On June 25, 1975, the people of Mozambique were freed from the yoke of 200-plus years of colonial enslavement and achieved a full independence of the country. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) was among the first countries to extend congratulations to the birth of new Mozambique on that significant day and to establish diplomatic relations with it.

The DPRK actively supported and encouraged the anti-colonial struggle, national liberation struggle of the Mozambican people against the colonialists.

In September 1971, at a time when the bloody struggle of the Mozambican people for terminating the colonial enslavement and achieving freedom and independence had been faced with grave difficulties, the great President Kim Il Sung personally met with Samora Moisés Machel, Chairman of the Front for the Liberation and Commander-in-Chief of People’s Army of Liberation of Mozambique who was working hard to find a way out of the critical fate of armed struggle, and taught him in detail about the secret of success in guerrilla warfare and the valuable and brilliant strategic and tactical ideas he had personally mastered during the days of anti-Japanese struggle.

That is why President Machel excitedly said at a celebration on the independence day that we, the people of Mozambique, should clearly know how this victory of ours was achieved, we shattered the chains which had bound us and also our ancestors and were liberated from the destiny of slavery because the great hero President Kim Il Sung illuminated our way ahead, and we should extend our thanks to President Kim Il Sung by incorporating the mind our ancestors who had sacrificed their blood and life for today.

In 1980s, when the situation of Mozambique was unstable due to the foreign interference, President Kim Il Sung sent our officials there and provided unreserved support to the revolutionary struggle of the Mozambican people for safeguarding the national independence and building a new society.

President Kim Il Sung met with Samora Moisés Machel, the first Mozambican President, who had visited our country on several occasions, and told him about the experiences learned through the building of the party, state and government in our country and honestly exchanged views on the ways and means for strengthening self-defense capabilities and developing the economy that would best suit the reality of Mozambique. And the President also spared a large sum of interest-free loan.

70-plus cases of mutual visits of delegations including the three-time visits to our country by former Presidents of Mozambique and the visits to Mozambique by our high-level delegations led by Vice-President and Foreign Minister and also the conclusion of more than ten treaties and agreements contributed to vigorously developing the friendly and cooperative relations between the DPRK and Mozambique in all fields of politics, economy and culture.

It is the steadfast will of Kim Jong Un , Chairman of the State Affairs Commission of the DPRK, to defend and add more brilliance to the immortal exploits performed in their revolutionary external activities by President Kim Il Sung and Chairman Kim Jong Il .

Though the DPRK and the Republic of Mozambique are geographically far apart, as Mozambique is situated in the southeastern part of African continent across oceans and continents, there is no change in the stance of the DPRK government to expand and strengthen the bilateral relations in the interests of the peoples of two countries under the idea of independence, peace and friendship, and the bilateral relations would grow closer and richer along this road.

Korea-Africa Association