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Railways of Mozambique. 100 Years

por jpt, em 04.02.05

Railways of Mozambique. 100 Years, de autoria de Luísa Pinto Teixeira, Maputo, Manica/CFM, 1995 (edição para oferta promocional, celebrando o primeiro centenário da empresa): a história dos caminhos-de-ferro nacionais. Apenas de lamentar a pouca qualidade da impressão das fotografias antigas. Defeito ultrapassável pela qualidade do texto.

Para iniciar quem nada sabe desta história ferroviária, e de como ela explicita a história da colónia Moçambique, um breve trecho inicial:

"At the same time the port of Lourenço Marques had been regarded by the Transvaal as an independent gateway to the sea. In 1869 a free trade treaty wich provided for fixed low transit duties was negociated between Moçambique and the Transvaal. It was later replaced by the December 11, 1875 Treaty of Friendship and Commerce between Portugal and the Transvaal and its additional Protocol.

In 1876 the construction of a railway between Lourenço Marques and the Transvaal was considered, and was negociated in the years following 1881. The 1879 Lourenço Marques Treaty which provided for the completion of the railway was the culmination of much negociating.

[Construção do Porto de Lourenço Marques, terminal da linha ferroviária, 1892]

The importance of the Lourenço Marques line was evident at the time, and was the focal point of Portuguese parliamentary debates which led to the eventual signing of the Treaty.

The Lourenço Marques line was finnaly connected to the mining regions in 1894. Due to its strategic location, it became an internacional line that was at the heart of political and diplomatic dealings between South Africa and Moçambique.

The negociations concerning the railway led to an agreement on labour recruitment because both aspects were vital to the economy of the Transvaal. In Moçambique, the 1897 Regulamento issued by the Royal Commissioner Mouzinho de Albuquerque defined for the first time the conditions under which Moçambicans were to be contracted to work in the Transvaal mines..." (16)

[Já então, e até aos nossos dias, a ritual utilização dos chefes tradicionais para a "mobilização" para/"sacralização" das obras públicas]

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Railways of Mozambique. 100 Years

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