History of Mozambique 10 years of sporadic warfare and Portugal's return to democracy through a leftist military coup in Lisbon, which replaced Portugal's Estado Novo regime with a military junta (the Carnation Revolution of April 1974), FRELIMO took control of the territory. Within a year, most of the 250,000 Portuguese in Mozambique had left—some expelled by the government of the nearly independent territory, some fleeing in fear—and Mozambique became independent from Portugal on 25 June 1975. A law had been passed on the initiative of the then relatively unknown Armando Guebuza of the FRELIMO party ordering the Portuguese to leave the country in
Economy of Mozambique of 90 percent of the ethnic Portuguese citizens during and after the independence process which was concluded on June 25, 1975. Portuguese population's rapid exodus left the Mozambican economy in disarray. The situation was exacerbated by the Mozambican Civil War (1977–1992) during the following years that destroyed the remaining wealth and left the former Portuguese Overseas Province in a state of absolute disrepair. Mozambique became an independent state in 1975. The exodus of trained Portuguese and the eruption of the Mozambican Civil War in 1977 opposing RENAMO to FRELIMO, drove the country to absolute chaos. Mozambique became an independent nation