Eduardo Mondlane - Legacy and Homages

Legacy and Homages

Mondlane's death was mourned at a funeral in 1969 which was officiated by his Oberlin classmate and friend the Reverend Edward Hawley, who said during the ceremonies that Mondlane "...laid down his life for the truth that man was made for dignity and self-determination."

By the early 1970s FRELIMO's 7,000-strong guerrilla force had wrested control of some countryside areas of the central and northern parts of Mozambique from the Portuguese authorities. The independentist guerrilla was engaging a Portuguese force of approximately 60,000 military, which was almost all concentrated in the area of Cahora Bassa where the Portuguese administration were finalizing the construction of a major hydroelectric dam, one of many facilities and improvements that the Portuguese provincial administration's development commission were rapidly developing since the 1960s. The 1974 overthrow of the Portuguese ruling regime after a leftist military coup in Lisbon, brought a dramatic change of direction in Portugal's policy regarding its overseas provinces, and on 25 June 1975, Portugal handed over power to FRELIMO and Mozambique became an independent nation.