The War Within: New Perspectives on the Civil War in Mozambique, 1976-1992 1847011802, 9781847011800

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Eric Morier-Genoud is a Lecturer in African history at Queen’s University Belfast; Domingos Manuel do Rosário is Lecturer in electoral sociology and electoral governance at Eduardo Mondlane University, Maputo, Mozambique; Michel Cahen is a Senior Researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) at Bordeaux Political Studies Institute and at the Casa de Velázquez in Madrid. Cover photograph: The red beret and the war mask. Rebel soldiers in a demobilizing camp, Mozambique, 1993 (© Michel Waldman)

ISBN 978-1-84701-180-0

JAME S CU RR E Y An imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge IP12 3DF (GB) and 668 Mt Hope Ave, Rochester NY 14620-2731 (US)

9 781847 011800 www.jamescurrey.com

The War Within

NEW PERSPECTIVES ON THE CIVIL WAR IN

MOZAMBIQUE 1976–1992 Edited by Eric Morier-Genoud, Michel Cahen & Domingos M. do Rosário

The War Within

The 1976−1992 civil war which opposed the Government of Frelimo and the Renamo guerrillas (among other actors) is a central, and still controversial, event in the history of Mozambique. Focusing on a province or a single village and aiming to open up a new era of studies of the war, the authors here analyse the conflict as a ‘total social phenomena’ involving all elements of society and impacting on every aspect of life. The chapters examine Frelimo and Renamo as well as private, popular and state militias, the Catholic Church, NGOs and traders. Drawing on previously unexamined sources such as local and provincial state archives, religious archives, the guerrilla’s own documentation and interviews, the book enables a deeper understanding of the conflict as well as offering a framework for understanding peacemaking and the nature of contemporary politics.

NEW PERSPECTIVES ON THE CIVIL WAR IN MOZAMBIQUE, 1976–1992

‘For some years now, scholarship on the 1976-92 war in Mozambique has been moving away from earlier interpretations that saw the war entirely as a product of foreign aggression [...] This book is important in that it brings together a number of locally based studies to create a more coherent narrative about the war.’ – Justin Pearce, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the Department of POLIS, University of Cambridge

Edited by MORIER-GENOUD, CAHEN & DO ROSÁRIO

‘... provides a much-needed fresh look at the conflict that wracked Mozambique from 1977-1992. It also provides important raw material necessary to fully understand not only the recent recurrences of conflict but also the patterns of politics that have characterized Mozambique in the multiparty era.’ – Carrie Manning, Georgia State University

The War Within

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The War Within New Perspectives on the Civil War in Mozambique 1976–1992

Edited by

Eric Morier-Genoud Michel Cahen & Domingos Manuel do Rosário

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James Currey an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge Suffolk IP12 3DF (GB) www.jamescurrey.com and of Boydell & Brewer Inc. 668 Mt Hope Avenue Rochester, NY 14620-2731 (US) www.boydellandbrewer.com First published in 2018 © Contributors 2018 All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. The publisher has no responsibility for the continued existence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data available on request ISBN 978-1-84701-180-0 James Currey (Cloth) ISBN 978-1-84701-181-7 (James Currey Africa only paperback) This publication is printed on acid-free paper

Typeset in 10 on 12pt Photina MT by Avocet Typeset, Somerton, Somerset, TA11 6RT Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall

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Contents

List of Illustrations vii Contributors ix List of Abbreviations xi Introduction The Civil War in Mozambique A history still to be written Eric Morier-Genoud, Michel Cahen & Domingos do Rosário 1

Part I 1 2

  I N THE NORTHERN HEART OF THE CIVIL WAR

15

The Anti-Frelimo Movements & the War in Zambezia Sérgio Chichava 17

War to Enforce a Political Project? Renamo in Nampula Province, 1983−1992 Domingos Manuel do Rosário 46

3

Spiritual Power & the Dynamics of War in the Provinces of Nampula & Zambezia Corinna Jentzsch 75

4



The War as Seen by Renamo Guerrilla politics & the ‘move to the North’ at the time of the Nkomati Accord, 1983−1985 Michel Cahen 100

Part II 5

  I N THE SOUTH ANOTHER KIND OF WAR?



War in Inhambane Re-shaping state, society & economy Eric Morier-Genoud 149

6

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147

War Accounts from Ilha Josina Machel, Maputo Province Lily Bunker 181

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vi Contents

Part III 7

  I NSIDE OUT: NEW PERSPECTIVES & THE WORLD-SYSTEM



201

Mozambique in the 1980s Periphery goes postmodern Georgi M. Derluguian 203

Conclusion New Perspectives on the Civil War in Mozambique Eric Morier-Genoud, Michel Cahen & Domingos Manuel do Rosário 221 Towards a Bibliography of the Mozambican Civil War Eric Morier-Genoud, Michel Cahen & Domingos Manuel do Rosário 227 Index 253

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List of Illustrations

Maps 1.1 Zones occupied by Renamo in Zambezia at the end of the war 3.1 Overview of Naparama initiators and leaders in Zambezia and Nampula provinces 4.1 Renamo military regions by the end of 1984 5.1 Inhambane province: Rural population self-sufficiency, supplies arrangements and access 6.1 Maputo province and Ilha Josina Machel

37 86 110 174 184

Tables 1.1 Population and victims of war and/or famine at the end of 1986 34 3.1 Overview of Naparama initiators and leaders in Zambezia and Nampula provinces according to interview and archival sources 87 4.1 Synoptic table of the number of Renamo soldiers by military region, December 1984 114 4.2 Number of soldiers in the military regions in the north, August 1984 122 4.3 Armaments of the Búfalo Norte region, September 1984 129 5.1 Population change in the diocese of Inhambane, 1975, 1976 and 1980 163 5.2 Estimated population to be provided for by commerce and the Department of Prevention and Combat against Natural Disasters in 1988/89 172 5.3 Internally displaced persons by district, October 1992 178 Figures 5.1 State propaganda leaflet, c. 1983/84 5.2 Catholic list of war victims, Massinga district, 1983–1986

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159 166

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Contributors

Lily Bunker has a background in academic research, political analysis, community development and consulting. She completed an MA in Conflict Resolution at the University of Cape Town, South Africa in 2010. In 2012– 2013, she managed a community trust in the province of Niassa, Mozambique, working in community development and agricultural and aquaculture programmes. She is a founder of Tuya Consulting, a Mozambique-based consulting firm. Her MA thesis was about the war and memory in Ilha Josina Machel; since then she has published an article entitled ‘Researching Memories of War in Rural Mozambique’, Postamble (Cape Town), Vol. 7, No. 2 (June 2012), online at http://postamble.org. Michel Cahen is a political historian of modern colonial Portugal and contemporary Portuguese-speaking Africa. He is CNRS Senior Researcher at the Centre ‘Les Afriques dans le monde’. He is currently an associate member of the Casa de Velázquez (Madrid) and a visiting researcher at the Social Sciences Institute in Lisbon. His main interests relate to Marxism and nationalism, identity and citizenship, political identity at the margins, coloniality and globalisation. Among others, his books are Os outros: Um historiador em Moçambique, 1994 (Basel: Schletwein Publishing, 2003); Le Portugal bilingue: Histoire et droits politiques d’une minorité linguistique – La communauté mirandaise (Rennes: PUR, 2009); and Imperial Migrations: Colonial Communities and Diaspora in the Portuguese World (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), edited with Eric Morier-Genoud. Sérgio Chichava is a senior researcher at the Instituto de Estudos Sociais e Económicos (IESE) and a Lecturer in Political Sociology and Political Studies at Eduardo Mondlane University (UEM), Mozambique. He obtained his PhD at the Institute of Political Studies of Bordeaux, France and he has held fellowships at the University of Oxford (2008), the London School of Economics and Political Science (2013) and the John Hopkins University (2016). He presently works on Mozambique’s relations with rising powers, particularly China and Brazil. His most recent publications are: China and Mozambique: From Comrades to Capitalists (Jacana 2014) co-edited with Chris Alden; Chinese Agricultural Investment in Mozambique: the Case of Wanbao Rice Farm (SAIS-CARI Policy Brief No. 2 November 2014); ‘Mozambican elite in a Chinese rice “friendship”: an ethno-

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x Contributors graphic study of the Xai-Xai irrigation scheme’, Future Agriculture Consortium Working Paper, No. 111, 2015. Georgi M. Derluguian, who was in his earlier life a Soviet-trained Africanist, studies macrohistory and world-systems along with practising expeditionary fieldwork. Among his books are: Bourdieu’s Secret Admirer in the Caucasus (2005); The Way This World Works (2012, in Russian); and, co-written with Immanuel Wallerstein, Randall Collins, Michael Mann and Craig Calhoun, Does Capitalism Have a Future? (2013, translated in 17 languages). Since 2011 Professor Derluguian has taught sociology at New York University, Abu Dhabi while living in Yerevan, Armenia. Domingos M. do Rosário is a lecturer in the Department of Political Sciences and Public Administration at Eduardo Mondlane University, Mozambique. He has written on decentralization, elections and public policies in Mozambique. He presently researches on the temporality of the vote from the material repertoire, its social biography and its respective mechanisms of appropriateness and reinterpretation in Mozambique. Corinna Jentzsch is Assistant Professor of International Relations at Leiden University in the Netherlands. Her research focuses on  civil wars and the emergence of informal institutions of security governance, community mobilization against insurgent violence in Mozambique, and conditions of successful peacekeeping in African conflicts. Her work has been published in the Journal of Conflict Resolution  and the  African Conflict and Peacebuilding Review, and she is a contributor to Africa is a Country.  Eric Morier-Genoud is a lecturer in African and Imperial History at Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland. He has written extensively on religion and on politics in southern Africa, and he researches currently on missionaries and transnational sciences and politics as well as war, memory and memorial in contemporary Mozambique. He is a co-author with Caroline Jeannerat and Didier Péclard of Embroiled: Swiss Churches, South Africa and Apartheid (Münster: Lit Verlag, 2011); editor of the book Sure Road? Nationalisms in Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique (Leiden: Brill, 2012); and editor with Michel Cahen of Imperial Migrations: Colonial Communities and Diaspora in the Portuguese World (Basingstoke, PalgraveMacmillan, 2012).

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List of Abbreviations

ACs AGP ANC ANP BAs CCA CEM

aldeias comunais, communal villages Acordo Geral de Paz, General Peace Agreement African National Congress Acção Nacional Popular, People’s National Action Bandidos armados, Armed Bandits Companhia de Culturas de Angoche, Angoche Plantation Company Conferência Episcopal de Moçambique, Mozambique Episcopal Conference / Catholic Conference of Bishops Coremo Comité Revolucionário de Moçambique, Mozambique Revolutionary Committee DD Departamento de Defesa, Defence Department (see also DDRNM) DDRNM Departamento da Defesa da Resistência Nacional de Moçambique, MNR Defence Department DPCCN Departamento de Prevenção e Combate às Calamidades Naturais, Department of Prevention and Combat against Natural Disasters DZ Drop Zone EMG Estado Maior General, General Military Staff FAM Forças Armadas de Moçambique, Armed Forces of Mozambique (see also FPLM) (Frelimo Government) FPLM Forças Populares de Libertação de Moçambique, People’s Forces for the Liberation of Mozambique (see FAM) (Frelimo Government) Frelimo Frente de libertação de Moçambique, Mozambique Liberation Front FUMO Frente Unida de Moçambique, United Front of Mozambique GC Grupo Coordenador, Coordination Group (Renamo) GCC Grupo Coordenador Centro, Centre Coordination Group (Renamo) GCN Grupo Coordenador Norte, North Coordination Group (Renamo) GDs Grupos Dinamizadores, Dynamizing Groups (Frelimo) GVP Grupos de Vigilância Popular, People’s Vigilance Groups (Frelimo) IESE Instituto de Estudos Económicos e Sociais, Institute of Economic and Social Studies, in Maputo IMF International Monetary Fund MCP Malawi Congress Party MNR English acronym for Renamo MPLA Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola, Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola

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xii

List of Abbreviations

MTs MZN NGOs ODMs

see MZN meticais (Mozambican currency) non-governmental organizations Organizações Democráticas de Massas, Mass Democratic Organizations (Frelimo) OMM Organização da Mulher Moçambicana, Organisation of Mozambican Women (Frelimo) OPs Operational Units (Renamo) PIDE-DGS Polícia Internacional de Defesa do Estado-Direcção Geral de Segurança, International and State Defense Police–General Security Directorate (colonial state) PRM Partido Revolucionário de Moçambique, Revolutionary Party of Mozambique PRM Polícia da República de Moçambique, Mozambique Republic Police Renamo Resistência Nacional de Moçambique, Mozambique National Resistance RTs Rádio Transmissões, Radio Transmissions SNASP Serviço Nacional de Segurança Popular, National People’s Security Service SWAPO South West Africa People’s Organization UDEMO União Democrática de Moçambique, Democratic Union of Mozambique UNAMO União Nacional Moçambicana, Mozambican National Union UNAR União Nacional Africana de Rombézia, African National Union of Rombézia Unita União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola, National Union for Total Independence of Angola ZNA Zimbabwe National Army

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Introduction The Civil War in Mozambique A history still to be written Eric Morier-Genoud, Michel Cahen & Domingos Manuel do Rosário The war which ravaged Mozambique after independence in 1975 lasted for sixteen years. It saw an estimated one million deaths, extensive destruction of infrastructures, and a stalling of most of the economy, leaving the country at the end of the war in 1992 on its knees. The armed conflict and its history and memory are still divisive subjects in Mozambique today, but the state’s official policy of amnesty and silent memory has reduced the number of public discussions and disagreements on the subject. Academically, several books and articles have been published on the war during the conflict, with a spike in the 1990s after peace returned to the country. Their number has however steadily decreased since then. Hence, while some aspects of the conflict have been well studied, in particular the origins of Renamo, the involvement of foreign powers, the extent of destruction, the situation of refugees, and the ending of the conflict, several other dimensions have still not been investigated properly, if at all. Moreover, the dominant perspective remains that which emerged with the ending of the war. The aim of the present book is to revisit the history of the civil war in Mozambique. The approach adopted is purposely encompassing: it aims at investigating the conflict as a ‘total social phenomenon’, à la Marcel Mauss, as events which involved all elements of society and had implications on all facets of life within all regions of the country, ‘at once legal, economic, religious, aesthetic, morphological and so on’.1,2 A first implication of this approach is that the present volume aims at studying all actors of the war, not just the Frelimo government and the Renamo guerrilla, and analysing the war beyond its sole military dimension, that is, also the social, economic and ideological aspects. The present book deals with Frelimo and Renamo as well other armed movements, including Partido Revolucionário de Moçambique (PRM), state militia, popular militia and private military forces. It also deals with other non-military actors such as churches, healers and traders. To do this effectively, the volume has opted to focus on the local dynamics of the conflict – at 1   Note that not all references in footnotes will be found in the Bibliography, which is an exhaustive listing of all works on the civil war in Mozambique. Works cited that are not directly related to this are only detailed in the footnotes. 2   Marcel Mauss, The Gift (London: Cohen & West, 1966), p. 76 and Claude Lévi-Strauss, Introduction to the Work of Marcel Mauss (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987, translated by Felicity Baker), pp. 25–31.

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2 Introduction the provincial level, the district level or at the level of a village – so as to gain a richer and deeper understanding of actors, their motivations, means, interactions and articulations, and a finer comprehension of the specific nature and consequences of the conflict. Such an approach should reveal diversity as well as restore some subtlety and complexity to our understanding of the armed conflict that devastated Mozambique between 1976 and 1992. The use of the term ‘civil war’ is controversial in general and in Mozambique specifically. Talking generally, David Armitage says that ‘there has never been a time when [its] definition was settled to everyone’s satisfaction or when it could be used without question or contention’. Indeed, the ‘use of the term is itself one source of strife among the combatants. Established government will always view civil wars as rebellion or illegal uprisings against legitimate authority, particularly if they fail’.3 In Mozambique, the government still refuses today to use this term and prefers to talk of a ‘war of destabilization’ (the term used during the conflict) or of the ‘sixteen years war’ (a more neutral term coined after the conflict ended). In this book, we use the term in the sense given by David Armitage, namely: ‘To call a war “civil” is to acknowledge the familiarity of the enemies as members of the same community: not foreigners but fellow citizens’.4 While one can debate endlessly the origins of the war in Mozambique and the degree of its external links, there is no question that the war pitted from the start and in its overwhelming majority members of the same national community – Mozambicans against Mozambicans.

