Mozambique's "Teachers of the Negative": The Confessions of FRELIMO Dissidents at the Nachingwea Camp, March-May 1975.

Just before independence, between March and May 1975, the Mozambican liberation movement FRELIMO held three meetings at its political-military training camp in Nachingwea in southern Tanzania. An estimated 360-400 "reactionary agents and traitors to the Mozambican people" were paraded and indicted in front of assembled recruits. Presidents Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia and Julius Nyerere of Tanzania attended the last meeting. During the meetings, chaired by Samora Machel, the prisoners read out public confessions. Among those prosecuted in this way were high-profile political dissidents such as Joana Simeão, Lázaro Nkavandame, Paulo Gumane, and Uria Simango. The trials of Nachingwea were the first instantiation of a politics of theatrical revolutionary violence that would characterize FRELIMO's rule in the period after independence. After establishing a narrative of the events based on contemporary sources, this article analyses the texts of five of the confessions read at Nachingwea. Four of the latter have survived in handwritten versions, which may be the only extant copies. Based on this evidence, we argue that the Nachingwea trials were a political means to deal at once with the crisis that had shaken FRELIMO in 1968-69--often referred to as the "struggle of the two lines"--as well as to delegitimize potential political opponents in the transition to independence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]