Mueda

On 16 June 1960, Makonde nationalists organized a demonstration in front of the Mueda District headquarters on the Mueda town square in order to demand independence from Portugal. Apparently the district administrator had invited them to present their grievances.[5] The administrator ordered the leaders arrested, and the crowd protested.[6] The Portuguese administrator ordered his pre-assembled troops to fire on the crowd,[7] after which many more were thrown to their death into a ravine.[1] The number of dead is in dispute.[8] However, resentment generated by these events ultimately led to the independentist guerrilla organization FRELIMO gaining needed momentum at the outset of the Mozambican War of Independence (1964–1975).[6][7] The site of the massacre is marked by a commemorative statue.[1]

The Makonde were strong supporters of FRELIMO. In fact, the Makonde African National Union (MANU - later Mozambique African National Union) was one of the three founding organizations of FRELIMO.[6][9] Mueda was also the site of Portuguese operations against FRELIMO. In 1967, in one of its first major military actions, FRELIMO launched an abortive attack against the airbase there,[10] although the base was seriously damaged.[11] In May 1970, General Arriaga began Operation Gordian Knot, headquartered out of Mueda. By the end of the operation, he claimed to have eliminated over seventy FRELIMO bases.[12] However, other than loss of equipment and supplies, the operation did not affect FRELIMO's ability to infiltrate additional arms from Tanzania, and did not substantially affect their ability to wage war.[13] In a later attack, in 1972, against the Mueda airbase, all nineteen airplanes were destroyed.[14]