Talk:Mozambican War of Independence

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older entries
I'm slowly constructing this article as I research the subject, please feel free to contribute anything useful, it will be greatly appreciated! Please discuss majors additions here, or at least make a note of them, thanks. --SGGH 15:01, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Still to do:


 * The sections on the conflict either side of 1969 need to be fleshed out into a full account of the events of the war. However I can't find much info on it and would appreciate anyone helping out with that.
 * The results of the assassination in terms of how it shook frelimo, again I can find little on that and would like assisstance please.
 * The consequences, how much did the war lead to independence? Was it really more a result of the coup in Portugal?

The above three areas I can't find much on, however I've written the background sections, devealopment program section, and introduction to my satisfaction at the moment--SGGH 14:24, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

You've done a good job with this article SGGH. It looks good: I'm a newcomer, and just getting used to being here. I'll look around and see what I can do. Richiar 13:58, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

casualty numbers
are you sure about the casualty numbers? usually the colonial power has less soldiers and loses less soldiers. Wandalstouring 17:00, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Its the only information i could find for now, until i get a hold of more reliable information (or someone else does) it will have to do for now, though it did always look a little off.--SGGH 09:03, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

bantu speakers
"Bantu-speaking peoples were the native inhabitants of Mozambique since first and fourth centuries AD"

So, which century was it? Feijuada 13:51, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

That's a mix-up, i've corrected it now.--SGGH 09:04, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Good Article - On Hold
I've put this article 'on hold' for GA status for the moment. It is very close, but I would prefer to see the 'continuing war' section split up and the relevant parts of it integrated with the 'carnation revolution' section. As things stand I think the structure hinders the clear presentation of the material about the end of the War. The only other comment I'd make is that there are a few noticeable typos. Great work and a fascinating topic! The Land 15:27, 24 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I've passed the article now this has been addressed. A suggestion: the graphic showing the military expenditure isn't particularly clear (what are the figures that are being displayed? they are labelled as acronyms in Portugese). The Land 23:26, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Slaves
The article states "'...which were provided money and slaves by the British Empire to work in mines and construct railways.'" in relation to approx 1881 and the origins of the Mozambican state. Is this correct? It was my understanding that the British abolished all slavery exploits at least half a century earlier? Have changed it to cheap labour.-- Z leitzen (talk)  14:23, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Diacrit
Is it really "Emilio Lourenco", not "Emilio Lourenço"? The latter seems more likely. - Jmabel | Talk 16:58, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Similarly, "Lourenco Matola". - Jmabel | Talk 17:23, 13 March 2007 (UTC) solved SGGH 19:53, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Redundancy
The section Insurgency under Mondlane (1964-69) circles around and says the same things more than once, for example about "freedom to move". - Jmabel | Talk 17:20, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I have attempted to remove some of the repitition. SGGH 20:07, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikisyntax fighting with itself
" On the 10th or 11th of October 1966 ": the whole purpose of linking dates is so that they will format correctly for the user's options, but what is done here totally defeats that. - Jmabel | Talk 17:22, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Both dates are cited by sources, i have removed the wikiness and just left it as text SGGH 19:54, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Early US & UN support
The section about early US & UN support is a bit unclear (how this fits in with the rest of the story and the larger picture in Africa). Someone might want to expand on this, or link appropriately to an article that does so. - Jmabel | Talk 17:27, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I have expanded it slightly. Will search for ways to do more. SGGH 20:34, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Mozambique Liberation Front / FRELIMO
After first mention of both names, and outside of quotations, shouldn't we stick with either Mozambique Liberation Front or FRELIMO? Right now, we mostly use the latter, but occasionally the former. This seems unnecessarily confusing. - Jmabel | Talk 17:30, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I have removed all other mentions of MLF other than in the lead, and replaced them with FRELIMO SGGH 19:56, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Assassination of Mondlane
The article argues with itself. It is unknown who did this, but it was "revealed" that Aginter Press was responsible. - Jmabel | Talk 17:36, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
 * The problem is that even reliable sources disagree on this: some argue that he was killed by the Potuguese secret service, others by Frelimo rivals, others still by a combination of the two. So it's not easy to districate this.--Aldux 18:07, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I have reworded this to make it more clear SGGH 19:57, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Remaining issues
Thanks. Looks like you did well (and rapidly) on those. Here are the remaining in-line remarks I made that should presumably still be addressed:


 * "Eduardo Mondlane's successor, President Samora Machel, commented that “the only ones who will really help us. … They have fought armed struggles, and whatever they have learned that is relevant to Mozambique we will use.”" The quoted phrase has no subject.
 * Done. [[Image:Symbol confirmed.png|20px]]-- Z leitzen (talk)  01:18, 14 March 2007 (UTC)


 * "With the initial FRELIMO attacks in Chai Chai": is this distinct from Chai mentioned above? If so, it deserves a link, if not, use the same form of the name.
 * Done. [[Image:Symbol confirmed.png|20px]]-- Z leitzen (talk)  23:55, 13 March 2007 (UTC)


 * "General Costa Gomes": is this Francisco da Costa Gomes? If so, it certainly deserves a link and a brief explanation who he is. If not, still deserves a full name, if only to make it clear this is not that Costa Gomes.
 * "Flechas units" needs explanation or link on first mention. Later, when we say "Flechas: a unit similar to the one employed in Angola", that still doesn't say much: it's not as if the average reader will be tremendously more familiar with the Angola war.
 * Done. [[Image:Symbol confirmed.png|20px]]-- Z leitzen (talk)  00:21, 14 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Also, why was SA-7 MANPAD de-linked? Hardly self-explanatory. Eventually needs an article.
 * Done. I redirected it to Strela 2 [[Image:Symbol confirmed.png|20px]]-- Z leitzen  (talk)  00:41, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

