Marcelino dos Santos

Marcelino dos Santos (born 20 May 1929 in Lumbo) is a Mozambican poet, revolutionary, and statesman. As a young man he travelled to Portugal, and France for an education. He was a founding member of the Frente de Libertação de Moçambique (FRELIMO—Mozambican Liberation Front), in 1962, and served as the party's deputy president from 1969 to 1977. He was Minister of Economic Development in the late 1970s, Frelimo Political Bureau member in charge of the economy in the early 1980s, Chairman of the country's parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, from 1987 to 1994, and, as of 1999, remains a member of the Frelimo Central Committee.

He represents the left wing of the party, remaining an avowed Marxist-Leninist, despite the party's embrace of capitalism in recent decades—an embracewhich dos Santos declares is temporary. He says that the "retreat" to capitalism was necessary in order to receive Western help in dealing with the RENAMO incursion and Civil War.

Marcelino dos Santos is the son of Firmindo dos Santos and Teresa Sabino dos Santos. He was raised in Lourenço Marques, Portuguese Mozambique (now Maputo, Mozambique). His father was politically active: a member of the African Association of Mozambique. Marcelino left Mozambique in 1947 to continue his education at the Industrial Institute in Lisbon - the Instituto Industrial de Lisboa. At the Casa dos Estudantes do Imperio (House for Students of the Empire) he rubbed shoulders with others destined to become leaders of the independence movement in the Portuguese colonies—such as Amílcar Cabral (Guinea-Bissau), Agostinho Neto (Angola), and Eduardo Mondlane (Mozambique). By 1950, with Neto arrested and Mondlane departed for the United States, dos Santos had relocated along with several others to Paris. There he lived with writers and artists associated with the literary magazine Présence Africaine.

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