Studying the War through the Prism of Renamo Overall, the study of the war in Mozambique has been, by and large, a study of Renamo, its origins and dynamics. Indeed, the first studies of the war in Mozambique analysed the conflict as an external military aggression initiated by white-dominated Rhodesia and, after 1980, as a military aggression on the part of apartheid South Africa. Such studies understood Renamo not as a guerrilla movement but as a mere instrument, and extension, of the Rhodesian and South African armies. Discussions focused on destabilization, its causes and forms, and on the intricacies of the guerrilla’s origins and its ties to the Rhodesian secret services and the South African army, as well as how best to characterize such guerrillas – as ‘armed bandits’, ‘fifth columnists’, ‘marionettes’, ‘proxies’ or ‘apartheid contras’. Central to all the studies during this period was the assertion that the armed conflict was externally driven, and morally and politically illegitimate, and therefore studies could only focus on neighbouring countries and their creation and manipulation of a Mozambican Renamo guerrilla (called MNR in its early days).5 3  David Armitage, Civil Wars: A History in Ideas (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017), pp. 12–13. 4   Ibid., p. 12. 5   Among others, Allen & Barbara Isaacman, ‘South Africa’s Hidden War’, Africa Report, 27/6 (1982), 4–8; Paul Fauvet & Alves Gomes, ‘South Africa’s Marionettes of Destabilisation’, Ufahamu:

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The Civil War in Mozambique: A History Still to be Written

3

The Nkomati Accord signed between the South African and Mozambican governments in 1984 led to a first analytical shift. While the agreement saw the Frelimo government drop its support for the African National Congress (ANC) in Mozambique, in exchange South Africa stopped its support for Renamo. Many left-wing scholars saw such a mutual non-aggression pact as a betrayal of the Socialist cause, and the subsequent failure of the Accord to put an end to the armed conflict led many to start to raise new questions about Renamo’s social base.6 If only a few analysts questioned South Africa’s honesty in relation to the Nkomati pact, many began to study Renamo and ask how big a social base it had, drawing from what sectors of society, and for what reasons. Investigations focused in particular on (forced) villagization, state farms, commercialization, and the traditional authorities banned after independence. Did Renamo manage to tap into the resentment from these sectors of society affected negatively by Frelimo’s revolution? If so, how? Explanations and evaluations varied depending on political inclination, on the region studied, the question asked, and the approach adopted.7 Whichever the answer, all this research did not study so much the war as Renamo itself. Hence, during most of the 1980s, research was either about Renamo’s history and social base, or about South Africa’s secret subversive war – a conspiracy so well studied that one knows more today about it than about the war proper. In 1989, a new debate began in relation to Renamo just as political negotiations between the Mozambican Government and the guerrilla were beginning in Nairobi, Kenya. The debate focused not so much on Renamo’s social base as whether the war could be characterized as a ‘civil war’.8 Proponents of A Journal of African Studies, 12/1 (1982), pp. 8–18; Allen Isaacman, ‘Pretoria’s War against Mozambique’, Washington Notes on Africa (Washington DC, 1983), pp. 1–3, 7; Paul Fauvet, ‘Roots of Counter-Revolution: The “Mozambique National Resistance”’, Review of African Political Economy, 29 (1984), 108–21; Joseph Hanlon, Mozambique: The Revolution Under Fire (London: Zed Books, 1984); John S. Saul, ‘Briefing: Socialist Transition and External Intervention: Mozambique and South Africa’s War’, Labour, Capital and Society, 18/1 (1985), 153–70; Phyllis Johnson & David Martin, ‘Mozambique: To Nkomati and Beyond’, Destructive Engagement: Southern Africa at War, eds Johnson and Martin (Harare: Zimbabwe Publishing House, 1986), pp. 1–43; and Steven Metz, ‘The Mozambique National Resistance and South African Foreign Policy’, African Affairs, 85/341 (1986), 491–507. 6   Paul Goddison & Richard Levin, The Nkomati Accord: The Illusion of Peace in Southern Africa (Liverpool: University of Liverpool, Department of Political Theory and Institutions, 1984); Nadja Manghezi, Amizade traída e recuperada, O ANC em Moçambique (1976–1990) (Maputo: Promedia, 2007); The Maputo Connection: ANC Life in the World of Frelimo (Johannesburg: Jacana Media, 2010). 7   Among others, see Gulamo Taju, ‘Renamo: os factos que conhecemos’, Cadernos de História, 7 (1988), 5–44; Carol B. Thompson, ‘War by Another Name: Destabilization in Nicaragua and Mozambique’, Race and Class, 29/4 (1988), 21–44; Colin Darch, ‘Are there Warlords in Provincial Mozambique? Questions of the Social Base of MNR Banditry’, Review of African Political Economy, 45/46 (1989); Georgi Derluguian, ‘Les têtes du monstre: du climat social de la violence armée au Mozambique’, l’année africaine 1989 (Paris: Pedone: 1989), 89–128; Sibyl Cline, RENAMO: Anti-Communist Insurgents in Mozambique: The Fight Goes On (Washington DC: United States Global Strategy Council, 1989). 8   The debate started in the pages of the Southern African Review of Books (London). See Gervase Clarence-Smith, ‘The Roots of the Mozambican Counter-Revolution’, Southern African Review of Books, 2/4 (1989), 7–10; Michel Cahen, ‘Clarence-Smith on Mozambique’, Southern African Review of Books, 2/6 (1989), 26–7; Michel Cahen, ‘Is RENAMO a Popular Movement in Mozambique?’, Southern African Review of Books, 3/2 (December 1989 / January 1990), 20–21; Otto Roesch, ‘Is (contd)

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4 Introduction that line (whether a civil war from the start, or an external aggression which had become a civil war) supported negotiations and a political settlement to end the armed conflict in Mozambique. Opponents insisted that Renamo was solely a puppet and they argued that the expected end of apartheid and the end of the Cold War would put an end to Renamo’s existence, and hence there was no need to negotiate. The most important work in this debate was eventually that of the late anthropologist Christian Geffray, undertaken with the support of high ranking officials in the Mozambican army and of the Frelimo Central Committee. It was published in 1990 as La cause des armes: Anthropologie d’une guerre civile, with a Portuguese version in 1991.9 The monograph was based on a case study of Nampula Province, and it showed that Renamo had gained ground there on the basis of alliances with sectors of Mozambican society which had been marginalized after independence (some since colonial times), in particular traditional authorities, youth and farmers. Various authors contested Geffray’s findings, on the basis of earlier research and/or findings from other regions in the country, while others supported his findings and argument, wholly or in part, on the basis of their own research in different provinces of the country. The debate between defenders and dissenters lasted well into the 1990s.10 For all the stimulating aspects of Geffray’s work and the debate around it, an unintended and possibly unexpected consequence of this debate was that it kept academics focused on Renamo. Indeed the aspects discussed were still (1) the external origins of Renamo, and (2) the social base the guerrilla organization had when it began or managed to develop over time. After 1992 and the return of peace in the country, academic interest in the war began to wane as well as to shift to issues of demobilization, healing, democratization, and other post-war dynamics.11 As a result, by the 2010s, most existing works on the war in Mozambique continue to be analyses of Renamo, its origins and social base, and discussions (on that basis) of whether the war in Mozambique was civil or not. (contd) RENAMO a Popular Movement in Mozambique?’, Southern African Review of Books, 3/2 (1990), 20–21; and Michel Cahen, ‘Mozambique: The Debate Continues: Michel Cahen Writes...’, Southern African Report, 5/5 (1990), p. 26. 9   Christian Geffray, La cause des armes au Mozambique  : Anthropologie d’une guerre civile (Paris: Karthala, 1990); A causa das armas: antropologia da guerra contemporânea em Moçambique (Porto: Afrontamento, 1991). 10   Keeping it to book reviews of Geffray’s work, see Patrick Harries’ review in Cahiers d’études africaines, 30/117 (1990), 118–120; Margaret Hall’s review in Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, 61/4 (1991), 556–8; Alice Dinerman, ‘In Search of Mozambique: The Imaginings of Christian Geffray in La Cause des Armes au Mozambique – Anthropologie d’une Guerre Civile’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 20/4 (December 1994), 569–86. 11   Among others, see Carrie L. Manning, The Politics of Peace in Mozambique: Post-conflict Democratization, 1992-2000 (Santa Barbara (Ca): Praeger, 2002); Christine Messiant, ‘La paix au Mozambique: un succès de l’Onu’, Les chemins de la guerre et de la paix. Fins de conflits en Afrique orientale et australe, eds R. Marchal, & C. Messiant (Paris: Karthala, 1997), pp. 49–105; Giovanni Carbone, ‘Emerging Pluralist Politics in Mozambique: the Frelimo-Renamo Party System’, Crisis States Programme Working Paper, 23 (London, 2003), online at http://www.crisisstates.com/download/ wp/WP23GC.pdf and Giovanni M. Carbone, ‘Continuidade na renovação? Ten Years of Multiparty Politics in Mozambique: Roots, Evolution and Stabilisation of the Frelimo-Renamo Party System’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 43/3 (2005), 417–42.

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The Civil War in Mozambique: A History Still to be Written

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There are no full studies of the history and role in the war of the government’s army, the state, traditional militia, private armed forces, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), churches, or other actors of ‘civil society’. There are no books on the daily life of fighters, whether Renamo or government soldiers, no articles on youth and elders in their own terms (not just as a source for Renamo support), no publications about the daily life of victims or perpetrators of the conflict, no studies of the ‘legal, economic, religious, aesthetics, morphological and so on’ aspects of the war. Yet the logical conclusion of the debate of the 1990s should have led research precisely there! Indeed, if the dominant view became that the armed conflict was, or had become a civil war, one should have stopped focusing exclusively on Renamo and started studying other actors of the war as well as other aspects of this conflict.

Studying War as a ‘Total Social Fact’ Of course, some studies have considered actors other than Renamo as well as looked at non-military aspects of the armed conflict in Mozambique. Jean-Claude Legrand, for example, analysed the war in Zambezia Province and studied so-called traditional militia as well as looking at the abduction of child soldiers.12 Yussuf Adam undertook a study of four different districts in the south, centre and north of the country and looked at the social and class dynamics alongside the economy and the dynamics of NGOs.13 Stephen Lubkemann analysed migration, mobility, displacement and migration during and after the war in a district of central Mozambique.14 And Ken Wilson studied ‘cultic’, symbolic and spiritual elements in the organization and ideology of violent and counter-violent enterprise in the war, focusing not only on Frelimo and Renamo but also on traditional militia such as the Naparama.15 Closest to the perspective of the present book are the works of Carolyn Nordstom, Mark Chingono and João Paulo Borges Coelho. All look at the war in its totality. Nordstrom engaged in an ethnography of a warzone, looking at 12   Jean-Claude Legrand, ‘Logique de guerre et dynamiques de la violence en Zambézie, 1976– 1991’, Politique africaine, 50 (1993), 88–104; and ‘Passé et présent dans la guerre du Mozambique: les enlèvements pratiqués par la Renamo’, Lusotopie, 2 (1995), 137–50. 13  Yussuf Adam, ‘Guerra, fome, seca e desenvolvimento: lições de Changara, Moçambique’, Arquivo, 9 (April 1991), 185–207; ‘Mueda 1917–1990: resistência, colonialismo, libertação e desenvolvimento’, Arquivo, 13 (1993), 9–101; and Escapar aos dentes do crocodilo e cair na boca do leopardo: trajectoria de Moçambique pós-colonial (1975–1990) (Maputo: Promédia, 2005), Collection Identidades 31. 14  Stephen C. Lubkemann, Culture in Chaos: An Anthropology of the Social Condition in War (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008). 15   Ken Wilson, ‘The Socio-Economic Impact of War and Flight in Posto Dorre, Morrumbala District, Zambézia’, unpublished paper (Oxford: University of Oxford January, 1992); and ‘War, Displacement, Social Change and the Re-Creation of Community: An Exploratory Study in Zambézia, Mozambique’, preliminary report of a field study in Milange District, March–April 1991’ (Oxford: Oxford Refugee Studies Programme, May 1991); Internally Displaced, Refugees and Returnees from and in Mozambique (Oxford: University of Oxford, Queen Elizabeth House, Refugee Study Programme, 1994), Studies on Emergency and Disaster Relief, 1, and ‘Cults of Violence and Counter-Violence in Mozambique’, Journal of Southern African Studies 18/3 (1992), 527–83.

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6 Introduction violence, terror, identity and creativity in a violent context – she travelled across the country during and after the war.16 Chingono analysed the intended and unintended consequences of the armed conflict by looking at the dynamics of refugees, churches, the situation of women, and more broadly social change in the province of Manica.17 For his part, João Paulo Borges Coelho coordinated a collective project with students to analyse the civil war at the local level across all provinces of Mozambique, a project similar to the present one but never published.18 These cases (from 1997 onwards) opened new doors, revealed new facets of the war, and initiated a shift in the literature. More needs to be done, more thoroughly, and more radically, to stop seeing Renamo as the sole or central actor of the conflict, seeing the government as just reacting to events, and picturing the population as a uniform whole which would be only passive and solely a victim – or merely engaging in resistance. At the present stage of the historiography, we need a total approach, à la Marcel Mauss, for a balanced social, economic, cultural, ideological and gendered history of the civil war in Mozambique, looking at all sides, from different perspectives, as well as drawing from the international historiography to analyse the daily life of fighters, the material culture of the war, the visuality of the conflict, its ecology, etc. To do this, we need to leave behind at once (because it has not been totally abandoned yet) the view of the armed conflict as a mere product of the Cold War or of regional dynamics – as if the South African apartheid regime and the Mozambican parties had been mere puppets of the United States and the Soviet Union. The global context of the Cold War cannot be ignored of course, but it is clear that it was not the main reason behind the conflict. First, saying so would be ignoring that the United States’ policies towards Mozambique and Angola were quite different. Whereas Washington supplied UNITA (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola), openly or clandestinely up to 1992, it never supported Renamo at all. Even during the more radical revolutionary phase in Mozambique (1977–1984), the US Embassy in Maputo never closed and Frelimo was never qualified as ‘Communist’ – as if the Cold War dynamics did not apply to Mozambique after all. Paradoxically, if the 1998 ‘Gersony report’ has had any usefulness, it has been to confirm the support the State Department was giving to the Mozambican Government – rather than supporting Renamo as the Cold War logic would have demanded. We can thus see that ideology and Cold War dynamics were no simple and unilateral motivators. Conversely, it would be ridiculous to consider the Frelimo government as a puppet of the USSR or of Cuba. The history of Frelimo is much too   Carolyn Nordstrom, A Different Kind of War Story (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997). 17   Mark Chingono, ‘Mulheres, guerra e transformação na província de Manica: uma herança ambigua’, Arquivo, 16 (1994), 95–134; The State, Violence and Development: The Political Economy of War in Mozambique, 1975–1992 (Aldershot: Avebury, 1996); and ‘War, Economic Change, and Development in Manica Province, 1982–1992’, in War and Underdevelopment, Vol. 2: Country Experiences, eds Frances Stewart & Valpy Fitzgerald, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 89–118. 18   João Paulo Borges Coelho & Sérgio Nathú Cabá (eds), Elementos para a História Social da Guerra em Moçambique, 1978–1992, unpublished (Maputo: Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, 2003). For further details, see the bibliography. 16

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complex for such a view, and Frelimo played off donors and supporters, even within the Communist bloc, too extensively and too cleverly to be seen as a mere Soviet puppet. Besides, we know that Soviet support always remained below the expectations of Frelimo. This is not to say that there was no international aspect to the civil war in Mozambique. Indeed, there was an international dimension but, as it turns out, it was mostly a regional one where Rhodesia and the South African apartheid regime developed and devised their own independent policies towards Mozambique. Again, this regional dimension should not obscure the fundamental dynamic and historicity of the conflict in Mozambique which had to do just as much, if not more, with the process of marginalization of certain regions, areas and populations in ‘Portuguese East Africa’ from the end of the 19th century.19 The civil war took roots rapidly and developed successfully because certain people and certain areas had been marginalized and felt like the coming war could help them redress their grievances and status. The first pluralist election of 1994 demonstrated this point most clearly. Renamo won 35 per cent of all votes,20 with a majority in various regions, including in areas it had never occupied militarily. This shows that Renamo was not a mere group of bandits or warlords (irrespective of their origins). The guerrilla managed to integrate itself in the historicity of local and regional tensions, thereby reproducing itself, and developing the war. As noted earlier, our concern in this book is not to continue the debate about the social base of Renamo, but to enlarge the research focus and the problématique, to try to better understand how the war took root socially and historically in society and, in relation to Renamo, our concern is to engage in research that goes further in understanding how the guerrilla operated socially, politically and ideologically at the local level. It is useful here to place the Mozambican Civil War within a more global history of wars in Africa – both post-colonial wars and colonial wars. One needs indeed to unpack the relationship between external factors and the genesis of internal/civil wars in Africa. One cannot speak of civil wars only when Africans are fighting other Africans. The European or Arab-led slave trade produced wars in the African hinterland which pitted African pre-colonial societies against one another and, at times, segments of one society against another. Can external factors such as a colonial conquest produce civil wars then? The colonial conquest produced internal conflicts inside African societies and African states, but such ‘internal’ conflict cannot be understood as a civil war until it reached a sufficient degree of autonomy. In the case of World War I in Mozambique, historical research shows that many African people profited from the arrival of German general Von Lettow-Vorbeck’s troops to revolt against the Portuguese and to fight against other Africans – those of the 19   Michel Cahen,  ‘Mozambique: histoire géopolitique d’un pays sans nation’, Lusotopie, I/1-2 (1994), 213–66. 20   More precisely, Dhlakama, the rebel chief, won 33.73 per cent of the votes in the presidential election and Renamo 37.78 per cent of the votes in the Assembly’s elections. This difference has never been explained and may be the product of fraud more concentrated against Dhlakama than against Renamo as a party; Mozambique has a presidential system.

