Interview with Joaquim Chipande
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Interview with Joaquim Chipande http://www.aluka.org/action/showMetadata?doi=10.5555/AL.SFF.DOCUMENT.machel0004 Use of the Aluka digital library is subject to Aluka’s Terms and Conditions, available at http://www.aluka.org/page/about/termsConditions.jsp. By using Aluka, you agree that you have read and will abide by the Terms and Conditions. Among other things, the Terms and Conditions provide that the content in the Aluka digital library is only for personal, non-commercial use by authorized users of Aluka in connection with research, scholarship, and education. The content in the Aluka digital library is subject to copyright, with the exception of certain governmental works and very old materials that may be in the public domain under applicable law. Permission must be sought from Aluka and/or the applicable copyright holder in connection with any duplication or distribution of these materials where required by applicable law. Aluka is a not-for-profit initiative dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of materials about and from the developing world. For more information about Aluka, please see http://www.aluka.org Interview with Joaquim Chipande Author/Creator Chipande, Joaquim (interviewee); de Carvalho, Sol (inteviewer) Date 2003 Resource type Interviews Language English Subject Coverage (spatial) Mozambique, Tanzania, United Republic of Coverage (temporal) 1954-1975 Source Samora Machel Documentation Center Rights By kind permission of Alberto Joaquim Chipande and the Samora Machel Documentation Centre (SARDC). Description This interview tells the life story of Alberto Joaquim Chipande, one of the early leaders of FRELIMO's liberation struggle, the commander of the first attack in the war for independence, and a close colleague of President Samora Machel. Aspects covered in the interview include Chipande's background growing up in a peasant family in Cabo Delgado province, his flight to Tanzania, guerrilla training in Algeria, and developments within FRELIMO in the late 1960s. http://www.aluka.org/action/showMetadata?doi=10.5555/AL.SFF.DOCUMENT.machel0004 http://www.aluka.org Interview with Joaquim Chipande Translated by Eleusio Dos Prazeres Viegas Filipe, Doctoral Candidate in Portuguese and Spanish, University of Minnesota Reviewed by Jim Johnson, Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Global Change, U of MM Can you say your name and tell about your family background? Can I start talking? Very well, my name is Alberto Joaquim Chipande. My father’s name is Joaquim António Chipande and my mother’s name is Felícia Paulo Mateus. I come from a peasant family. My brothers and I were educated in the same way as any other African family. I’m the fifth child in my family. We were seven children from the same parents. My father had three wives and my mother was his second wife. I have other brothers from the other two wives of my father. We were raised as a big family. Can you talk about your childhood and youth? In my family, my brothers and I depended on our mothers. However, my father took me to be under his direct responsibility. He sent me to school in the Catholic Mission of Muecate?. I started studying there in the 1950s and I finished grade four in 1956. I graduated from grade 4, and I couldn’t do anything else because I was very young. This is what the priests said. They said that I was a child, and I was 16 years old, and I couldn’t be a teacher. [They also said that] if I wanted to continue studying I could become a seminarian. I told them that I didn’t want to become a seminarian because I didn’t have any inclination for that. So, I was inactive for an entire year and in the second year, the priests called me and they invited me to teach and I started teaching in 1957. So, I was a teacher from 1957 to 1963. Talking about the history of the time, I have to say that I was one of those young people of the 1950s. I was one those people who suffered the experiences of colonialism in the skin, flesh, and bones. I physically and psychologically experienced the violence of 500 years of colonialism. Why do I say this? I couldn’t live with brothers. I didn’t have a harmonious family because all of us had to be involved in forced labor. Some of them migrated to Tanzania. Therefore, I didn’t live in a very good family environment with my brothers because they had fled the forced labor. So, I was the victim of the colonial past of 500 years. Explain to us what the experience of growing cotton was. We were involved in growing cotton in the plantation of João Vieira in Mocimboa da Praia. He had sisal, cashew nut, and coconut plantations. Since many people who lived on the coast were not used to doing this kind of job, the workers were recruited from Mueda. So, my brothers were always targeted for recruitment and I was never recruited. I recall one day when I was with my brother and he was taken to go to work as forced laborer. He went to work as a coerced laborer in the plantation, but he didn’t stay there a week. When he returned, he fled to Tanzania. He took with him my other brothers, so I didn’t live with them anymore. It was only when I fled to Tanzania that I met him again. These are the events that stimulated me and instilled in me a nationalist spirit with a desire for fighting for the liberation against oppression, colonialism, and other atrocities. These events filled me with hatred Did you have information about your family in Tanzania? I grew up hearing about TANU and this was since 1954. One of my brothers fled to Tanzania in 1954 and I was 17 years old at the time. When he came back he told me that he was a member and he was involved with TANU in Tanzania. He lived in Linde and my uncles also lived there. Part of my family lived there too, and as you know I grew up near the border with Tanzania. I would follow the political events unfolding in Tanzania, the formation and development of TANU. When Mozambicans who lived in Tanzania formed MANU, I approached them. Was this in 1961 or 1962? My first contacts with TANU were in 1957. It was in 1957 when I had my first contacts with TANU and I was recruited by the elderly people of the region. I started teaching in Mueda in 1957. When I was admitted as a teacher in the mission school the seniors asked me to work with them. I asked them, “what kind of work?” and they replied “We want to work seriously.” I think you’ve heard about Lázaro Kavandame and he had “Sociedade Agrícola e Monetária dos Africanos de Moçambique” [Agrarian and Monetary Association of Africans]. This enterprise was involved in cotton production. There was a system of cotton production directed by the company Sagar. There was an association of Mozambicans which was created by Lázaro Kavandame during the colonial period. This association was more focused on politics than anything else. They talked about politics and they mobilized people through this association. So, in 1957, I was invited to work with them. I asked them “what kind of work am I going to do?” and they replied to me saying “the work is difficult, but since you’re a teacher we need your help…” Then, they explained to me what kind of work by saying, “this is the Associação Algodoeira dos Africanos de Moçambique [Cotton Association of the Africans of Mozambique], but within this organization we’re doing politics.” Beginning that day, I was given assignments to carry out. I started receiving clandestine organizations coming from Tanzania including TANU and MANU that came to work in Mozambique. So, I would clandestinely receive such organizations. I started doing this kind of job in 1957 through 1958 and 1959. I did this job until the time when Lázaro Kavandame was arrested. He was expelled from the area of the Makondes and he was sent to Montepuez where he could not establish contacts with Makonde people. We worked in 1958 and 1959 and in 1960 we had the Mueda Massacre. I was an activist at the time. I would clandestinely receive the delegations that came to establish contacts with the Portuguese. I did this job with my other young fellow friends. One of them was the late Simão Tobias Ndondo and Raimundo Pachinuapa. They were my bosses. I was still a young man and they were senior to me. The late Ndondo and late Colonel João Mandala helped me to get accommodated. So, I would receive the delegations such as MANU… Was it MANU or MAA, Mozambique African Association? The African Association was not here. In Mozambique, we didn’t have MANU because we couldn’t form that kind of associations. It was a clandestine organization. In Mozambique, we had Associação Algodoeira dos Africanos de Moçambique and this association was created by Lázaro Kavandame. He created this association as a cover up for political activities inside the organization. He maintained direct contacts and relations with the colonial administration, but with the association appearing as if it was merely a pacific organization. There were political activities inside the association, one of which was to organize the natives and to bring unity among them. So, this association was the focal point of contacts with politicians before the creation of MANU. Initially the association had contacts only with TANU before the formation of MANU in the 1950’s.