an eventful year for Josina. She is appointed head of FRELIMO’s Department of Social Affairs where she actively develops child care and educational centers in northern Mozambique and advocates with local populations for the importance of sending girls to school. When FRELIMO President Eduardo Mondlane is assassinated in Tanzania by Portuguese agents, Josina moves in with his wife, Janet, to provide comfort and company. In May she marries Samora Machel at the Educational Center of Tunduru in southern Tanzania, a facility she had helped to develop. At the end of November, Josina and Samora’s only child, named Samora Junior and called Samito, is born.

During 1970 Josina begins to suffer from stomach pains and weakness. She travels to Moscow for medical attention. The apparent diagnosis is liver cancer. Rest and a strict diet are recommended, but Josina returns to her duties with FRELIMO. At the end of the year, she leaves Samito with a friend and undertakes a two month trip, largely on foot, through Niassa Province to assess conditions and plan activities for the Department of Social Affairs.

In March 1971 Josina traveled again, this time to Cabo Delgado, to evaluate social programs being implemented there. During the marches she struggles with chronic fatigue and exhaustion. Yet at one point she leads a meeting of more than 1,000 persons. Tired and very thin, she decides to return to Dar es Salaam at the beginning of April. As she crosses the border into Tanzania, she hands her pistol to a companion and says, “Comrades, I can continue no longer. Give this to the military commander of the province so that it may contribute to the salvation of the Mozambican people.”

In Dar es Salaam, Josina becomes seriously ill on April 5. She was taken to Muhimbili Hospital and died on April 7, 1971 at the age of 25 years. She was buried in Kinondoni Cemetery where her uncle Mateus Muthemba, who was assassinated by Portuguese agents in 1968, is also interred.

A year later, FRELIMO declared April 7, the day of Josina’s death, as National Women’s Day in Mozambique. In March 1973 FRELIMO established the National Organization of Mozambican Women as the movement’s social and political arm for women. Inspired in part by the ideals of women’s emancipation that Machel promoted, the organization continued to work for this goal following Mozambican independence in 1975. A number of Josina’s sisters in arms went on to play important leadership roles in this organization and in government. The principal secondary school in the capital city is named after her.