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8 Introduction Portuguese colonial army. But that does not make it a civil war – it remained an external war happening in Mozambique which Africans suffered and/ or took advantage of.21 Another debate exists about the liberation war led by Frelimo. Was it, besides its emancipationist nature, also a civil war since not all the pre-colonial nations of Mozambique supported Frelimo? Here, one needs to distinguish carefully between two dimensions. First, in the same way the colonial conquest at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th produced civil war effects in that some African nations allied with the colonial power for historical reasons to fight against other Africans,22 the liberation war did not extend to any unified African society which would have been ready to revolt against Portuguese rule at once and unanimously. The African society in Mozambique, exactly like any other society, was historically divided by economic, social and ethnic tensions. It is not by chance that Frelimo did not succeed to open its military front in Zambezia when it was successful in Niassa province and parts of Cabo Delgado.23 Second, there never was any spontaneous or autonomous African uprising against Frelimo during the anti-colonial war, even if an important number of Africans were part of the colonial army or special troops. That means that there was no sui generis civil war, only civil war effects, resulting from the decolonization/liberation struggle. In short and in other words, one needs to distinguish between civil wars and civil war effects, an African civil war being an autonomous conflict which is rooted socially and historically within certain segments of an African society.24 What also needs to be noted is the reality of a historically heterogeneous society. When the same phenomenon appears (whether the slave trade, the   Fernando Abecassis et al., A Grande Guerra em Moçambique (Lisbon: Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa, 2014); Marco Fortunato Arrifes, A Primeira Guerra Mundial na África Portuguesa: Angola e Moçambique (1914–1918) (Lisbon: Edições Cosmos, Instituto da Defesa Nacional, 2004); Eckard Michels, Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck: Der Held von Deutsch-Ostafrika – Ein preußischer Kolonialoffizier (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh Verlag, 2008); Cardoso Mirão, Kináni? Crónica de guerra no norte de Moçambique, 1917–1918 (Lisbon: Livros Horizonte, 2001); Malyn Newitt, Portugal in Africa: The Last Hundred Years (London: Hurst, 1981); Malyn Newitt, A History of Mozambique (Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 1995); René Pélissier, Naissance du Mozambique: Résistance et révoltes anticoloniales (1854–1918) (Orgeval: Ed. Pélissier, 1984). For a bibliography of World War I in Mozambique, see for example, Ricardo Marques, Os Fantasmas do Rovuma: A epopeia dos soldados portugueses em África na I guerra mundial (Lisbon: Oficina do livro, 2012). 22  For example, the Chope people allied with the Portuguese against Gungunhane’s Nguni empire: this is the background of Mia Couto’s latest trilogy, Mulheres de Cinza, Trilogia, Vol. 1: As Areias do Imperador; Vol 2: A Espada e a Azagaia (Lisbon: Editorial Caminho, 2015–2016); the third volume is yet to be published. 23   Sérgio Chichava, ‘Le “Vieux Mozambique”: l’identité politique de la Zambézie’, PhD thesis in Political Sciences (Bordeaux : Institut d’études politiques de Bordeaux, Université de Bordeaux, 2007). 24  About this debate see for example: Bruno C. Reis & Pedro A. Oliveira, ‘Cutting Heads or Winning Hearts: Late Colonial Portuguese Counterinsurgency and the Wiriyamu Massacre of 1972’, Civil Wars, 14/1 (2012), 80–103; response by Mustafah Dhada, ‘The Wiriyamu Massacre of 1972: Response to Reis and Oliveira’, Civil Wars, 15/4 (2013), 551–8; Bruno C. Reis & Pedro A. Oliveira, ‘Reply to Mustafah Dhada’, Civil Wars, 15/4 (2013), 559–62; and ultimately, the very convincing book by Mustafah Dhada, The Portuguese Massacre of Wiriyamu in Colonial Mozambique, 1964–2013 (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015). 21

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colonial conquest, the anti-colonial war, or a guerrilla rebellion), it never produces the same effects in each social strata, each region, each ethnic group. One of the merits of Geffray’s pioneering work La cause des armes was to question the fact that, in a context where the whole of a population had been affected by the same Frelimo policies (the repression of African and monotheist religions, the suppression of the traditional chieftaincy, authoritarian communal villages, etc.), some segments of society became or remained faithful to Frelimo and the government while others opposed it and voluntarily and enthusiastically joined Renamo’s rebellion. Geffray advanced the hypothesis that the war resulted from a long trend of a marginalization process within some segments of society, since the end of the 19th century. African segments, which had been able to establish stabilized social relationships with the modern colonial state, succeeded in doing the same with the modern post-colonial state and usually remained faithful to Frelimo. Societies already marginalized in colonial times were more likely to join Renamo. This is another element which our book tries to push for: more localized, regionalized and socialized understandings of the civil war.

New Approaches & New Sources This book does not aim to answer all the questions raised above, but it does aim at kick-starting a new research process. Its editors believe that this is not only desirable and possible, because the historiography has reached a point of maturity, but also because new sources have become available. First, oral sources have become more readily available – and more talkative. In the years immediately after the peace accord of 1992, oral history was very difficult because the war was fresh and its last phase had been particularly violent and disruptive.25 From the middle to the end of the ‘peace period’, between 1992 and 2012, the situation improved significantly as more and more veterans (including child soldiers) accepted to speak and answer the questions of researchers. Often, they were not asked about the war directly, but about their reintegration and social life after 1992. Whichever the intent of the researcher, their testimonies gave much information about the war nonetheless.26 Some actors of the war, 25   J.-C. Legrand, ‘Logique de guerre’, op. cit., and, ‘Passé et Présent’, op. cit.; Jean Claude Legrand & Fabrice Weissman, ‘Les enfants soldats et usages de la violence au Mozambique’, Cultures & Conflits 18 (1995) 165–80; Elisa Muianga, ‘Mulheres e Guerra: reintegração social das mulheres regressadas das “zonas da Renamo” no distrito de Mandlakazi’, Arquivo  18 (1995), 47–92; Carolyn Nordstrom, A Different Kind of War Story (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997); Michel Cahen, Les Bandits: Un historien au Mozambique, 1994 (Paris: Publications du Centre culturel Calouste Gulbenkian, 2002). 26   Sarah Aird, Boia Efraime Junior & Antoinette Errante, Mozambique: The Battle Continues for Former Child Soldiers (Washington: Youth Advocate Program International Resource Paper, 2001); Alcinda M. Honwana, Espíritos vivos, tradições modernas: possessão de espíritos e reintegração social pós-guerra no sul de Moçambique (Maputo: Promédia, 2002), and Child Soldiers in Africa (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007); Victor Igreja, ‘Traditional Courts and the Struggle against State Impunity for Civil Wartime Offences in Mozambique’, Journal of African Law, 54/1 (2010), 51–73; Luiz Henrique Passador, ‘Guerrear, casar, pacificar, curar: o universo

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10 Introduction including a government war general, also wrote analyses and memoirs of the war during this period.27 It is the same with women who increasingly accepted to tell their stories during the armed conflict.28 By the 2000s, it was possible to do extensive fieldwork and interviews without much hindrance and with great benefit.29 An increasing number of researchers have also succeeded in recent years in gaining access to provincial state archives (Zambezia,30 Nampula31 and Inhambane32) as well as district archives,33 Catholic archives,34 and internal documents of Renamo.35 These archives as well as others in other districts, other provinces, in other churches and possibly NGOs and other organizations, offer a mass of new information to be exploited and used for a new phase of research on the war in Mozambique. Moreover, the Mozambican state passed a new law in December 2014 which facilitates access to information – under the principle ‘of maximum divulgation’ (‘Lei do Direito à Informação’, 34/2014 of 31 December 2014). It is true that the practice of the law and the reality of logistics and politics in Mozambique will make research still complex, and more complicated than it may seem formally and legally. It is indeed not just because of bad luck that some memoirs have not been published yet when they deal with very sensitive issues, such as the Homoine massacre.36 Still, the situation of access to information has significantly improved in recent years and this should help.

da “tradição” e a experiência com o HIV/AIDS no distrito de Homoíne, sul de Moçambique’, PhD thesis in Anthropology (Campinas: Universidade Estadual de Campinas, 2011); Jessica Schafer, Soldiers at Peace: Veterans of the Civil War in Mozambique (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007); Stephen A. Emerson, The Battle for Mozambique: The Frelimo–Renamo Struggle, 1977–1992 (West Midlands: Helion and Company Limited, 201); and Nikkie Wiegink, ‘“It Will Be Our Time To Eat”: Former Renamo Combatants and Big-Man Dynamics in Central Mozambique’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 41/4 (2015), 869–85. 27   Joaquim Marcos Manjate, Análise Estratégica da Liderança na Guerra em Moçambique: Batalha da Zambézia (1986–1992) (Maputo: Diname, 2013); Hassane Armando, Tempos de fúria: Memórias do Massacre de Homoíne, 18 de Julho de 1987, unpublished book of 2013. 28   Mark Chingono, ‘Mulheres, guerra e transformação na província de Manica: uma herança ambigua’, Arquivo 16 (1994), 95–134; Carolyn Nordstrom, ‘Girls in Warzones, Troubling Questions’ (Uppsala: Life and Peace Institution Press, 1997, 2nd edn, 2004, Occasional Paper); Alcinda M. Honwana, ‘Untold War Stories: Young Women and War in Mozambique’, African Gender Institute Newsletter, 6 (May 2000), 7–9; Tina Sideris, ‘War, Gender and Culture: Mozambican Women Refugees’, Social Science & Medicine, 56/4 (2003), 713–24; Lily Bunker, ‘Researching Memories of War in Rural Mozambique’, Postamble, 7/2 (June 2012): pp. 1–11, online at https://drive.google. com/file/d/0B57En09puQLtRzVhTGkyN2JVT0k/view, and Chapter 6 of this book. 29   Corina Jentzsch (Chapter 3) and Lily Bunker (Chapter 6) in this book. 30   Chichava, ‘Le “Vieux Mozambique”’, op. cit.; and Chapter 1 of this book. 31   Domingos M. do Rosário, ‘Les mairies des autres : Une analyse politique, socio-historique et culturelle des trajectoires locales – Le cas d’Angoche, de l’Île de Moçambique et de Nacala Porto’, PhD thesis in Political Sciences (Institut d’études politiques de Bordeaux, Université de Bordeaux, 2009); and Chapter 2 of this book. 32   Éric Morier-Genoud in Chapter 5 of this book. 33   Idem. 34   Idem. 35   Michel Cahen, ‘Nós não somos bandidos’: A vida diária numa guerrilha de direita – a Renamo na época do Acordo de Incomati (1983–1985), forthcoming; and Chapter 4 of this book. 36  Armando, Tempos de fúria, op. cit. (contd)

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Outline of the Book The present volume is the result of a workshop organized in 2012 at the Institute of Economic and Social Studies (IESE) in Maputo by Domingos do Rosário, Eric Morier-Genoud and Sérgio Chichava. The workshop aimed at joining scholars in Mozambique who worked on the civil war and were developing new approaches and/or had tapped into new sources. The idea of the event was to go back to a topic that had lost momentum, and try to push new perspectives, more nuanced and more complex, looking not just at the two belligerents, but also at society at large. Among other elements, the problématique of the workshop stated: [W]e want to look at social forces other than Renamo and the population as a whole, that is: look at the army, the militias, the church, businessmen, etc., and see what role they played in the conflict as well as what consequences the war had on them. We also aim at looking at the war not just in terms of who won and who lost, but in relation to its impact on social classes, on state-formation, on the nation, on ideologies, etc.

Not all participants to the workshop were able to submit a written text for the present book. We thereafter recruited additional texts from authors who did not attend the workshop but could write chapters about provinces not yet considered, on new topics, or with novel approaches – Michel Cahen, Lily Bunker and Georgi M. Derluguian. On that basis, the book is organized in three broad sections. In the first, four chapters deal with the dynamics of the war in the north and centre of Mozambique where the war began and where the heart of the war was. In a second section, two chapters look at the armed conflict in the southern provinces of the country, Maputo and Inhambane, questioning whether the nature of war was different there. The last section revisits the global dynamics of the war, from a world-system perspective, and brings together the findings of the volume in the Conclusion. The first chapter by Sérgio Chichava discusses the development and history of the PRM. The movement emerged in 1976 to wage war in Zambezia against the government led by Frelimo. Not connected to the Rhodesian war of aggression nor to Renamo, PRM undertook a guerrilla war that benefited from significant popular support. In 1982 Renamo made an agreement with PRM to move into Zambezia and to integrate PRM into its own organization. As a result, the armed conflict increased significantly as Renamo brought in many new fighters into the province and as the government brought in foreign troops from Zimbabwe and Tanzania. As the war aggravated ever more, popular militia emerged in the form of the Naparamas movement born in 1990. While the government managed to co-opt the Naparama movement, Renamo devised a spiritual and military response which eventually changed the very nature of the war in this province. In the second chapter, Domingos do Rosário discusses the war in the province of Nampula. He talks of Renamo’s arrival in 1983 and of Frelimo’s

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12 Introduction over-reaction in 1984 when, following a Political Bureau meeting in the capital of the province, the party-state decided to bring in liberation struggle commanders and Tanzanian troops. This did not fundamentally change the rapport de force between the sides, but it led to a generalization and deepening of the war in Nampula. After 1987, Renamo developed more civilian and political structures in the province, benefiting from the incompetence and violence of the state army, which had come to be seen as opposed to society. As in Zambezia, the deepening of the war in Nampula province led to the rise of the Naparama militia, which operated in both provinces, and the development of a generalized three-sided war. In the third chapter, Corinna Jentzsch focuses exclusively and in great detail on the Naparama militia, the popular self-defence movement which operated across central Mozambique from 1989 onwards. She looks at the formation and diffusion of the movement, the reaction of the government, and the reaction of Renamo, as well as the co-optation of the militia by the government and the fragmentation of the movement. Based on extensive fieldwork and interviews, the author not only goes against a usual dichotomous reading of the war (looking solely at the government and Renamo), but also looks at the internal dynamics of Naparama, its fragmentation and internal competition: a fascinating case is made about the weak institutionalization of the movement’s leadership and internal competition within the movement. In the fourth chapter, Michel Cahen analyses Renamo during the years of 1983 and 1985 on the basis of its own radio messages. The text analyses the guerrilla’s organization and geographical structures, its progression towards the north of the country, and its dynamics after the 1984 Nkomati Accord. The text reveals the strategy and policies of the guerrilla force, its logistical difficulties, and its early political work with the population with which it came into contact and settled among. Through such analysis, a new image of Renamo appears, more complex and nuanced than presented until now, if not less military. In the fifth chapter, Eric Morier-Genoud studies the war in Inhambane province. The war started there in 1981 (1982 for the south of the province), but the government prepared for war there beforehand and the military was therefore active before that date. The author looks at whether and why the armed conflict took a different dynamic in the region. He studies religious organizations, NGOs and the economy, distinguishing between three periods – the early days up to the Nkomati Accord, a full war with the development of a war economy after Nkomati, and a last phase of the war, after 1989, when private militias emerge and war became particularly nasty, though some actors were already starting to plan for the end of the war. In the sixth chapter, Lily Bunker studies the small island of Josina Machel in Maputo province. This is an unusual case as the island was by and large a communal farm which stood as a Potemkin village for the Frelimo party-state, which brought cooperantes, diplomats and other visitors there to showcase the success of the revolution. War began there in earnest in 1987 nonetheless and proved as violent as anywhere else, even though the state militia was strong

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and half of the island was protected by an electric fence. Interestingly, memories of the armed conflict are as strong and hurtful as anywhere else in the country, ranging from recollection of a lack of adequate food and security to very real and severe violence suffered. In the seventh chapter Georgi Derluguian offers a global perspective which complements the previous chapters. It tries to develop a meso-level explanation, between the micro and the macro, to bring the local dynamics into a world-system perspective. Derluguian is the author of a famed 1989 article about the civil war in Mozambique entitled ‘Les têtes du monstre’.37 In the present chapter he looks at the rise of the Frelimo liberation struggle movement in the 1960s and the ways it shrewdly organized and seized global opportunities (when revolutionary vanguards were historically in fashion) to gain independence for the country and reach power. After 1975, Frelimo became overconfident, argues Derlugiuan, and it overreached by engaging the country on the path of an accelerated industrial revolution on the model of global Socialism. This led to a counter-reaction and a civil war, with Renamo building its own networks regionally and internationally to combat a developmental state that tried to replicate the international Communist model at any cost. Thus, argues Derluguian, Frelimo fell victim to its own ‘dizziness from success’ (in Stalin’s famous expression) and Mozambique suffered thereafter almost two decades of civil war.38 In the Conclusion, the editors bring to the fore the contributions of the volume and posit some elements for a new research agenda on the civil war in Mozambique. As stated in the introduction, the present book aims indeed, above all, at kick-starting a new research process. To facilitate this endeavour, in the last pages, the volume offers a thorough academic bibliography of writings about the Mozambican Civil War. 37   Georgi Derluguian, ‘Les têtes du monstre: Du climat social de la violence armée au Mozambique’, L’Année Africaine 1989 (Paris: Pedone, 1989), 89–128. 38   We thank Brad Safarik, lecturer of English at the University of Paris 13-Villetaneuse, for editing the English of most of the chapters.

