Background
He was born on November 1933, into a Protestant family at Beira.
He was born on November 1933, into a Protestant family at Beira.
Educated at a Protestant Mission School at Beira until 1945 when the school was closed and the pupils were advised to become baptised again and go to Roman Catholic schools. Instead he left the country and went to an American Protestant Mission School in Rhodesia at Chipinga, 150 miles south of Umtali.
He returned to Beira in December 1951 as a teacher but two months later moved to Lourenco Marques to study for the Protestant ministry. Qualifying in December 1955, he returned to Beira to be ordained as a minister in January 1956.
In 1957 he was offered a scholarship to the USA but the Portuguese authorities refused him an exit permit. His militant mood resulted in the Church transferring him to Harari Township, Salisbury, Rhodesia, in 1959 to cool off. In his missionary work among the Mozambicans in Rhodesia he made a significant contribution to the liberation struggle by turning out 100 people every three months capable of reading and writing.
The basis of a political protest movement was formed in the “Portuguese East African Society” for which he was secretary. His underground activities were enlarged in 1960 when he was elected secretary for Rhodesia and Mozambique of the Uniao Democratica Nacional de Mocambique (UNDENAMO). On March 24, 1962, he was tipped off that Rhodesian police were about to serve an expulsion order to Mozambique. He escaped to Malawi and then to the safety of Dar es Salaam on April 7, 1962.
On advice from the then Ghana President Nkrumah all liberation movements were to be fused into FRELIMO. He was appointed chairman of the coordinating committee and on June 25, 1962, he was elected vice-president under Dr Eduardo Mondlane.
After Mondlane’s assassination in February 1969 a pamphlet by Simango published in November 1969 under the title "Gloomy Situation in FRELIMO” landed him in trouble with the executive and led to his expulsion in May 1970. At the time it was rumoured that others in the party disapproved of his views as too strongly pro-Chinese but the opposition was aroused by his emphasis on the tribal hierarchy. He eventually found a new political base in Nairobi working for MOLIMO and then moved to Cairo.
Protestant pastor with two false names for his political work who was chosen in June 1962 to head the committee charged with fusing all the freedom fighters’ organisations into one unit under FRELIMO. After challenging the leadership by taking a stand for more tribally based authority he was expelled from FRELIMO in May 1970 and found a place with MOLIMO, working for the organisation in Cairo.