Comrade Josina Machel: An African heroine.

Nonye

Very few people know about Josina Machel, a warrior whose brief life was spent fighting to liberate her country from colonial oppression.

Josina Abiathar Muthemba was born on August 10, 1945, in the southern Mozambican province of Inhambane. Her father Abiathar Muthemba, a nurse, and her mother Alfina Muthemba, were fierce anti-colonialists. At the age of 7, Zina, as she was affectionately known, attended the Dom João de Castro primary school in Mocímboa da Praia, northern Mozambique. 

At the age of 13, she moved to the capital then known by the colonial name of Lourenco Marques, to live with her maternal grandmother Ana Macome, and attend a commercial school where she hoped to study accounting. While there at the age of 15, she joined Nùcleo dos Estudantes Africanos Secundàrios de Mozambique (NESAM), a politico-cultural organization that fueled her spirit of patriotism and nationalism. The arrest of members of her family by the colonialist government caused Josina to abandon her studies and decide to join the Liberation Front of Mozambique (FRELIMO), to fight for her country's independence. To do that she had to go to Tanzania which at that time was the FRELIMO headquarters. 

 In 1964, Josina, Armando Guebuza,  ( future Mozambican president),  Adelina Paindane, Simione Chivite, Mariana Sairava Mpfumo, Christina Tembe, Angelo Azarias Chichava  Milagre De Jesus Mazuze, and Amos Mahanjane, headed for Dar es Salaam. Unfortunately, they were arrested by colonial police in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and deported back to Mozambique. Josina was held for several months. The colonial police tortured, threatened, and offered a bribe all to persuade her to abandon her desire to join FRELIMO but she refused to succumb. Finally, after an intense International campaign by FRELIMO, Josina and her comrades were released. Despite surveillance from colonial police the group managed to flee the country and after a torturous journey reached Dar es Salaam. There she began work in the Mozambique Institute, a residential educational center for Mozambican students, as assistant to the director, Janet Mondlane, wife of the president of FRELIMO.

In 1967, she spearheaded the formation of the  Women Detachment, a branch of FRELIMO aimed at mobilizing women and providing them with military training to join the independence struggle. In 1969, at the age of 24, she was appointed head of the Women's Department. She used her position to advocate for women's rights and social equality. That same year she married Samora Machel( who would become the first president of Mozambique ), whom she'd met while training with other female combatants in Northern Mozambique. Their son, Samora Machel Jr., was born in November of that year but was left with friends while Josina continued the independence struggle.

She quickly rose through the ranks and was appointed head of the FRELIMO Department for Social Affairs providing children in conflict-ridden northern Mozambique with health care and education and organizing orphanages for war orphans. She encouraged female education and was a strong advocate of women's rights.

By 1970 her health was failing her but it did not reduce her zeal. She continued to advocate for the emancipation of women and organize orphanages. Sadly her illness got worse and on April 7, 1971, Comrade Josina Machel died in a Dar es Salam hospital at the age of 25.

The cause of her death was liver cancer. Though she did not live to see the independence she fought so long and hard to achieve the people of Mozambique never forgot her efforts. April 7 the day of her death is National Women's Day in Mozambique and, Josina Machel Secondary School, in the capital Maputo, is named after her.

A fearless patriot, freedom fighter, and nationalist Josina Machel was truly an African heroine.

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