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Part I IN THE NORTHERN HEART OF THE CIVIL WAR

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1

The Anti-Frelimo Movements & the War in Zambezia

Sérgio Chichava

In 1976, a few months after independence, an armed movement opposed to the ruling party of the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo) emerged from the province of Zambezia. Known as the Partido Revolucionário de Moçambique (Revolutionary Party of Mozambique, PRM), this movement was first led by Amós Sumane, a former member of Frelimo, and later by Gimo Phiri. The PRM quickly began to coordinate attacks on any and all areas that represented Frelimo’s presence as a State structure. The local population’s support was vital and decisive. The population fed the soldiers and also provided crucial information on the movements and positions of Frelimo troops. Frelimo, caught off guard by this development, was forced to acknowledge this collaboration. The same popular support was later on provided to the Resistência Nacional de Moçambique (Mozambique National Resistance, Renamo) as they too began to attack Frelimo positions in the province of Zambezia beginning in 1982. This study also focuses on the messianic movements of the ‘Naparama’, also known as ‘Napharama’, and the ‘Mulelepeia’. These two last movements arose as a direct response to the Mozambican Civil War; their breadth and importance was felt mostly in the province of Zambezia. The chapter advances the argument that Frelimo’s hostility towards the people of Zambezia, as well as the marginalization of the province (one of the oldest areas colonized by the Portuguese) constitutes the foundation of the local population’s support towards the anti-Frelimo movements. Conversely Frelimo was convinced that the anti-colonial fight in Zambezia did not achieve the same success as in other regions because of the local leaders’ continued support for Portugal as well as the widespread desertion of thousands of Zambezians who joined the ranks of the colonial army during the liberation struggle.1 Because Frelimo considered the success of the anti-Frelimo movements as being a direct result of the hostility Zambezians felt towards it, it adopted a very stern stance towards the province. It should be noted, however, that this study of the civil war in Zambezia is not a pioneering study in the sense that other works have already been written on this province.2 Yet, departing from the previous studies, this work is based 1   Indeed, Zambezia was the only region among the four ‘fronts’ opened by Frelimo (Cabo Delgado, Niassa, Tete and Zambezia) where the military strategy failed completely. 2   Jean-Claude Legrand, ‘Logique de guerre et dynamique de la violence en Zambézia, 1976–

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on previously unexploited documents, from various archives, particularly from the archive of the government of the province of Zambezia.3 It also uses oral history with actors of the war. Furthermore, this study intends to look beyond certain simplistic analyses of the complexity of the Mozambican Civil War by firstly adopting a new approach that does not focus on Renamo only and, secondly, by scrutinizing the internal factors and actors involved, not least actors who have been by and large overlooked in previous analyses. The chapter is divided into three parts. It begins with a discussion of the PRM, the dynamics of the war in Zambezia, as well as their links with Renamo. The second part focuses on the debate over the role of Renamo in the armed conflict in the province of Zambezia. Finally, the role of the Naparama and the Mulelepeia in the latter stages of the war is examined.

PRM & the Challenge to Frelimo Starting in 1976, the PRM, which had its rear base of operations in Malawi, began to attack the Frelimo regime in Zambezia, forming the first post-1975 anti-Frelimo movement. However, in order to better understand both the origins and the dynamics of these activities, it is necessary to review the history behind the Frelimo war against Portuguese colonialism as well as the different conflicts and disagreements that arose within this movement during the war. The PRM was a reincarnation of the União Nacional Africana de Rombézia (African National Union of Rombézia, UNAR) and of the União Nacional Moçambicana (Mozambican National Union, UNAMO), movements formed during the colonial war by dissidents within Frelimo and within the Comité Revolucionário de Moçambique (Mozambique Revolutionary Committee, COREMO)4 that supported the independence of ‘Rombézia’.

From UNAR to PRM According to a communiqué it published in 1969, UNAR was officially created on 5 January 19685 under the direction of Amós Mauricio Sumane, the former Frelimo Secretary of Social Affairs who had resigned from his position in 1966.6 1991’, Politique africaine 50 (1993), 88–104.   This research has been undertaken in the Arquivo do Governo da Zambézia (AGZ) in Quelimane, and in the Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino (AHU) and the Arquivo Nacional/Torre de Tombo (IAN/TT), both in Lisbon. At these two last archives I have worked with the Serviços de Centralização e Controlo de Informação de Moçambique (SCCIM) and PIDE/DGS archives. I also gained access to some documents from private archives. 4   Movement created in 1965 by the Frelimo dissidents Adelino Gwambe and Paulo Gumane. 5  IAN/TT: PIDE/DGS, Delegação de Moçambique, Subdelegação de Beira, Relatório. Assunto: alteração da Designação de Unar para UNAMO, Beira, Informação 416-SC/CI (2), 29 March 1969, in IAN/TT/PIDE/DGS, Processo CI (2) 9713, União Nacional Africana da Rombézia, a.k.a. União Nacional Africana de Moçambique. 6   Born in Messumba in the administrative post of Metangula, in the district of Niassa, Amós Sumane, from the Nianja ethnic group, had been a school teacher in an Anglican mission before leaving Mozambique to join Frelimo in Tanzania. (contd) 3

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For some (Frelimo included), UNAR was a creation of Jorge Jardim7 and PIDE/ DGS8 with the support of the former Malawian president Kamuzu Banda.9 According to these sources, with the support of Jardim, Banda would have supported UNAR because it would allow him to pursue his dream of linking northern Mozambique with Malawi and re-establishing the former Maravi Empire (which would correspond to the pre-colonial Malawi). According to the information in our possession, it is difficult to define the role of the President of Malawi and that of Jorge Jardim in the creation of the UNAR. What can be confirmed is that the relations between UNAR and the Kamuzu Banda government were ambiguous, as was the policy of the latter with regard to the anti-Portuguese movements. For example, the printing of UNAR propaganda leaflets was made in the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) offices and, at the beginning, UNAR bureau was operating at Rest House in Limbe with the financial assistance from the government of Banda. Also, UNAR propaganda among Mozambican refugees was supported by the Malawi Government. Nevertheless, other sources show the imposition of certain restrictions and conditionalities on the movement of Amós Sumane.10 In these circumstances, it is difficult to assess the degree of influence of Banda or the role of Jorge Jardim in the creation of the UNAR. Equally, it is possible to confirm the fact that the UNAR was not a creation of the PIDE/DGS. The creation of UNAR was above all a product of the crises that opposed the different elite within the pro-independence movements. It was only after its creation that the Portuguese secret services envisaged using this organization to counteract the actions of Frelimo and COREMO.11 UNAR differed from the other Mozambican liberation struggle movements because it took up the position of supporting the independence of ‘Rombézia’, an area created haphazardly composing the zone between the Rovuma and Zambezi rivers, making up essentially the North of Mozambique, comprising the current provinces of Cabo Delgado, Niassa, Tete, Nampula and Zambezia. To obtain their objective, the leadership of UNAR attempted to take advantage of the cordial relations at the time between the Governments of Portugal and Malawi, using the latter as a mediator. 7   Jardim was an important Portuguese businessman, based in Beira during the colonial period, and very close to the Salazar regime. A great friend of Kamuzu Banda, Jorge Jardim was named consul of Malawi in Beira. He fell into disgrace with the fall of the ‘Estado Novo’, the authoritarian and corporatist state political regime that lasted in Portugal from 1933 to the Carnation Revolution on 25 April 25 1974. 8   The Portuguese secret services during the Estado Novo. 9  Gulamo  Taju, ‘Renamo: os factos que conhecemos’,  Cadernos de História  (UEM, Maputo)  7 (1988), 5–44; ‘Mozambique: Havoc in the bush’, Africa Confidential, 23, 15 (July 1982). 10  IAN/TT: PIDE, Delegação de Moçambique,  Relatório, assunto: UNAMO. Situação financeira do partido, Lourenço Marques, 14 October 1969, Informação 1 049-SC/CI (2), in IANTT/PIDE/ DGS, Processo CI (2) 9713, União..., op. cit.; PIDE, Delegação em Moçambique, Assunto: Actividade da UNAR, Lourenço Marques, 16 April 1968, Informação 411-SC/CI (2),  in IANTT/PIDE/DGS, Processo CI (2) 9713, União Nacional de Moçambique. 11  IAN/TT: PIDE, Delegação de Moçambique,  Circular, Lourenço Marques, 11 October 1969, in IANT/PIDE/DGS, Processo CI (2) 9713, União Nacional Africana da Rombézia, ou União nacional Africana de Moçambique.

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For the leaders of UNAR, the war led by Frelimo and COREMO were causing the suffering of ‘Rombezians’ only and did not adversely affect the populations of the South, where the principal leaders of these movements originated. The stated goal of UNAR was therefore, according to its leaders, to find an end to the anguish inflicted upon the ‘Rombezians’ by the ‘tribalists of the South’. Through the eyes of UNAR, the ‘tribalism’ of Frelimo included sending supporters from the South to Europe to study, while the ‘Rombezians’ were fighting hard and used as ‘cannon fodder’.12 Moreover, UNAR also denounced the ‘communist’ line held by Frelimo. In the hopes of receiving the backing of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which refused to back ‘tribalist’ movements, UNAR abandoned the idea of only fighting for Rombézia and became UNAMO in 1969. It seems that the change from UNAR to UNAMO was done under the influence of Kamuzu Banda who promised support and political recognition in exchange. 13 UNAR then proclaimed itself to be fighting for the independence of all of Mozambique and no longer only for the territory of Rombézia. However, similarly to the other movements contesting Frelimo, and even with its proclaimed changes, UNAR was not able to capture the support or recognition of the OAU, or any other countries, nor was it able to threaten the interests of Frelimo. Its financial situation remained very precarious, with its activities involving little more than producing propaganda. Nevertheless, with its reduced means, UNAR attempted to pass along its message to the populations located mostly in the border regions of Tete, Zambezia and Niassa, as well as in Malawi. During the independence of Mozambique in 1975, this movement disappeared for a time until it reappeared shortly after as PRM. Under this new banner, the movement violently opposed the policies of Frelimo. But some precisions need to be made in relation to the PRM.

Do not confuse PRM, África Livre and Wotcha Weka! It is not uncommon to come across some confusion between the PRM and the radio station África Livre in the literature related to these subjects. It is the case with authors such as Sérgio Nathu Cabá,14 Jean-Claude Legrand,15 Carlos Serra16 and Nina Renee Bowen.17 Even in the official documents of Frelimo, PRM is very often conflated with África Livre. Yet, África Livre was only a   IAN/TT: SCCIM, Boletim de difusão de informações 18/68, UNAR, Lourenço Marques, 13 March 1968, in AHM/Governo Geral/Relatórios de informação 1969 a 1974. 13   IAN/TT: PIDE, Delegação de Moçambique, Subdelegação de Beira, Relatório. Assunto: alteração da Designação de Unar para UNAMO, Beira, Informação 416-SC/CI (2), 29 March 1969, in IAN/ TT/PIDE/DGS, Processo CI (2) 9713, União Nacional Africana da Rombézia, a.k.a. União Nacional Africana de Moçambique. 14   Sérgio Nathú Cabá, ‘A Guerra na província da Zambézia e o papel do Malawi (1975–1988)’, BA Thesis (Maputo: Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, 1997). 15   Legrand, ‘Logique de guerre’, op. cit. 16   Carlos Serra, ‘De la gestion de corps à la gestion des mentalités en Zambézia, Mozambique (1890–1983). Rapports de domination, conformisme et déviance politiques’, PhD Thesis (Paris: École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 1995). 17   Nina Renee Bowen, ‘Traders and livelihood strategies in post-conflict Zambézia’, PhD Thesis (London: London School of Economics and Political Science, July 2000). 12

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radio station created by the Rhodesian regime with Mozambicans to produce anti-Frelimo propaganda: The PRM was never África Livre, … África Livre was a radio station. Our party had always been the PRM, but people used the name África Livre to talk about PRM because of the radio. This name, África Livre, encompassed all of the movements that fought against Frelimo, indicating Renamo as much as PRM. PRM was forced to explain to people that it was not África Livre, that África Livre was a radio that spoke and communicated about everything that we are doing, it was a radio that spoke bad about Frelimo, about communal villages, about the permits … it wasn’t a party, it was just a radio.18

Others confused the PRM and the Wotcha Weka, classifying the latter as a movement.19 Yet, Wotcha Weka was a not movement. Rather, it represented the name of the actions, encouraged by the PRM, of the populations burning the ‘communal villages’. These actions represented a major factor stemming from the discord and discontent of the populations in regards to Frelimo because, as the villages were not accompanied by any social and economic infrastructure and were often located far from fertile soil for farming, they did not offer any social progress. As the population refused to move into these villages, Frelimo was prepared to use force to make it happen. The PRM exploited the dissatisfaction of the population in its favour by employing the operation Wotcha Weka, which means ‘burn yourself’ [your communal village] in the local languages. Gimo Phiri,20 who became the leader of PRM after the arrest of Amós Sumane, explains the difference: It was a language that the guerrillas used with the population: you’re complaining because of the communal villages? Well, the guerrillas organized the population so that they burned down their thatched huts themselves and then returned to their own areas. [The peasants] burned the villages at the instigation of the PRM, who took advantage of the fact that the people did not like communal villages. Whenever we came to a communal village, we would fire a few shots in the air to let the people know we had arrived and they would start burning the villages. That way, Frelimo couldn’t blame the population. It was a coordinated action between the population and the PRM. As soon as we started to fire into the air to throw off the Dynamizing Groups (GD), the population already knew it was us. That way Frelimo thought that it was us that had burned the villages when it was actually the population. It was to   Interview with Gimo Phiri, Tete, 27–28 October 2004.   Serra, ‘De la gestion de corps’, op. cit.; Bowen, ‘Traders and livelihood strategies’ op. cit.   Africa Confidential (London) 30, 13 (23 June 1989), stated that Gimo Phiri was a ‘Mozambican Asian business man’, something which is totally false. Bernardo Alfai Gimo is an African individual, more often known under the name of Gimo Phiri, who was born in the administrative post of Charre, in the former circumscription of Mutarara, province of Tete, on 5 May 1948. After completing his fourth year in a local missionary school (which gave him assimilado status), he worked in Vila Pery (currently Chimoio) and later in Beira. It was in Beira that he started his career in politics. In the 1970s, he was a partisan of Frelimo, recruiting militants for the movement, mostly in his native region. Disappointed (according to him) by the ‘Marxist’ character of Frelimo, he left for Malawi in 1974, still during the transitional government, to join up with other anti-Frelimo militants, such as Amós Sumane.

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19

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get rid of the communal villages … it’s one of the factors that gained us the support of the population.21

The burning of the ‘communal villages’ by the populace, accompanied by their fleeing towards their traditional areas of residence, or Malawi, was a reality confirmed by the Minister of Defence himself during a meeting held in Milange in 1982.22 The PRM came back to the same places in the district of Milange (the most affected district) where UNAR had been active during the anti-colonial war, for example in the hamlets and regedorias (chiefdoms) of Sabelua, Tengua, Nhazombe, Congono, Mandua, Gerasse, Saenda, Ponderane and Vulalo. It must be remembered that UNAR had created branches in these regions during the anti-colonial war and that, in September 1968, a group of UNAR fighters, including Matias Tenda,23 had been arrested in the region of Vulalo. This is one of the factors that explain the fast and relatively easy implantation of this armed movement in Zambezia. Their militants were already known by the population and they already knew the terrain. The field of action of PRM also covered the districts of Mutarara (the native land of Gimo Phiri in Tete), Mecanhelas (a region of Niassa that never supported Frelimo much), and the Zambezian districts of Lugela (mostly the region of Muabanama, bordering the district of Milange), Namarroi, Gurué, Morrumbala and Mopeia. The majority of its militants came from Zambezia and were of Lomué ethnic origin. These peoples had suffered most from the end of the plantation economy in the 20th century and from the authoritarian policies of ‘modernization’ imposed by Frelimo after independence. These people also, it must be recalled, come from an ethnicity that had already been humiliated and scorned by the Portuguese and by the different capitalist companies that had passed through Zambezia.24 In the beginning, PRM used sticks, hatchets, machetes and spears. Little by little, they began to steal the weapons and the uniforms of the soldiers, militias and police officers of Frelimo. Some of these ‘counterrevolutionaries’ (according to the official version) were former Frelimo soldiers from the anti-colonial war. Such is the case of the famous Commander ‘terrible’ Lucas Saguate. He had been a soldier in the colonial army in São Tomé & Príncipe. For having participated in a rebellion in that country,25 he was arrested and put in jail for ten years, after which he joined the ranks of Frelimo and became an instructor to the movement in Nashingwea, Tanzania. After independence, Lucas Saguate joined the PRM, becoming the main commander of this   Interview with Gimo Phiri, Tete, 27–28 October 2004.   AGZ: Ministério da Defesa Nacional, Sintese da Reunião Conjunta das Forças de Defesa e Segurança das Províncias do Niassa e Zambézia, Milange, 4 February 1982. 23   Former militant of Frelimo and COREMO. 24   Leroy Vail & Landeg White, Capitalism and Colonialism in Mozambique: A Study of Quelimane District (London: Heinemann, 1980). 25   The event came to be known as the Batepá massacre of 3 February 1953. AHU: PIDE, Delegação de Moçambique, Actividades terroristas no Distrito do Niassa, Lourenço Marques, Informação 696-SC/CI (2), 17 August 1966 in AHU/MU/GM/GNP/K.6.10/SR036/Pt.4, Situação subversiva em Moçambique. 21

