Josina Machel (FRELIMO) - Teenage Years

Teenage Years

In 1958, now 13 years old, Josina entered the commercial school “Dr. Azevedo e Silva” to pursue an interest in accounting. Two years later, she joined the Nucleo dos Estudantes Secondários de Moçambique (Mozambican Secondary Students Group), which encourages cultural identity and political awareness among secondary students. Then abruptly in March 1964 she fled the country with several other students (including Armando Emilio Guebuza with the intention of joining the Mozambican Liberation Front (FRELIMO), which is based in Tanzania. They manage to travel as far as the border between Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and Zambia at Victoria Falls, a distance of some 800 miles, when they were apprehended, returned to the police in Lourenço Marques, and jailed. Five months later, in the month of her 19th birthday, Josina was released from jail as a result of an international campaign carried out by FRELIMO. She resumed attending secondary school, but she was watched by police agents.

Four months afterwards Josina fled Mozambique for a second time, again with a group of fellow students. From this point, Josina never saw any member of her family again. The group seeks asylum in Swaziland, where they are put in a refugee camp. With the help of a local Presbyterian pastor, also a FRELIMO sympathizer, Josina and three others are able to escape from the camp just as it is rumored that they are to be turned over to the Portuguese authorities. Traveling first by car, then by foot, and finally by bus, the four students arrive in Johannesburg, South Africa. There they make contact with a FRELIMO version of the underground railroad. Next the group traveled by truck to Francistown, Botswana where they joined 14 others who are also seeking to get to Tanzania. Here they were declared “undesirable visitors” by the British colonial authorities and arrangements are made to deport them all to Swaziland. Following intense international publicity involving the Organization of African Unity and the United Nations, FRELIMO leader Eduardo Mondlane succeeded in persuading the British authorities to release the 18 students and allow them to proceed to Tanzania. The group is accordingly handed over to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees which arranged for them to travel to Lusaka, Zambia. There they spend several days in a refugee camp until they are turned over to a FRELIMO representative. After a long, arduous trip in public buses, the group finally arrives weak and undernourished in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. All together, Josina has traveled nearly 2,000 miles from her home.