The Displaced People of Mozambique

The crisis in Mozambique which has recently captured the world's atention is the result of a number of factors, some of long duration. Mozambique, a country abouth half again as big as California with a population of about fourteen million and a GNP per capita (1984) of US $210, was left by its Portuguese masters with only US $1 million in foreign reserves and gold an annual GNP per capita of not much more than US $100 and a population with an. illiteracy rate approaching 98% and largely unskilled. All but 15.000 colonialists fled,many to South Afiica, and in their bitterness they destroyed and paralyzed machinery. As they left they often simply removed a vital mechanical part, other times they destroyed repair manuals and business records in an effort to sabotage the Mozambican economy