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movement in Zambezia. According to the legend, he even possessed magical powers.26 From its beginnings, the PRM found support among the rural populations disappointed by Frelimo. The PRM attacked the ‘communal villages’, the headquarters of Frelimo, their deputies, the Dynamizing Groups (GDs), the Mass Democratic Organizations (ODMs), and the lojas do povo (people’s shops). In other words, they attacked anything that represented Frelimo, its state-building policies and its ‘Marxist-Leninist’ ideology. A pamphlet from the PRM found in Morrumbala in 1981, written by Lucas Saguate, clearly illustrates that this movement was not only against the ‘communal villages’, but also against anything that symbolized the presence of the State, such as the so-called ‘people’s shops’: We arrived here in Molir [Murrire?]. We burned all of the villages, we arrived in the shop and plundered everything that was there because we don’t want the custom of the people’s shop. We don’t want communal villages either. Down with the communal village. Attention comrades we cannot continue with the communal village.27

In the beginning of 1979, the majority of the people working within the branches of Frelimo in the district of Milange, where the PRM was very active, abandoned their functions and fled to Malawi (fearing for their lives), paralysing almost all of the political activities of the party.28 The government was forced to send in reinforcements (soldiers and a more devoted administrator) in order to minimize the impact of the attacks and to ‘mobilize’ the population.29 PRM also attacked militias and police officers to steal their weapons, uniforms, boots, and identity cards of the Mozambique People’s Police (PPM). It was not rare to see agents of PRM disguised as elements of Frelimo attacking the party’s positions. For example, on 21 May 1980, in Chindio zone in Milange, a group of the PRM dressed up in stolen uniforms of the PPM attacked a police station, killing an officer.30

The worsening of the military situation Despite the reinforcements sent in 1979, the politico-military situation degraded fast, especially in the region of Milange. In 1980, the Coordination Commission of Defence and Local Security recognized the gravity of the situation and the fact that PRM was not a simple ragtag group of bandits as the government had assumed until then. The Commission called for more reinforcements:

  Interview with Gimo Phiri, Tete, 27–28 October 2004.  AGZ: Administração do Distrito de Morrumbala, Para Gabinete do Director do Gabinete da província da Zambézia. Confidencial, Morrumbala, 17 December 1981. 28   AGZ: Administração do Distrito de Milange, Relatório, Milange, 10 April 1979. 29   Ibid. 30  AGZ: Ministério da Defesa Nacional, 1° destacamento especial (Tigre), Relatório, Mongoé, Milange, 1 June 1980. 26 27

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We want to inform the central branches of the province that the military situation in Milange is worsening. [We can no longer] downplay this, it is no longer simple thieves as we had been calling them until now, but rather puppets of África Livre. We should reinforce our positions, increase the number of soldiers, in order to push back against the rising number of bandits that have been appearing over these last days … if our positions stick with the numbers they have today, we will suffer heavy losses.’31

Just between the months of March and September 1980, around thirty attacks took place in the district of Milange, supported by the former régulos (traditional chiefs) and heads of the hamlets.32 At the same time, significant numbers of secretaries of the districts and ‘GDs’, district commissioners, and members of the Mass Democratic Movement (ODMs) abandoned their posts to join forces with the PRM.33 This is one of the factors explaining the rapid growth of the PRM force. The support of certain estruturas (branches of Frelimo) 34 was extremely decisive. For example, it was these new members that passed along the information concerning the movements of Frelimo’s troops. These same people also contributed foodstuffs. In a very short time, PRM was able to win the support of local peasants who provided food, hideouts and information on Frelimo troop movements, among other things, to such an extent that the government imposed the compulsory construction of ‘communal villages’ in order to better control the peasants and to avoid them coming into contact with the PRM: As with the tenets taken from the first battles of the national liberation fight, it has been fundamental [for the PRM] to earn the respect of the populations and to have full moral and food aid support. The evolution of the actions of the bandits directed by the agents of África Livre who have assimilated our experience shows that they take advantage of family groupings and isolated populations to execute their plans. And we admit this as true because they all receive moral, alimentary and financial support, hidden within their bases and their movements. Our weapons that these bandits have stolen can be found in the houses of the populations. How will our actions bear their fruits if the bandits continue to receive the support of the population? And among those who support them, some do it freely, others through intimidation, but they all contribute to the perpetuation of these bandits. And for that we again propose, in order to achieve the isolation of the counterrevolutionaries, the required rounding up of the population into the communal villages; along with locating places where the communal villages ought to be built.35

31   AGZ: Comissão Coordenadora das Forças de Defesa e Segurança, Relatório, Milange, 25 May 1980. 32   AGZ: Ministério da Defesa Nacional, 1° destacamento, op. cit. 33   AGZ: Comissão Coordenadora das Forças de Defesa e Segurança, Relatório, Quelimane, 28 October 1980. 34   In the common lexicon, the word estrutura (‘structure’) means the political authorities of the State and, through extension, the people who work for them: ‘the estrutura has come to visit us’ means that the comrade of the party leadership has arrived. 35  AGZ: Comissão Coordenadora das Forças de Defesa e Segurança, Relatório, Quelimane, 28 October 1980.

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A report from the Ministry of Defence briefly summarized the factors that brought the population to support the PRM: Our study has concluded that our population is easily won over by the enemy in the communal villages because we are not keeping our promises made to the popular masses during the transfer of the populations into the communal villages, the conditions for survival such as the stores to buy foodstuffs, hospitals, markets, schools, and even public assistance.36

The other aspect was related to the abuses of the populations by the estruturas (branches) of Frelimo. Indeed, from the beginning, Frelimo was forced to confront the indiscipline and the abuse of its estruturas regarding the populations. The People’s Vigilance Groups (GVP) were accused of mistreating the population whereas the militias were accused not only of mistreatment, but also of unsanctioned killings.37 In Milange, where the PRM was seen to be very active, the militias were the ‘champions of terror’.38 Acts of abuse against the population were widespread. It is also worth mentioning that in 1979 PRM was linked by the Frelimo government with the spread of a series of rumours known as the ‘chupa-sangue’ phenomenon (literal translation, ‘blood suckers’). In the imagination of the Zambezians, the chupa-sangue were people who, in the middle of the night, went from house to house and, through the use of special tools fed a tube into the house and sucked the blood of their victims. These ‘vampires’ were said to work in collaboration with all the different levels of the political and administrative branches of Frelimo. In what became a popular revolt against these actions, the populations attacked the leaders of Frelimo and vital sectors of the economy were paralysed. According to the local government, apart from PRM the agitators were composed of former PIDE officers, former Acção Nacional Popular (ANP, People’s National Action) party members,39 the Public Security Police (PSP), former sepoys40, traditional chiefs, priests, as well as GDs and polygamists were rejected by Frelimo. In other words, there was a whole range of marginalities and enemies imaginable by the party leaders. This shows that the government was not sure about who was behind the chupa-sangue rumours.

The PRM’s unlucky run Even though enjoying some popular support, the PRM never succeeded to gain enough external financial, logistical and military support and was unable to spread its activities across the whole of Zambezia province. Its actions remained   AGZ: Ministério da Defesa Nacional, Síntese da Reunião Conjunta das Forças de Defesa e Segurança das Províncias do Niassa e Zambézia, Milange, 4 February 1982.   AGZ: Governo da Província da Zambézia, Relatório sobre a situação da Província nos últimos dois meses, Quelimane, 29 July 1979. 38   AGZ: Ministério da Defesa Nacional, Síntese da Reunião Conjunta, op. cit. 39   The Portuguese single party during the late period of Estado Novo. 40   In Mozambique, as in India, the term ‘sepoy’ (cipaio in Portuguese) was used for the rural and indigenous police at the service of colonial administration. 36

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confined to the regions close to the border with Malawi such as Lugela and Milange. In the mid-1980s, the Mozambican Government launched a serious offensive and PRM suffered a setback with the destruction of multiple bases and the arrest of many of its militants, including its leader, Amós Sumane. Other important leaders were also arrested, such as Joaquim Veleia (former commissioner of Frelimo in Gurué, who had joined the PRM, executed in 1981) and Matias Tenda (sentenced to death in June 1982).41 Also worthy of mention was the assassination in Milange of ‘Terrible’ Lucas Saguate, on 6 April 1981, in a trap laid by Frelimo. Malawi, under pressure from Frelimo, also began to repress PRM. Thus, on 26 January 1981, eighteen members of the PRM were arrested by the local authorities and handed over to the Government of Mozambique.42 In 1982, the Mozambican revolutionary military tribunal tried and condemned thirty militants of the PRM: four were sentenced to death and twenty-seven to heavy prison terms.43 Among them was a woman who, taking advantage of her positions as the head of the Organization of Mozambican Women (OMM), recruited other women and collected money and foodstuffs for PRM.44 The most important particularity here is that all of the militants arrested came from Zambezia.

The fusion between the PRM and Renamo In a letter dated 28 June 1982, sent to Gimo Phiri, Orlando Cristina (whose nom de guerre was Mário Salima), then Secretary-General of Renamo, proposed the unification of the PRM and Renamo. According to Cristina, the dispersion of their forces was a handicap in their fight against Frelimo: The existence of different armed groups would be very dangerous for the future of the country. In a revolution, discipline is essential. It is necessary that we warn against the serious future problems resulting from divided forces that could throw our country into confusion, chaos, and the complete destruction of what we are creating through much sacrifice.45

Two months later, in August, the two movements became one. Afonso Dhlakama, leader of Renamo, remained at the head of the movement and Gimo Phiri became vice president. This unification also marked the entrance of Renamo into Zambezia in August 1982. From this period on, the war took on another dimension, becoming fierce all over the province with the guerrilla paralysing economic and social life. This alliance lasted around five years, after which Gimo Phiri left Renamo – in 1987 following internal discords – and recreated UNAMO in homage, according to him, to Amós   ‘Mozambique: Havoc in the bush’, Africa Confidential (London), 23, 15 (July 1982).   AGZ: Comissão Coordenadora das FDS, Síntese do relatório do 3° destacamento especial referente ao mês de janeiro de 1981, Milange, 12 March 1981. 43   ‘TMR condena 32 contra-revolucionários: Quatro réus com pena de morte’, Tempo (Maputo) 541, 22 February 1981; Notícias (Maputo), 16 March 1981. 44   Ibid. 45   Mário Salima, in a letter to Gimo Phiri, 28 June 1982 (personal archives, city of Tete, October 2004). 41

42

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Sumane. The group went on to fight both Frelimo and Renamo. Later, the group was brought over to the side of Frelimo to fight against Renamo in an agreement, the details of which are unknown. Gimo Phiri explained the reasons of his departure from Renamo and how he was later bribed by Frelimo in the following way: It was a very simple reason really: first, the guerrillas, of whom the majority were ethnic Lomués said that they were being excluded, that they did not have access to higher positions because of tribalism, that only the Ndaus could be commanders. So the Lomués weren’t happy. Then, I don’t know if it was true or not, there was a rumour that a group led by Evo Fernandes46 wanted me dead, because he thought I was working with Frelimo. I don’t think that Dhlakama was mixed up in this. I wrote a letter to Dhlakama declaring my resignation from the group, but he refused. Finally, the other reason for the split was the destruction of the country’s infrastructure. If we won the war, what would we have left to govern? That’s one of the things that made me leave Renamo. Even Orlando Cristina didn’t agree with the destruction. I couldn’t accept the destruction of Mozambique. If we destroy the country, where are we going to find the money to rebuild? Do you think that those telling Dhlakama to destroy the country are then going to give him money if he took power one day? Our goal was to fight communism and not just to destroy. I left with 3,000 men. At this time, 1987, the year of our break, we attacked both Frelimo and Renamo. And the government, finding itself attacked on two fronts, contacted us. Promises were made that were not respected. Today I find myself abandoned. We made a deal with Frelimo that they didn’t fulfil.47

Following the agreement between Frelimo and the group of Gimo Phiri, a new fighting force called the ‘Maria Group’ was created out of what remained of the former PRM. It was this group, commanded by Gimo Phiri, that was able to provide security to certain regions of Zambezia, particularly around Milange. In the end, the troops of Gimo Phiri were demobilized alongside those of Frelimo under the framework of the General Peace Agreement (AGP). During the opening of the country to political pluralism in the 1990s, and without a doubt thanks to the complicity of Frelimo, Gimo Phiri was dethroned from the presidency of UNAMO in favour of Carlos Alexandre dos Reis, a former delegate of the movement in Lisbon. Born in Milange, Carlos Alexandre dos Reis is a very controversial character. During the colonial period he was an interpreter in the administration of the district of Milange. In 1966 he was arrested following a raid organized by PIDE against a supposed Frelimo network in Zambezia. After independence he became a merchant and he was arrested in the beginning of the 1980s, accused of speculation and other economic crimes. He reappeared later in Lisbon on the side of Renamo or the PRM and the SNASP (Serviço Nacional de Segurança Popular), the secret service during the regime of Maputo. After 1992, in the absence of Gimo Phiri, who was still in the bush, Carlos Reis legalized the party, organized its first   Secretary-General of Renamo (after the assassination of Orlando Cristina), of Goan origin.   Interview with Gimo Phiri, 27–28 October 2004.

46 47

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congress and proclaimed himself the leader.48 He continued to lead UNAMO, for a federal system, up to his passing (October 2017). During the 2014 elections, he called for voting for Renamo and Dhlakama. The rise of Carlos Reis was the beginning of the end of Gimo Phiri’s political career. Later on, in 1992, Gimo Phiri created the União Democrática de Moçambique (Democratic Union of Mozambique, UDEMO), a movement that until today has no official political activity and is not formally registered with the State. This ‘new’ movement is fighting, according to its leaders, for the creation of a federal State, which would divide Mozambique into two parts: the North and the South.49 In 1993, in a letter addressed to the SNASP, Carlos Reis claimed that Gimo Phiri had resurrected the ‘Grupo Maria’ and was perturbing UNAMO political meetings, having kidnapped and killed some of its members.50 During the first plenary sitting of the fourth session of Parliament in 1996, Joaquim Chissano, then president of the Republic, denied having made any deals with Gimo Phiri in answer to a question posed by a deputy of Renamo. For Chissano, Gimo Phiri was nothing but a simple dissident of Renamo who had asked Frelimo for help to fight against the rebel movement of Afonso Dhlakama.51 On understanding this, UDEMO threatened to mobilize its supposed 3,000 fighters so as to force Frelimo to fulfil its end of the bargain they had worked out in 1987, which Frelimo had not respected.52 It turned out to be nothing but a bluff. At the time of his interview, Gimo Phiri was living in a little room in the city of Tete with a minibus he had received as a gift from Frelimo for his ‘collaboration’. According to him, ‘he was still waiting peacefully [for the fulfilment of] the promises of Chissano’, dividing his time between Mozambique and Malawi where his family lives.

Zambezia & Renamo Renamo was not a ‘Zambezian’ movement. But what was the impact of its fusion with PRM during the civil war and its entry in the province? What was the reaction of the population vis-à-vis Renamo? And how did Frelimo react to the new situation?

Renamo and the hardening of the military situation As soon as Renamo penetrated into Zambezia, with the help of the PRM, the politico-military situation became unbearable. The military actions evolved quickly, becoming more and more violent. Cars were attacked, mines were 48   It is probably not by chance that UNAMO was the first legalized political party after the introduction of the multiparty system in Mozambique. On this question, see ‘Unamo registration confirmed’, Mozambiquefile (Maputo), 189, April 1992. 49   ‘Udemo diz ter 3 000 mil homens prontos a combater’, Notícias (Maputo) 23431, 11 March 1996. 50   AGZ: União Nacional de Moçambique, Secretariado Provincial da Zambézia,  Para Director Provincial dos serviços de informação e segurança do Estado, Quelimane, 16 August 1993. 51   ‘Udemo diz ter 3 000 mil homens prontos a combater’, op. cit. 52   Ibid.

