Beira, Mozambique being a favourite holiday destination for white Rhodesians. One reminder of this is the Grande Hotel, built by the Portuguese, near the shore of the Indian Ocean. By 1970, the city of Beira had 113,770 inhabitants. After independence from Portugal in 1975, many white ethnic Portuguese left the city. Mozambique was ravaged by a civil war from 1977 to 1992, opposing Marxist FRELIMO, which controlled the government, to the rebels of RENAMO, descending to near total chaos in a couple of years. The famine, disease and poverty-stricken country collapsed. In Beira, the famous Grande Hotel was occupied by around 1,000
Independence movements in Mozambique In April 1961 Adelino Gwambe travelled to Rabat to represent all three parties, UDENAMO, MANU and UNAMI, at the conference where FRAIN was disbanded and replaced by the "Confederação das Organizações Nacionalistas das Colónias Portuguesas" (CONCP). In June 1962, with encouragement from both the CONCP and Nyerere, UDENAMO, MANU, and UNAMI merged to form the Frente de Libertação de Moçambique (FRELIMO). At the first FRELIMO congress, at Dar es Salaam in late September 1962, Eduardo Mondlane was elected its President. After many years of FRELIMO's struggle, Mozambique become independent in 1975. Independence movements in Mozambique Groups interested in freeing Mozambique