Samora Machel became Mozambique 's first president . The Reverend Uria Simango , his wife , and other FRELIMO dissidents was arrested in 1975 and detained without trial . Within about two years , fighting resumed with the Mozambican Civil War against RENAMO insurgents plied with Rhodesian and South African military support . Industrial and social recession , Marxist @-@ style totalitarianism , corruption , poverty , inequality and failed central planning eroded the initial revolutionary fervour . Peace returned only in 1992 , when the nation achieved relative stability for the first time in several decades .