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placed on the roads, collaborators were killed or kidnapped, etc. Such was the case of six Bulgarian technicians in August 1982 as well as twenty-four others of Soviet origins kidnapped in August of 1984. Renamo also targeted, in the same manner as the PRM, the estruturas of Frelimo (GD, district secretaries, deputies, etc.) and anything that represented the State and its party (professors, doctors, nurses, hospitals, schools, factories, tea plantations, ‘communal villages’, etc.). This obsession with the destruction of representations of the State’s ‘modernity’ even brought Renamo for example to distrust anyone who spoke the Portuguese language, being perceived as Frelimo supporters: If you spoke Portuguese in this zone, you had problems with Renamo. They thought you supported Frelimo. The boyfriend of my aunt was killed because when he was stopped and interrogated by Renamo, he responded in Portuguese. He had just arrived from Nampula.53

Renamo also supported the opposite policies to Frelimo. It threw its support behind the traditional authorities, the faith healers, the soothsayers, etc., i.e. groups disdained by the government of Samora Machel as they were considered archaic and feudal structures that should be replaced by the ‘New Man’. During its military incursions, Renamo destroyed everything except the churches, for example in Lugela, Milange, Morrumbala, Micaune and Molumbo.54 It also left intact the simple houses, those of the peasants who either did not have any links, or were not suspected of having links, with Frelimo and its State apparatus. In only a short time, Renamo gained the support of the rural population, as local administrative reports attest. In Morrumbala for example, a district occupied by Renamo on 16 August 1982 (a few days after entering Zambezia), where the administrative headquarters had remained isolated amidst localities conquered by the guerrilla (Megaza, Pinda, Derre, Muandiua, Mepinha, Guerissa and Chire), and where all economic activities were essentially paralysed. The local government explained that: In a very short period of time, Renamo has been able to win over the populations of Morrumbala. It’s in these regions that the influence of Renamo is very strong, where the adhesion of the population to this movement is voluntary.55

In March 1983, the government in Milange stated that the population had already been ‘conquered’ by the ‘bandits’ and had voluntarily joined them.56 This rapid adhesion of the population to the ‘bandits’ is explained not only by its fight against the ‘modernity’ of Frelimo, but also against the negative   Interview with Bacalhau, Maputo, 10 November 2005.   J. Carimo, ‘Crónicas de Namuli. A Religião dos Bandidos’, Tempo (Maputo), 947, 4 December 1988. 55   AGZ: Administração do Distrito de Morrumbala, Relatório para o Governador da Provincia da Zambezie, Morrumbala, 13 September 1982. 56   AGZ: Governo da província da Zambézia, Gabinete do Governador, Informação diária (Resumo), Quelimane, 31 March 1983. 53

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treatment of the estruturas of the Maputo regime in their quest to construct a ‘modern’ state. In September 1982, the provincial military commander of Zambezia, Bonifácio Gruveta, addressed a memorandum to the governor Oswaldo Tazama in which he demonstrated the extent to which these estruturas had been abusing the populations: Under the orders of the local administrators, the militias and the Vigilance Groups steal the goods of the populations. In the stations of the district of Namacurra, the militias search the bags of the passengers, take the drinks that they find, and later drink them themselves. The people know they are doing this.57

On the other hand, it appears that in Zambezia, Renamo was less severe with the populations it was trying to gain support from. During the attack on Belua and Cuge, Renamo killed some cattle owned by the company Emocha, and later distributed the meat to the population. During some of these actions, the local population assisted Renamo, as in Megaza, near Morrumbala, where they captured the cattle of a certain Arnaldo in September 1982.58 A report from the government of Gilé shows that, while in the beginning Renamo traditionally used force or intimidation, over time it changed tactics towards a more pacific approach to better curry favour with the populations: The armed soldiers are using a new tactic to no longer mistreat the population, not taking their goods by force, but rather by receiving them as offerings or in exchange for money. The enemy, to win over the population, is distributing t-shirts. They are t-shirts stolen from the areas they passed through on their way to Gilé.59

In August 1983, in the framework of his ‘Presidential political and organizational offensive’ against all ‘insufficiencies’, Samora Machel required a reorganization of the armed forces in Zambezia and announced the beginning of a large offensive against Renamo. These actions were deemed necessary to counteract the problems of the disorganization and lack of discipline within the government army, which were giving the anti-Frelimo movements room to operate. Commanders and captains, etc., were demoted and veterans of the anti-colonial fights and soldiers who had fought against the regimes of Ian Smith in Rhodesia, and Idi Amin Dada during the invasion of Uganda from Tanzania were called upon to integrate the army in Zambezia.60 The most exemplary case was the demotion and replacement of Bonifácio Gruveta, the Zambezia provincial commander, by the brigadier José Ajape, who had   AGZ: B. Gruveta, Comando provincial da Zambézia, Nota informativa, Mocuba, 14 September 1982. 58   AGZ: Administração de Morrumbala, Do Administrador de Morrumbala, para o Governador da Província da Zambézia, Morrumbala, 5 September 1982. 59   AGZ: Administração de Gilé, Do Administrador do distrito de Gilé para Governador da Província Da Zambézia, Gilé, 10 November 1982. 60   ‘Zambézia: reorganizar as FAM para desbaratar os bandos armados’, Tempo (Maputo), 670, 14 August 1983. ‘Le président Samora retourne à [sic] Zambézia’, Bulletin d’information (Maputo), 86, Agência de Informação de Moçambique, August 1983. 57

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formerly commanded the small group of Mozambican troops sent to support the guerrilla fighters in Rhodesia.61 According to Samora Machel, the demoted soldiers would be sent to production lines: While I visited Mocuba, I came across commanders that had been sent to Maputo in order to galvanize the soldiers and to direct the operations. Some among them have been here since last October. I asked, ‘How many battles have you fought in?’ And they responded, ‘None’. Others have been here at Quelimane and Mocuba since January to train the soldiers and lead them into battle. And I asked them, ‘How many battles have you fought in?’ And they responded, ‘Not a single one!’ But these soldiers were a captain and a lieutenant of the Mozambique Defence Armed Forces, of the People’s Armed Forces of Mozambique. We demoted them. They are here just softening up our soldiers, illegally occupying homes, getting paid and fed by the army just to be vagabonds, becoming gluttonous and lazy. They are here. I sent them to comrade Mário Machungo.62 He’s going to assign them some tasks in the production lines. They’ll earn their salaries over there, not here in the army. Here, our profession is combat.63

This presidential ‘offensive’ also affected the local police, deemed to be equally corrupt and ineffective. Samora Machel came after the régulos as well who, according to him, were responsible for enlisting the population for Renamo and he gave them an ultimatum: Here in Zambezia certain régulos are recruiting the population into the ranks of the armed bandits. These régulos will therefore be killed. I’m calling upon all these régulos to come back, along with the population, because we are about to trigger a vast offensive in Zambezia. We have the Zambezian people’s support.64

It is true that the military situation temporarily improved in some areas, such as the reopening up to traffic of certain vital roads for the local economy, allowing for example the resumption of tea exports in Gurué.65 In an attempt to improve the economic situation, Samora Machel named a new governor for Zambezia, the Maputo-born economist Mário Machungo. However, the situation continued to deteriorate. Machungo was replaced in 1986 by Feliciano Gundana, born in Sofala, a veteran of the anti-colonial fight. During this time, Renamo controlled vast regions of Zambezia. The power of Renamo was also explained by the weaknesses of Frelimo. In reality, its soldiers faced all different types of logistical and material difficulties such as a lack of food, uniforms, boots, vehicles, etc., as the following report suggested in 1983: The situation in the province of Zambezia is not good at all. The enemy is able to cross the entire province because we are too weak to respond. This weakness comes   Ibid.   Governor of Zambezia at the time. 63   ‘Zambézia. Ofensiva militar e económica’, Tempo (Maputo), 671, 21 August 1983. 64   Ibid. 65   ‘Mozambique: Politicising the ranks?’, Africa Confidential, 25, 4 (1984). 61

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from the reduced number of troops in the province … our army often arrives too late to places attacked by the enemy because of a lack of transportation, even if the enemy stays in these same areas over a prolonged period. We lack uniforms, boots and shoes. The soldiers are in tatters and [move] barefoot.66

‘Liberated’ Zambezia At that time, according to President Joaquim Chissano, Renamo’s stated goal was the division of Mozambique in two along the Zambezi Valley, ensuring its access to the sea by permanently occupying Zambezia province.67 Indeed, groups of Renamo coming from Malawi entered into Zambezia via the region of Milange, occupying nearly all the administrative centres of the districts in this province. During an attack on the administrative centre in the district of Gilé in February 1986, the local administrator, José Albino, was killed.68 This district was occupied in October of the same year, the new administrator having fled to Pebane. Following the example of Frelimo in their anti-colonial fight, Renamo acquired support from the traditional chiefs and the Mujibas or Mujuba,69 creating an administrative system in the regions that it had conquered (even if they did not achieve the same level as Frelimo). More than in other regions, it was in Zambezia that the ‘liberated zones’ of Renamo acquired a notable importance.70 In the region of Milange, Renamo had certain social programmes in place, but it was in Derre and Morrumbala (occupied for the first time in 1982 and again from 1986 to 1990) that they established an even more substantial administrative centre.71 Zambezia also became the granary of Renamo. The food grown there fed the soldiers during their movements in the provinces of Manica and Sofala.72 Towards the end of 1986, the number of people suffering from food shortages was said to amount to around 1.5 million (more than half of the entire population of Zambezia, recorded as 2,418,851 inhabitants in the 1980 census). The rural populations took refuge in Malawi (around 200,000 people, including inhabitants from Tete) while others moved towards the capital Quelimane (around 70,000).73 In this city, the refugees slept in garages, 66   AGZ: Ministério da Defesa Nacional, Sintese do Encontro orientado pela sua excelência Major General e comandante militar provincial da Zambézia, Quelimane, 27 January 1983. 67   ‘Guerra que nos movem é para destruir o povo. Presidente Joaquim Chissano na abertura da AP (2ª sessão da Assembleia Popular)’, Tempo (Maputo), 887, 11 June 1987; J. Hanlon. Mozambique. Who Calls the Shots? (London: James Currey, 1986), p. 33; A. Vines, Still Killing: Landmines in Southern Africa (London: Human Rights Watch), 1997. 68   AGZ: Governo da Provincia da Zambézia, Direcção Provincial de Apoio e controlo, Sintese do relatório do distrito de Gilé referente ao mês de Fevereiro de 1986, Quelimane 30 May 1986. 69   The young armed militiamen at the service of the régulos, partisans of Renamo. They did not make up part of the guerrilla units. 70   See M. Cahen, Les Bandits. Un historien au Mozambique (Paris: Centre Culturel Calouste Gulbenkian, 2002); Margaret Hall & Tom Young, Confronting Leviathan Mozambique since Independence (London: Hurst & Co., 1997), pp. 184–85. 71   M. Hall & T. Young, Confronting Leviathan…, op. cit., p. 184. 72   Ibid. 73   ‘Agression sud-africaine contre la Zambezia et Tete’, Bulletin d’information de l’AIM (Maputo), 125, AIM, December 1986.

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on balconies and in the few refugee shelters constructed on the outskirts of the city. Land-based communications between the capital and the districts were completely paralysed because of insecurity. The only remaining means of transport were airplanes or boats, with the roads cut by mines, giant potholes, or fallen trees.74 Renamo continued to target socio-economic infrastructures, completely ruining Zambezia’s modern economy. Within only the period from September to December 1986, the sugar factory of Luabo, the tea factory of Milange and the tantalite mines of Ile were all run into the ground.75 During the local elections (People’s Assemblies) held between August and December 1986 in the district of Namarroi, the head of the local Frelimo brigade, Pedro Zeca, was killed. In the districts of Morrumbala, Gilé and Mopeia, organizing elections was not even possible because of the war. In Milange, only two People’s Assemblies were elected, one in the administrative centre and the other in a locality in the same district. There, the provincial elections brigade was attacked and forced to take refuge in the neighbouring province of Nampula. Similarly, in the district of Lugela, the provincial brigade was unable to work because of insecurity.76 In this district, only one People’s Assembly was elected, that of Alto-Lugela.77 Zambezia was the province with the highest number of people adversely affected by the war out of all of the provinces of Mozambique as shown in Table 1.1.

The recovery of Zambezia To confront this situation, Frelimo organized and trained elements of the population to fight against Renamo with rudimentary weapons such as sticks, spears, bows and arrows, etc. It is said that 10,000 ‘volunteers’ were trained throughout the province.78 In the district of Maganja da Costa for example, a veteran commander of the anti-colonial war, a certain ‘Manhoso’, was credited with directing a small group of 300 men armed only with these basic weapons and taking back certain populations held by Renamo.79 In Ile, Mário Elimue was also at the head of another group that fought against the movement of Afonso Dhlakama. Finally, in Namarroi there was talk of violent fighting between these ‘vigilante groups’ and the rebels.80 To turn the situation in their favour, the government assembled an advanced command post in Quelimane, directed by General Henriques Lagos Lidimo in coordination with Tanzanian and Zimbabwean troops. These particular Frelimo troops were the best Soviet-trained soldiers (the ‘red berets’ or commandos). The Zimbabwean troops were principally responsible for   Ibid.  M. Cahen, La Révolution implosée (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1987), p. 19.; ‘Zambézia: Malawi e bandidos de mãos dadas no saque’, Tempo (Maputo) 843 (7 December 1986). 76   AGZ: Gabinete Provincial de Organização de Eleições, Relatório da comissão provincial de Eleições à primeira sessão da Assembleia provincial (Quelimane), 13 December 1986. 77   AGZ: Administração de Lugela, Relatório (Lugela), 2 July 1987. 78   ‘La population de Zambezia organise la lutte’, Bulletin d’information de l’AIM (Maputo) 125 (December 1986). 79   Ibid. 80   Ibid. 74

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Table 1.1  Population and numbers of victims of war and/or famine by province at the end of 1986

Provinces

Number of inhabitants

MaputoProvince

535,762

Most affected districts

Number of victims

Magude, Moamba, Matutuine

270,871

Gaza

1,119,614

Chicualacuala, north of Chibuto, Guijá, Massingir

332,892

Inhambane

1,147,195

Funhaloro, Mabote, interior of Morrumbene, Panda, Tome

430,000

Sofala

1,225,838

Caia, Chemba, Cheringoma and Maringué

571,209

Manica

737,706

Barué, Guro, Machaze (the most affected) and Tambarra

Tete

956,451

Mutarara

458,000

Chinde, Inhassunge, Maganja da Costa, Milange, Morrumbala, Nicoadala, Pebane

847,000

130,000

Zambezia

2,877,438

Nampula

2,765,943

Erati, Memba, Mongicual, Monapo, Muecate, Nacala-aVelha, Nacaroa

Cabo Delgado

1,081,794

Montepuez

Niassa

592,045

Cuamba

94,810

4,097 430,000

Source: M. Cahen, La Révolution implosée, Paris: L’Harmattan, 1987, p. 22

securing the provinces of Tete, Sofala and Manica (the so-called Beira corridor that gave access to the sea to the Zimbabwean economy) though they would also participate in the battles for the recuperation of Zambezia where the Tanzanian soldiers were based (3,000 men). Frelimo also received assistance from the British in training its soldiers. The British-trained soldiers would go on to take the very important city of Gurué in November 1986.81 In the first part of 1987, the situation began to slightly improve for the government. It had avoided both the taking of Quelimane and the dividing up of the country along the Zambezi Valley. Convoys filled with supplies and medicine for the population left Quelimane towards the regions that had been previously inaccessible.82 Despite this development, the military situ  Karl Maier, ‘The Battle for Zambezia’, Africa Report (New York, African American Institute), March–April, 1989, pp. 13-15. 82  ‘Amélioration de la situation en Zambezia’, Bulletin d’information de l’AIM (Maputo) 127 (February 1987). 81

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ation remained precarious. For example, on 12 February Renamo attacked the district of Gurué and destroyed five tea factories, among other things.83 Besides, one needs to question the way Frelimo repelled the troops of Afonso Dhlakama. Indeed, in this process, numerous atrocities were committed by the Frelimo troops against the populace. Indiscipline, the raping of women, unsanctioned killings, physical beatings, stealing crops from the fields, and stealing the goods of the populations were all systematic and ever-present throughout Zambezia.84 In Pebane, the Mozambique Armed Forces (FAM) and the Naparama (to be discussed in detail below) were accomplices in the pillaging of the emergency supplies85 and of the populations.86 In Ile, the ‘terrible’ soldier Coloma Leopardo established a reign of terror.87 A ban on crossing into Malawi was established under the pretext that the population was going to get into contact with Renamo. Many Zambezians were killed for trying to enter or having entered Malawi. In Milange, a city attacked and occupied by Renamo in 1986, soldiers used some of the most heinous ways to make people come back and live in the city after Frelimo recaptured it on 2 June 1988. People suspected of being agents or collaborators of Renamo were tortured or even killed: Our troops went to round up the people who fled into the bush in order to get them to come back to their villages. If they refused, they were tied up and brought here. They also arrested the people suspected of having links to Renamo and brought them behind the tanks and tortured them in every which way possible. Here in Milange, Commander Funhamuendo was the ‘terrible’ one.88

Instructions were given by the provincial military commanders to eliminate anyone suspected of collaborating with Renamo. In these circumstances, it is not surprising to discover that soldiers committed some of the most abominable abuses, such as the cutting off of penises.89 Frelimo forced the elderly, the sick, and even children to fill in the ranks of the army.90 General Henriques Lagos Lidimo became a man both feared and hated by the Zambezians and even   ‘Massacre à Gurué’, Bulletin d’information de l’AIM (Maputo) 128 (March 1987).   AGZ: Administração do Distrito de Morrumbala, Informação de carácter confidencial, Morrumbala, 5 March 1991; Governo da Província da Zambézia, Síntese da visita de sua excelência Ministro da Agricultura ao Distrito, Nicoadala, 20 September 1993; Administração do Distrito da Maganja da Costa, Relatório de trabalho realizado em Mabala, Cabuir e Muolôa de 1 a 11 de Setembro de 1986, Maganja da Costa, 17 September 1986; Administração do Distrito de Gilé, Relatório da situação política, economica e social do distrito do Gilé referente ao mês de Abril de 1986, Gilé, 10 May 1986. 85   The emergency supplies were those offered by the international community to help the victims of the war and natural disasters. 86  AGZ: Administração do Distrito de Pebane, Sintese da reunião entre os Governos de Moma, provincia de Nampula e de Pebane, Pebane, 24 July 1991. 87   AGZ: Gabinete do Administrador do Distrito do Ile, Assunto: Mau comportamento praticado na maioria das nossas tropas estacionadas no Distrito do Ile, Informação 03/88, Ile, 6 December 1988. 88   Interview with the ‘elder’ Malua, Milange, December 2005. 89   AGZ: Administração do Distrito de Mopeia, Assunto: Informação, Mopeia, 6 November 1990. 90   AGZ: Governo da Província da Zambézia, SIC/B.3/88, Transcrição da nota 109/GADM/1988 de 4 de junho do Administrador de Morrumbala, Quelimane, 9 June 1988. 83