- Jmabel | Talk 22:37, 13 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm assuming it was General Francisco da Costa Gomes, who was a commander at that time. However the article states that he was second in command to Antonio dos Santos - in 1972 - though earlier it says that dos Santos was relieved in 1970. This needs to be clarified. Was it Francisco da Costa Gomes? What was his position, and if he was second in command, who was first in command at the appropriate time? -- Z leitzen (talk)  23:08, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
 * The article states "By 1972, however, there was growing pressure from other commanders, particularly Kaúlza de Arriaga's second in command, General Francisco da Costa Gomes" if that answers your question, but it probably states that because you already fixed the issue :D and yes, to my knowledge the above quote from the article is corrent. SGGH 08:40, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

The lead
I have reverted to the former version of the lead for two reasons. Firstly, the section "Portugal's wars against independence guerrilla fighters in its 500-year-old African territories erupted in 1961 in Angola. In surprise attacks, rebels butchered Portuguese farmers and their families, including women, children and their black employees, on remote Angolan plantations." is too POV in my opinion, and there were other POV issues also, and the former lead handles things better, and secondly it went into too much detail for the brief summary it ought to be. SGGH speak! 12:04, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Someone has put it back in, so I hve taken out the POV terms and sprinkled the required fact and attribution tags. SGGH speak! 15:01, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Result
I am hereby editing the result of this article based on actual evidence given by both FRELIMO and Portuguese War Department sources, that claim in conssonance the military victory of the Portuguese forces by the end of the war.

93.108.198.179 (talk) 12:58, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Can you link us to these sources? S.G.(GH) ping! 15:57, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Images of the Portuguese military
Most images of the Portuguese military shown in this article are not suitable to illustrate it for several reasons: I therefore propose the removal of the images that do not illustrate the reality of this War and to replace them with appropriate images if available.JSobral (talk) 23:45, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
 * 1) They refer to the begining of the Angolan War of Independence (1961-1962 period), and not to Mozambique;
 * 2) They do not even serve to illustrate the appearance that the Portuguese military had in the Mozambican War of Independence because, when this started in 1964, the Portuguese field uniforms and weapons had already changed, being diferent than those that appear in the 1961-1962 period images.
 * If we can find appropriate images, I would think this fair. --S.G.(GH) ping! 11:27, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

ENGVAR
Is this article in American or British English? I found instances of both, which isn't ok. --John (talk) 21:55, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
 * As far as I can figure looking back to 2006 the article was written in British English. I have tagged it accordingly. --John (talk) 06:28, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Query
What does this sentence mean? "The African overseas provinces of Portugal's GDP growth was also widely notable and the construction of infrastructure were at a record high during the war." It's a remarkable sentence to find in a Featured Article. --John (talk) 06:30, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Well, it was promoted in 2007 and has decayed since then as is normal. Fortunately, because it's relatively stable, it hasn't gone too far and I've dealt with some of the most visible instances. Personally, I think the sentence makes sense (remember "African overseas provinces of Portugal" is a proper noun), but I agree it could be phrased better. Why not Be Bold and deal with it? —Brigade Piron (talk) 12:13, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
 * If it's a proper noun it needs to be capitalised. Or could we say "Portuguese Africa"? That might flow better. Without the caps I honestly had difficult parsing the meaning. --John (talk) 20:34, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Citation whining
Some of the references don't seem properly cited, especially the first 20 or so. Brutannica (talk) 18:57, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Well, ideally the lot would be in template:sfn format. But it's masses of work. Care to do it? ;) —Brigade Piron (talk) 19:44, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

More citation whining... (i.e. citation demands...)
I have a very specific quote that really needs to be sourced:

"Originally, the United States offered support to the nationalist groups in Africa. This support was ostensibly in keeping with Wilsonian principles, which advocated self-determination and independence for colonised nations." [My tags].

This runs in the face of what was going on during the middle period of the Cold War. Early during the Indochina War c.1945-1953, the US did originally support the Viet Minh during this time, but switched sides to support the French Colonial Government in order to strengthen the French within NATO against a possible Third World War with the Soviets. By the 1960s the US was already supporting many non-democratic governments around the world, so supporting the Portuguese Military Government would have been part of the US Containment Policy in the effort of fighting the Soviets and Communism in general.

Can we get this sourced... Dinky town  talk  19:54, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

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FA criteria
I just removed the deprecated FrontPage Magazine, but other sources also don't look reliable. Also, there are serious verifiability issues with citing books but not providing a page number. (t · c)  buidhe  02:33, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
 * - agreed, this article is in very poor shape for an FA, would support delisting. Just looking at a number of the illustrations, the captions alone raise doubts concerning original research and NPOV, and depict images not from Mozambique (the helicopter photo is certainly from Angola)--Goldsztajn (talk) 00:03, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I would also support delisting at this stage. The citations alone are an absolute mess. -Indy beetle (talk) 03:07, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree with the above that there are citation problems throughout this article. I am unable to nominate this article for FAR this week (because I have already nominated another article) so would one of you be interested in bringing this to FAR or fixing up the article? I am happy to help with the process or answer any questions. If not, I will post it in the coming weeks. Z1720 (talk) 16:05, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I just posted a FAR so can't take this one, unfortunately. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  16:52, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Apologies, I am completely backlogged with commitments at the moment. Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 20:21, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Very biased writing
I'm sure that there was resentment among much of the population, but this was another guerilla war that was fomented by Marxists. The article doesn't reflect that very well. It was more likely planned in Moscow before it started in Mozambique, and the KGB etc would have taken the steps in arming them. 2A00:23EE:1708:6409:88BF:4CE9:7D86:FE1D (talk) 07:49, 14 August 2023 (UTC)