From AFP via BusinessDayLive

Mozambique and Angola this year mark four decades of independence from Portugal, with robust economic growth rates buoyed by abundant natural resources giving the southern African nations reason to celebrate.

A prime investment destination following the recent discovery of huge natural gas and coal deposits, Mozambique will be the first to mark its freedom on Thursday.

Meanwhile, Angola, Africa’s second-biggest crude oil producer, will commemorate its independence anniversary on Nov. 11.

In a sharp contrast to the long civil wars that ravaged both the ex-colonies — pitting Marxist regimes against guerrillas backed by apartheid-era South Africa — they recently saw an influx of Portuguese job seekers.

Even as an AK47 automatic rifle adorns the multicoloured Mozambican national flag, relations between Lisbon and Maputo are now “excellent,” says Portugal’s ambassador Jose Augusto Duarte.

“Any problems that came up in the decolonisation of Mozambique have been resolved. We don’t have any dispute,” Duarte said.

But Mozambique’s independence was traumatic for many settlers who hastily fled in 1975, when former President Armando Guebuza — then interior minister under independence leader Samora Machel — ordered an estimated 200,000 Portuguese residents to either adopt Mozambican nationality or leave the country within 24 hours.

Those who opted to go could leave with a maximum of 20 kilograms of luggage. The order famously became known as “24-20”.

Links with Portugal are tighter in Angola, where the elite maintain especially close ties with Lisbon.

For Portugal, Angola became a sure escape from the economic crisis, which gave the southern European country a dumping ground for goods, businesses and the unemployed.

But the relationship is a two-way street, with Angola’s wealthy — especially President Jose Eduardo dos Santos’s daughter, Isabel — investing millions in Portugal in what critics have dubbed a “reverse colonisation”.

“What is the most dramatic consequence of Angola’s massive investment in Portugal?” asked Marcolino Moco, a former Angolan prime minister.

“Turning a country listed among the most advanced democracies of Europe, into a subordinate of an African absolutist kingdom.”

Relations between the two countries have not been entirely smooth, however.

Read more at BusinessDayLive.