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among his own soldiers. He was known to shoot soldiers that had not carried out missions as planned – and the military tribunal overlooked his actions. In this province, between 1983 and October 1992, 875 elementary schools (EP191) out of 1,242 (making up 70 per cent), seven other primary schools (EP292) among the twenty-seven existing and twenty of the twenty-two potable water systems were destroyed during the war.93 Zambezia symbolized the decline of a country in a state of emergency with around one million of its residents having taken refuge in neighbouring countries by 1988.94 The residents of Zambezia wore tree bark for clothes, and severe cases of malnutrition and various diseases were prevalent. In Mopeia, Pebane, Chinde and Namarroi for example, in September of 1988, around fifteen to twenty people died daily, victims of famine and disease.95 In October of the same year, in Gilé around twenty to thirty people suffered the same fate.96 At the end of 1988, the military situation worsened once again, especially after the departure of the Tanzanian troops in December.97 On 13 and 14 May 1989, Renamo attacked the district of Pebane and was able to reach its administrative centre, destroying infrastructure along the way.98 In Mopeia, the administrative centre of the district was attacked on 27 June 1989 (after it having been taken back on 7 March 1987) and this time was occupied for nine days, before being once again recaptured by the government on 6 July 1989.99 In September 1989, the government of the district of Lugela affirmed that, after taking back the administrative centre on 2 December 1988, this same centre was victim of five other attacks. Because of the reigning insecurity, their activities were limited to a 10-km circular range.100 In Maganja da Costa in 1990, five of the nine localities were still in the hands of Renamo.101 In Alto-Molocué, only the administrative centre was up and working, among the ten existing offices in 1990.102 At the end of the war, in October 1992, Renamo controlled more than half of the province of Zambezia.103 Map 1.1 shows all the area occupied by Renamo, for at least a few days, at any one time during the war.   Elementary school with preparatory classes to enter the equivalent of Year 6 in the British school system. 92   Equivalent to years 6 and 7 in the British school system. 93  AGZ: Governo da Província da Zambézia, Seminário sobre o Desenvolvimento da Zambézia, Mocuba, June 1995. 94  ‘Emergência Moçambique. Zambézia a luz no fundo do tunel’, Tempo (Maputo), 935, 11 September 1988. 95   Ibid. 96   ‘Gilé: refazer a vida’, Tempo (Maputo) 978, 9 July 1989. 97   Maier, ‘The battle for Zambezia’, op. cit. 98   AGZ: Administração do Distrito de Pebane, Relatório das actividades desenvolvidas durante os meses de Abril/julho, Pebane, 1 August 1989. 99   AGZ: Administração do Distrito de Mopeia, Relatório das actividades realizadas no âmbito do Programa de emergência ao longo do ano de 1990, Mopeia, January 1991. 100   AGZ: Administração do Distrito de Lugela, Relatório, Lugela, 20 September 1989. 101   AGZ: Direcção Provincial da Indústria e Energia da Zambézia, Relatório da visita ao Distrito da Maganja da Costa, Quelimane, 12 June 1990. 102   AGZ: Administração do Distrito de Alto-Molocué, Relatório resumo da situação do distrito de Alto Molocué durante o 1° semestre de 1990, 20 July 1990. 103   Joseph Hanlon, Peace without Profit: How the IMF Blocks Rebuilding in Mozambique (Oxford: Heinemann, 1996), p. 20. 91

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Map 1.1  Zones occupied by Renamo in Zambezia at the end of the war (Source: United Nations Office for Humanitarian Assistance Co. [UNOHAC], December 1993; Design and creation: Valérie Alfaurt, LAM/CNRS 2016)

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The Naparama: The Population Reacts to the War The Naparama represent one of the last actors of the war in Zambezia. The word Naparama means ‘irresistible force’ in Macua104. According to the government of Alto-Molocué, a Zambezian district bordering with Nampula province, their first appearance in Zambezia is traced back to the beginning of 1990 in the region of Alto-Molocué.105 However, as mentioned by do Rosário (in Chapter 2 of this book), there is no consensus about their origins, with some claiming that they are from Moma or Murrupula, two districts of Nampula. Equally, there is no consensus about the year they emerged with some, like Jentzsch (Chapter 3), claiming that they emerged in 1988. The Naparama were composed of a force created by a faith healer named Manuel António who claimed to be sent by God to come and liberate the people from the actions of Renamo. He claimed to have spent six days in a grave after having contracted measles.106 The leader of the Naparama has many mythological stories connected to him: I met the Naparama. I don’t know where he came from, but people said he came from Nampula. At the time, there was a rumour saying that he was sent by Jesus Christ to end the war. He came and said: I am the Pharama, I’m not against anyone, I just want to end the war. He said: go find a machete to cut me up and the people went and found some and cut off his head, cut him into little pieces, buried him and set fire to him. After the fire subsided, he appeared alive on the other side and asked us again if we had any doubts about his powers. The other way to demonstrate his power was to try to kill him with heavy weapons like a bazooka. We shot at him, but the bullets left holes only in his shirt, but not him. Like this, the people saw that he truly was a powerful man. Then, he chose a man from this region and vaccinated him so that he could become chief. Lots of young men started to get vaccinated. I, too, wanted to be Pharama, because I was sick of the war, but my mom took me out of the line because I was so young, also because I’m from a Christian family and couldn’t be vaccinated. Recruitment was voluntary.107

The uniqueness of this group lies in the fact that it emerged from sectors of the society itself, tired of the war. This aspect is also pointed out in both do Rosário and Jentzsch (chapters 2 and 3 of this book). In the province of Zambezia, the Naparama were present in every district except Milange, Mopeia and Chinde.108 Even though Frelimo recognized the advantages that it could gain from the actions of the Naparama in the fight against Renamo, at the same time it feared the loss of their soldiers’ prestige in the eyes of the population. It also feared the infiltration of opportunists who, pretending to be Naparama, would sow panic in the population:   Alex Vines, Renamo: From Terrorism to Democracy in Mozambique (London: James Currey; York: University of York, Centre for Southern African Studies, 1996), p. 118. 105   AGZ: Administração do Distrito de Alto-Molocué, Relatório resumo da situação, op. cit. 106  Vines, Renamo, op. cit. 107   Interview with Bacalhau, Maputo, 10 November 2005. 108  AGZ: Governo da Província da Zambézia, Balanço das actividades do Governo durante o 1°trimestre de 1991, Quelimane, 30 July 1991. 104

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On the political aspect, there was a [strange] phenomenon that demands a profound analysis. Here we have the actions of a citizen who, claiming to be a medicine man, got [involved] with many citizens [and] in exchange of 1,500.00 mts [the equivalent today of 5 euro cents] administered [to the volunteers] a traditional vaccine called Pharama, which was believed to immunize them against the blows of blunt instruments and guns. This situation attracted many followers who then participated in the missions of liberating people as well as killing some of the bandits. Despite the fact that this is a commendable action, the possible danger of this is if the population would regard our own armed forces with contempt, declaring themselves the true liberators. The other danger is the risk of people moved by their own personal interests integrating themselves in the group in order to steal goods from the population.109

The action of the Naparama proved to be decisive in the war and helped the government contain the attacks of Renamo, hence allegedly ‘improving the security’ in Zambezia.

The use of the Naparama by Frelimo After some debates, the government army decided to co-opt the Naparama. This co-optation did not come about only to use them against Renamo, but rather to better control them, under the pressure of the population itself. In fact, the population did not understand the reasons why Frelimo did not support their actions, given that the Naparama had contributed so much to stop the attacks of Renamo and to bring back some security to the governmental zones, as the following district report from Alto-Molocué illustrates: In a meeting organized by the governor of the province, a part of the population said that before the arrival of the medicine man [Manuel António] in the administrative centre of the district, the populations fled their houses to sleep in the bush in order to avoid being surprised by the enemy, and that after two months of the presence of the said medicine man, they were already back to sleeping in their houses [and this part of the population] was surprised to hear that the said Pharama didn’t have the support of the party nor the government.110

The co-optation of the Naparama by Frelimo was therefore organized not only for politico-military reasons, but also under pressure of a segment of the population that saw in these medicine men their own well-being. The result of this alliance was rapidly visible. In September 1990, the administration of the district of Alto-Molocué congratulated the actions of the Naparama collaborating with Frelimo’s soldiers. According to Frelimo, thanks to the medicine men of Manuel António, many ‘bandits’ and their collaborators, notably certain very influential régulos, turned themselves in along with their weapons. The military situation in various regions such as Mutala,   AGZ: Administração do Distrito de Alto-Molocué, Relatório resumo da situação, op. cit.   AGZ: Governo da Província da Zambézia, Sintese da visita de trabalho efectuada por sua excelência o Governador da Província ao Distrito de Alto-Molocué e Localidade de Mugalama-Ile, Quelimane, July 1990.

109 110

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Chapala and the administrative station of Nauela, once in the crosshairs of the enemy, were now described as experiencing serious improvements.111

Renamo’s response to the Naparama If, for a time, it appeared that Renamo was losing control of the situation in Zambezia, their response was eventually quite effective. It created its own force with the same characteristics as the Naparama in order to counteract the latter’s actions. They named this force Mulelepeia – recruiting in it some former Naparama who had returned to their homelands.112 After a tense time period, Renamo’s counter-offensive began. In Zambezia, Renamo employed this new force for the first time in Nauela, in the district of Alto-Molocué in March 1991: During the month under investigation [March 1991], we have identified the increase in criminal acts in this zone. These criminal acts perpetrated by the armed bandits have taken on new forms, because the bandits have created a terrible group of assassins who, under the influence of a drug [magic] and armed with blunt instruments, copying the actions of the ‘Pharma’ group of Manuel António, are creating protective circles around the populations in their captivity in order to prohibit contact between our forces and the populations.113

This Renamo force gained many members from the local populations, either because they were pro-Renamo or because the Naparama had begun to lose the praise of the locals after some barbaric actions. Indeed, starting in 1991, various acts of vandalism committed by the healers of Manuel António were documented, notably the theft of goods destined for emergency relief as well as personal goods of the population, the burning of huts and granaries, and the raping of women.114 Once liberators, the Naparama had become oppressors. At the same time, Renamo had begun a campaign of reconciliation with the population, cutting back on its own violence. This also helps explain the support which the Mulelepeia, Renamo’s response to the Naparama, gained. For example, the administration of Alto-Molocué mentioned that in the administrative post of Nauela, in Renamo-controlled territory,115 the group had created new political estruturas and the populations who had previously fled 111   AGZ: Administração do Distrito de Alto Molocué, Relatório mensal referente ao mês de Setembro, Alto Molocué, 8 October 1990. 112   Apart from the Mulelepeia, it seems that Renamo also vaccinated some of its regular combatants at the same time, those of the famous Grupo Limpa to counter Naparama actions and reconquer Zambezia. For more details see Africa Confidential, ‘Mozambique: Renamo under pressure’, 32 (18), September 1991; and do Rosário (chapter 2 in this book). 113   AGZ: Administração do Distrito do Alto-Molocué, Relatorio mensal, Alto Molocué, 31 March 1991. 114   AGZ: Governo da Provincia da Zambézia, Balanço das actividades do Governo, op. cit.; Administração do distrito de Alto-Molocué, Relatório mensal referente ao mês de Outubro, Alto-Molocué, 31 October 1990. 115   The administration of Alto-Molocué considered the administrative post of Nauela as the ‘logistical centre’ of Renamo. It is located in one of the most fertile regions of Zambezia. It was in this region that the Unidade de Produção de Nauela-Lioma was created, responsible for the production of corn, beans, sunflowers, etc.

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upon their arrival were now coming back voluntarily. Frelimo’s local leaders explained this situation by the fact that Renamo had drastically reduced its mistreatment of the people who were now victims of the Naparama.116 In this new context, dozens of people began to voluntarily ‘vaccinate’ themselves to integrate into the new Renamo group. In a very short period of time, the situation became once again very dangerous for Frelimo.117 Frelimo found itself in a dilemma because, as we have seen, on one hand the Naparama contributed extensively to ‘re-establishing security’ in Zambezia, but on the other hand, they were now accused of abusing the population. More than once, Frelimo thought about ridding itself of this group or simply ignoring it. Yet, whenever the situation became strenuous, it was obligated to call upon its services like in the case of Nauela when the Mulelepeia began to gain the upper hand: There are cases where elements of the said force [Naparama], when they come across the population returning to their fields … would rip their possessions from them, be it their clothes, spades or others. They also steal other things, under the pretext that they liberated the population but never received government benefits for it … It’s important to say that [it is] the leaders of our commandos [who] recognize that the situation in Nauela is very serious. They are again calling upon the Pharamados of Alto Ligonha [Gilé] and their medicine man given that, from our point of view, it’s the only way to stymie the situation at the moment.118

Manuel António was eventually killed during a battle with Renamo on 5 December 1991 in Macuse, in the district of Namacurra, and his body was later brought to Quelimane.119 Years later, in November 2000, the Naparama were mentioned again in relation to demonstrations organized by Renamo (who contested the electoral results of 1999) in the district of Montepuez in Cabo Delgado, very far from their original territory. They were accused of infiltrating the demonstrations carried out in the district as well as taking part in the assassination (through their sorcery) of more than eighty supporters of Renamo in a local prison after they had been arrested by the police.120 However, the accusations disseminated by the press close to the Maputo regime had other motives. They looked to delegitimize the Naparama and shield the government from responsibility of this tragic affair because, as it is public domain, the prisoners killed in Montepuez were sympathizers, or members, of Renamo who were detained by security forces during a demonstration against the electoral results of 1999, placed in inhumane conditions, and ultimately died from asphyxiation.   AGZ: Administração do distrito de Alto-Molocué, Relatório mensal referente, op. cit.   AGZ: Administração do Distrito de Alto-Molocué, Relatório mensal referente, op. cit.   Ibid. 119   ‘Barama leader killed’, Mozambiquefile (Maputo) 186, January 1992. ‘Barama’ is one of the spellings for the (Na)parama or Napharama. 120   ‘Governo criticado pelo seu papel no dia 9 de Novembro’, NotMoc 44 (20 November 2000, www.mol.co.mz/notmoc/00120po.html; ‘Montepuez: Reclusos ‘dizimados’ na esquadra’, NotMoc 45 (27 November 2000), www.Mol.co.mz/notmoc/001127po.html. 116

117

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The Naparama reappeared once again in 2011 in Zambezia, when they were involved in demonstrations and menaced the public order after the government excluded them from the new status of ‘former combatants’ of the civil war, recognizing instead only the soldiers of Renamo and their own. The government argued that the Naparama had participated in the war voluntarily and spontaneously just like other Mozambicans had, not making up any formal structure.121 The government never backed down and the threats to public order were never carried out. It should be said that the militiamen who fought alongside the government had also been excluded on the pretext that they were already receiving aid from the State.122 As has been mentioned, the Naparama and the Mulelepeia represent the last piece of the puzzle to this fratricidal post-independence war. Like the other forces, they were demobilized under the framework of the 1992 peace accords. Even though the Naparama were present in the province of Nampula as well, their origins go back to the district of Alto-Molocué in Zambezia and most likely to the administrative station of Nauela.123 Their actions became well known in this province, to the point of becoming a marker of Zambezia. The phenomenon was so widespread that, once again, the people of Zambezia were perceived as being ‘abnormal’. In 1991, the Catholic bishop of the diocese of Nampula, Dom Manuel Vieira Pinto, declared that the Naparama of Nampula were more ‘docile’ and ‘humane’ than those of Zambezia and that, if certain Naparama from Nampula committed violent acts against the populace, it was because of the bad influences of their Zambezian ‘brothers’.124 In his view, the origins of the Naparama were the ‘savage’ Lomwe with their social base being essentially the rural population, far from the Creole 121  ‘“Naparamas” pressionam governo com manifestação: Exclusão do Estatuto dos Combatentes’, O País (25 April 2011), http://opais.sapo.mz/index.php/politica/63-politica/13699--naparamas-pressionam-governo-com-manifestacao.html. 122   ‘É justo que haja diferenças entre os dois grupos de combatentes’, O País, 19 April 2011, http://opais.sapo.mz/index.php/component/content/article/63-politica/13605-e-justo-que-haja-diferencas-entre-os-dois-grupos-de-combatentes.html. The ‘Statute of Combatants’ separates the fighters into two groups: those of the ‘National Liberation’ or the anti-colonial war (25 June 1962, date of the creation of Frelimo, to 7 September 1974, date of the Lusaka Accord recognizing the self-determination and independence of Mozambique), and the ‘Combatants for the Defence of Sovereignty and Democracy’ (from 7 September 1974 to the peace accords of 4 October 1992). It is on this basis that the government granted different benefits (pensions, bonuses, judicial and medical assistance, fiscal exonerations, and reduced tariffs for public transportation) to former combatants. It must be mentioned that this new statute was approved only with the votes of Frelimo and the Democratic Movement of Mozambique (MDM). Renamo was against the vote, considering it discriminatory and unjust by mostly benefiting the combatants of the anti-colonial war (Frelimo’s fighters) and excluding other groups and individuals who had fought during the ‘civil war’. It would be interesting to look into the records of how many former Renamo fighters have actually received some sort of compensation outside of this statute. 123   AGZ: Administração do Distrito de Alto-Molocué, Relatório resumo da situação do distrito de Alto Molocué durante o 1° semestre de 1990, 20 July 1990. Without specifying the exact location, I. Lundin claims that the Naparama were natives of Upper Zambezia. See I. Lundin, ‘Partidos políticos: A leitura da vertente étnico-regional no processo democrático’, in Eleições, democracia e desenvolvimento, ed. B. Mazula (Maputo: Embaixada do Reino dos Países Baixos, 1995), p. 462. 124   AGZ: A. Safrão, Administração da Ilha de Moçambique, Relatório, Ilha de Moçambique, 1991, in Arquivo do Governo de Nampula (AGN).

