Report on Citizenship Law: Mozambique The Lusaka Accord set the terms for the progressive transfer of power over the territory from the Portuguese Government to FRELIMO. It scheduled the solemn proclamation of Mozambique’s independence to 25 June 1975, to coincide with FRELIMO’s anniversary (§ 2), and established three governing structures to operate during the transitional period. These were a High Commissioner, in representation of the Portuguese Government; a Transitional Government, appointed by agreement between FRELIMO and Portugal, to exercise legislative and executive functions and ensure inter alia respect for the principle of non-discrimination based on race, ethnicity, religion or gender; and a Joint Military Board, with equal representation of FRELIMO and of the Portuguese Armed Forces, in charge of monitoring the cease fire scheduled for 8 September 1974 (§§ 3-5, 8-9). The Accord did not specify the implications of independence for the citizenship status of Mozambique’s inhabitants. It included a provision stressing Portugal and FRELIMO’s commitment to eradicate any traces of colonialism and to promote a ‘true racial harmony’, in which FRELIMO’s commitment to a policy of non-discrimination was said to mean that the ‘quality of Mozambican’ would not be defined by the colour of the person’s skin, but by the voluntary identification with the aspirations of the Mozambican nation (§ 15). This same provision added that special agreements would regulate, on the basis of reciprocity, the status of the Portuguese citizens residing in Mozambique and of the Mozambican citizens residing in Portugal. Nothing was said about whether or not the individuals who had been born in Mozambique would be allowed to retain their Portuguese citizenship. At the time, except for the children of foreign diplomats, all individuals who had been born in Mozambique were Portuguese citizens, per Article 1 of the 1959 Portuguese Nationality Act,26 even though this formal status was scarcely understood, let alone exercised, by the majority of the population. Not only did the Portuguese colonial administration have a very limited reach outside the main urban centres, but also, up until 1961,27 Mozambican colonial society had been divided by law into three separate racial/civilizational categories: (a) the white settlers, European born and their offspring, who were full citizens; (b) a small group of Indians28 and black or mixed raced ‘assimilated natives’ (assimilados), socialised through education and employment in the colonial administration, who enjoyed individual rights theoretically on a par with full citizens; and (c) the large majority of black ‘unassimilated natives’, the indigenous population sensu stricto, to whom specific statutes applied and who did not enjoy equal civil or political rights (Silva 2012: 132-135; Silva 2009: 174-175, 185-186; Sumich 2013: 106; Manby 2018b: 56-57). Most individuals born in Mozambique under Portuguese colonial rule would, in any case, lose their Portuguese citizenship shortly after Mozambique became formally independent, due to the entry into force of infamous Decree-Law no. 308-A/75, of 24 July 1975,29 which assumed that the persons born or domiciled in an overseas territory turned independent would was allowed a seat at the negotiations table was criticised for ignoring the political parties and movements existing in Mozambique at the time. A group of conservative white settlers claiming to be the Movement for a Free Mozambique (Movimento de Moçambique Livre) stormed into and occupied the Rádio Clube radio station and the airport on the day of the signature of the Lusaka Accord. Four days of violence ensued, with clashes between the white settlers and the African population of the capital, resulting in hundreds of deaths (Machava 2015: 53-55, 62-80). 26 Law no. 2098, of 29 July 1959; text available at https://dre.pt/application/conteudo/431607 [01.03.2019]. 27 Or, better yet, 1971, which was the year when all mentions to indigenous peoples were finally deleted from the 1933 Constitution. 28 In the social hierarchy of Mozambican colonial society, Indians were ranked immediately under the whites, but relations between the Indians and the Portuguese deteriorated after 1950, when the arrival of new white settlers from continental Portugal heightened economic competition, and broke into outright hostility in 1961, when India reclaimed Goa, leading to the expulsion of all those holding Indian passports (Sumich 2013: 107). 29 Text available at https://dre.pt/application/conteudo/530841 [01.03.2019]. RSCAS/GLOBALCIT-CR 2019/6 - © 2019 Author 7