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zone 125. Whether or not there was an instigation or manipulation on the part of the SNASP, that does not take away from the fact that the ‘phenomenon’ worked and we can consider without a doubt that the action of the Naparama in its first moments were a reaction of subalternized groups, a type of popular modes of political action, even if they were quickly instrumentalized by Frelimo. The Mulelepeia were also formed in Zambezia and, according to the administration of the district of Alto-Molocué, the group was established in the region of Mugema in the administrative station of Nauela. That is to say, both groups were formed in the same district.126 Yet, different from the Naparama, the Mulelepeia were a pure creation of Renamo in its strategy to counteract the Naparama. The important part remains that, in a similar manner, it was the magical component of their fighting that remained the active factor. Regardless of the manipulations, in each case, it ‘worked’. The emergence of Naparama was also the beginning of one of the most tumultuous moments of post-independence Mozambique between the ‘comrades’ of Frelimo and the Zambezians, notably regarding the assimilados (‘assimilated’ according to the colonial terminology).127 This group, supporters of a certain kind of decolonization not through independence but rather by complete integration to a democratic Portugal, thus transforming Mozambique (or Zambezia) into an overseas region of Portugal, was accused of treason by the Frelimo party who saw their movement as incarnating a separatist anti-colonial ideology. The assimilados were criticized for putting Frelimo in a difficult position during the battles of Zambezia by joining the Portuguese side, for being elitists and racists, as well as for being contemptuous of the leaders and fighters of the ‘popular revolution’. Nevertheless, it is an historical fact that an early colonization of the region, coupled with some very specific characteristics (such as the system of prazos,128 the presence of large capitalistic companies, and an early evangelization) had left a deep mark, which made it even harder for Frelimo to deal with this particular historical past. According to the leadership of Frelimo, ‘numerous ideologies in line with the prazeiros still exist in Zambezia.’129 Concerning the term prazeiros, one should include, according to the official terminology of Frelimo, colonizers, exploiters, 125   The term ‘Creole’ is used here to designate individuals regardless of their skin colour, supposedly deprived of their African living style, living in the European way, in urban areas and speaking Portuguese. It is also a socio-cultural category not directly related to the use of a Creole language. 126   AGZ: Administração do Distrito de Alto-Molocué, Relatório mensal referente, op. cit. 127   In Portuguese colonial law, assimilation was the official recognition of the entry of a black individual into the Lusitanian community. According to this colonial right, there were three main categories of Mozambicans: Black assimilated, mixed or ‘native’. ‘Natives’, to become assimilated, had to be able to read, write and speak Portuguese, to ‘work’ or to own property, and to have abandoned the habits and customs of their ‘race’. Thus assimilated, they became legally synonymous with ‘White’ and, officially, had the same rights as the latter. Those assimilated enjoyed some privileges over ‘natives’, such as freedom of association. 128   Land concessions during three generations for capitãos-mores (i.e. general-captains, often nobles and navy captains) of the Portuguese crown with an obligation for the heritage to run through matrilineal succession of white females. 129   ‘Educação e Cultura. Desencadeada na Zambézia ofensiva política nas escolas: Trinta estabelecimentos criados em 1978’, Notícias (Maputo) 17720, 10 October 1978.

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and the citizens of Portugal. Frelimo justified its actions against the assimilados as an anti-elitist and anti-racial struggle, which provoked their massive exodus to Portugal (even if a considerable number of them left the country immediately after the Lusaka Accord of 7 September 1974, which pushed for the independence of Mozambique but also marginalized vast segments of the country’s population). Even more, according to Frelimo, the evangelization of the Catholic Church in Zambezia had been practised differently than in other regions of Mozambique. These attitudes had created strong pro-colonizer sentiments among the people of Zambezia. It is for this reason that Frelimo encountered so many political problems in the education sector, because the Catholic Church had trained all of the Zambezian administrators, including the professors. It was thus necessary to establish a ‘political offensive’ within this sector in order to improve its ability to function properly. The State newspaper noted in 1978 that ‘[o]ur professors essentially came from missionary schools. They were trained by the priests. Some of them could be considered as the ideological brethren of the priests.’130 The enmity and ostracism towards the Zambezian assimilados led to the marginalization of the Zambezian society as a whole. Indeed, these actions towards Zambezia were part of a larger policy that targeted any group that was socially different from those of Frelimo’s sphere as such differences were considered dangerous to the party. However, from the days of its arrival in Zambezia, Frelimo was confronted with an economic and social crisis. Business and capitalistic companies began to go bankrupt, leaving thousands of workers unemployed. At the same time, Frelimo began employing authoritarian means to establish their policy of ‘socializing the countryside’, symbolized by the communal villages, collective fields and cooperatives. All of these actions were in line with their goal of building a ‘modern’ society, which was a strongly detested policy in Zambezia. The scorn and hostility towards Zambezia, linked to its social and economic crisis, led to the biggest social protest in the history of independent Mozambique, arising in 1979: the leaders of Frelimo, in collaboration with other foreign individuals, were accused of orchestrating attacks on Zambezians through the use of vampires, such as the chupa-sangue, as we saw above. In short, there was a great unease after independence within the population of Zambezia confronted with Frelimo’s authoritarian modernization policy without any visible social progress. As a result, beginning in 1976, the government was faced with a serious military challenge, as we saw, with the emergence of PRM and later with the arrival of Renamo who received serious popular support. From 1976 to 1992, Zambezia was transformed into scorched earth and came out of the war on the verge of collapse with its local economy completely devastated. The succession of events created mistrust and a feeling of persecution among Zambezians, in particular those considered to be assimilados for their supposed role of supporting Portugal and later supporting the rebellion against the Maputo regime. In   Ibid.

130

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the big picture, no segments of Zambezian society avoided the accusations levelled by Frelimo.

Conclusion This chapter aimed to show, among other things, that the Mozambican Civil War did not begin with Renamo. Before this movement, there was the presence of the PRM, a group that created some disruptions and was often confused with Renamo, as many scholarly articles demonstrate. It has shown the reasons that explain the popularity of these movements within the population of Zambezia. This was derived from the scorn and the hostility Frelimo demonstrated towards the Zambezian society, which in turn led to a nearly unified discontentment of the population, despite the fact that it was made up of a highly diverse range of social ranks and identities. Frelimo employed a discourse focusing on ‘anti-capitalism’ and ‘anti-feudalism’. Yet beyond the fact that assimilating African society to a system of ‘feudalism’ was a catastrophic imitation of an approximate Eurocentric Marxism,131 Frelimo’s policies were imbedded with a general hostility towards almost all of the African social groups, seen either as ‘enemies’ or as irrelevant and in need of ‘organization’. This general policy, which disrupted the entire society, explains the conflicts that arose between Frelimo and the local populations. The people did not reject modernity itself, but rather a particular model pushed by a State that was felt to be foreign, socially strange, and overall, heavily authoritarian. It was the challenging of this policy that was at the origin of the silencing of the elites of the assimilados in Quelimane, of the popular phenomenon of chupa-sangue, of the initial support of vast sectors of peasants for the PRM and later for Renamo. Concerning the question of the Zambezian support for anti-Frelimo movements, one needs to consider the negative effects caused by the abusive actions committed by the governmental army, the militias and different Frelimo ‘structures’, especially during the civil war. The Zambezian support for the PRM and Renamo was not bothered by the fact that these movements were trans-ethnic. Instead, the military dynamics enticed the different groups into a situation of mutual interest. In other words, they all shared a common enemy in Frelimo. 131   Marx constructed a model of three major stages of production: slavery-based (Antiquity), feudal (Middle Ages) and capitalist (modern age). For the rest of the world, he worked on the concept of the ‘Asian mode of production’ which, as simplistic and debatable as it was, demonstrated that the famous stage where feudalism preceded capitalism was not for him a universal model. But Frelimo did not think so (M. Cahen, personal communication, March 2007).

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2

War to Enforce a Political Project? Renamo in Nampula Province, 1983–1992*

Domingos Manuel do Rosário

The post-colonial war in Mozambique, which lasted two decades, holds a central place in national, regional and international history. Many academic works have associated the war with external factors,1 thus reducing the guerrilla to a proxy force,2 to marionettes of destabilization,3 and a movement without any social base or political project,4 fighting a non-ideological war,5 if not just being ‘a cult of violence’.6 Thus Renamo has eventually come to be perceived internationally as an incarnation of evil, ‘the Khmer Rouge of Africa’, and it has been labelled as a terrorist organization because it was ‘waging a war of terror against innocent Mozambican civilians through forced labour, starvation, physical abuse and wanton killing’.7 Such interpretation of the nature of Renamo has seriously limited our understanding of the nature and dynamics of the Mozambican armed conflict. It is the anthropological work of Geffray and Pedersen8 that prompted a paradigm shift, away from explanations focused on external factors to those focusing on internal factors.9 Scholars who followed on from their investiga  I wish to thank Corinna Jentzsch, Eric Morier-Genoud and Brad Safarik for editing my translation of the text from Portuguese. 1   William Minter, Apartheid’s contras: An Inquiry into the Roots of War in Mozambique and Angola (London: Zed Books, 1994); Anders Nilson, ‘From pseudo-terrorists to pseudo-guerrillas: The MNR in Mozambique’, Review of African Political Economy, 58 (1993), pp.35–42; Georgi Derluguian, ‘Les têtes du monstre: du climat social de la violence armée au Mozambique’, L’année africaine 1989 (1990), 89–128; Alex Vines, Renamo: From Terrorism to Democracy in Mozambique? (London: James Currey, 1996); Margaret Hall & Tom Young, Confronting Leviathan: Mozambique since Independence (London: Hurst, 1997). 2   Allen & Barbara Isaacman, ‘South Africa’s Hidden War’, Africa Report, 27 (1982), 4–8. 3   Paul Fauvet & Alves Gomes, ‘South Africa’s marionettes of destabilisation’, Ufahamu: A Journal of African Studies, 12 (1982), 8–18. 4   Paul Fauvet, ‘Roots of counter-revolution: The Mozambican national resistance’, Review of African Political Economy, 11 (1984), 108–21; Gulamo Taju, ‘Renamo: os factos que conhecemos’, Cadernos de História, 7 (1988), 5–44. 5   Mary Kaldor, New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999). 6   Ken B. Wilson, ‘Cults of violence and counter-violence in Mozambique’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 3 (1992), 572–82. 7   Stephen A. Emerson, The Battle for Mozambique: The Frelimo–Renamo Struggle, 1977–1992 (Solihull, UK: Helion & Co., 2014), p. 171. 8   Christian Geffray & Mogen Pedersen, ‘Nampula en guerre’, Politique africaine 29 (1998), pp. 28–49; C. Geffray, La cause des armes au Mozambique: Anthropologie d’une guerre civile (Paris, Karthala-CREDU, 1990). 9   Gervase Clarence-Smith, ‘The roots of the Mozambique counter-revolution’, Southern African Review of Book, II/4 (1989), 8–23. *

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tions revealed resistance by large sectors of society to the modernizing projects of the Socialist Frelimo regime.10 The dynamics of the war in Nampula province have been analysed by Alice Dinerman in 2006.11 In her book, Dinerman uncovers many dynamics noted by previous authors. However, she continues to argue that the war remained a destabilization campaign from start to finish, not only because using Renamo was Pretoria’s main strategy to discipline Frelimo and force it to make the policy changes favourable to the apartheid state, but also because Renamo set about building up the political and administrative wings it had because South Africa’s agenda remained unchanged and the rebel leadership never seriously entertained the belief that it could challenge Frelimo’s historical place in contemporary Mozambique.12 In the year 2000, Graham Harrison offered a more nuanced view. He advanced the interpretation that the war and the method used by the authorities to extract resources from the residents13 directly and indirectly exacerbated the material crisis in Nampula society and helped Renamo evolve from a small, externally created, rebel group, into a large guerrilla army that eventually controlled entire regions of the country.14 My argument follows a similar line. In the coming pages, I make use of evidence from semi-structured interviews with former governors, district administrators, and military commanders of FAM (Armed Forces of Mozambique) and Renamo combatants as well as archival research (all sorts of reports and official correspondence between the provincial government and district administrations15) between 1983 and 1992, to show that (i) the selected violence applied by Renamo in some areas and on some segments of the Nampula rural population allowed the guerrilla to penetrate into the society; (ii) the excessive violence practised by the Frelimo state against the population accused of collaborating with the ‘armed bandits’ exacerbated the distrust of the people and allowed Renamo to consolidate its social support in these regions. I also extended Geffray’s analyses of the war and Renamo’s construction of their social base,16 showing that intensification of the war in some regions of Nampula province at the expense of others, as well as the escalation of the war in precise phases with clear objectives, shows that Renamo had a political project. This consisted of conquering populations, securing its social reproduction and, in the later phases of the war, securing a place in the electoral political landscape of Mozambique’s forthcoming democracy.17   Geffray & Pedersen, ‘Nampula en guerre’, 35.   Alice Dinerman, Revolution, Counter-Revolution and Revisionism in Post-Colonial Africa: The Case of Mozambique, 1975–1994 (London and New York: Routledge, 2006). 12   Ibid., p. 31. 13   Graham Harrison, The Politics of Democratization in Rural Mozambique: Grassroots Governance in Mecufi (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2000). 14   Ibid., p. 61. 15   The information in the archive is biased in favour of the government; I have tried to compensate this with a critical reading of the documents as well as with oral interviews of Renamo. 16  Geffray, La cause des armes. 17   ‘Mozambique: Renamo under Pressure’, Africa Confidential, 32, 18 (1991), p. 5. 10

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In the Northern Heart of the Civil War

This chapter focuses on the local dynamics of the civil war in Nampula province. It tries to understand the fundamental dynamics of the war, focusing on the guerrilla, the state and society. It is organized in four parts. The first presents and discusses the beginning of the war in Nampula province and its under-evaluation by the central Frelimo authorities. The second part describes the different phases of the war and shows how Renamo used violence to conquer the local population and build its support base. I also analyse the reaction of the government army in defence of the state’s power. The third part discusses the emergence of a new actor in the Mozambican Civil War and how this actor was instrumentalized by Frelimo to fight Renamo. The final part explains the strategies designed and implemented by Renamo to fight this third force, the Naparama, allied to FAM, in order to retain its political legitimacy.

The Beginning of the War in Nampula Renamo arrived in the province of Nampula on 3 May 1983. The first armed contingent consisted of 100 to 200 men who entered Nacololo, locality of Iapala, Ribáuè district, from the district of Alto-Molocué in Zambezia province. In Nacololo, Renamo did not kill anyone, but burned about 100 homes in the communal villages of Rioeque and freed several residents from jail.18 From Iapala locality, Renamo intensified its actions, carrying out more attacks to the east and south-east of Iapala. Renamo aimed at reaching the coastal region to install a base near the coast, as it knew that the coastal communities felt a high level of hostility toward Frelimo.19 As a report of the Nampula provincial government stated in 1986: Since the month of September 1984 until the end of last year 1985 the coastal region witnessed frequent enemy attacks … with the aim of [its] fixation in the administrative post of Mecula (Moma). [Renamo] seeks to carry out military attacks from this base to use the district headquarters of Moma and Angoche … and the entire coastline of Larde (Moma) as a supply point … the administrative post of Chalaua serves as a cattle supply point.20

A year later Renamo was operating in well over half of the province’s districts and controlled virtually all of the main access routes into Nampula city.  Manuel Vieira Pinto, O Início da Guerra em Nampula: um ponto de vista da Conferência Episcopal-CEM, Nampula (1984), p. 5; Partido Frelimo, Reunião do Secretariado provincial do partido Frelimo, Ribáuè (1984), p. 2. 19   For more details, see António R. da Conceição, Entre o Mar e a Terra: Situações Identitárias do Norte de Moçambique (Maputo: Promédia, 2006); and Domingos M. Rosário, ‘Les Mairies des “autres”: Une analyse politique, socio-historique et culturelle des trajectoires locales – Les cas d’Angoche, de l’Île de Moçambique et de Nacala Porto’, PhD Thesis (Bordeaux, France: Université de Bordeaux, 2009). 20   Governo da Província de Nampula, Relatório das actividades do Governo provincial – 1988, 13 October 1989, Arquivo do Governo da Província de Nampula (AGPN-Nampula). 18

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During this process, Renamo targeted everyone and everything that represented the Frelimo party-state: dynamizing groups (grupos dinamizadores), district secretaries, local deputies, and all symbols of the state. The paradigm of ‘authoritarian modernization’, as Michel Cahen calls it, had not produced social benefits for much of the population. During this phase, Renamo’s strategy was, as Tom Young described it, ‘to start with sabotage to disrupt the population and disrupt the economy, which really comes under sabotage, to come back with decent recruits at that stage and hit any Frelimo bases they came across’.21 Renamo entered the district of Meconta in July 1983 via Nacavala locality and destroyed 37 of the 44 communal villages existing in the region.22 In February 1984, Renamo then attacked the district of Moma through the locality of Mavuco, in the administrative post of Chalaua.23 During this attack, Renamo’s platoon was directed by Manuel Carlos, a ‘“native” of the region’ who had been a farmer, trader, former deputy of the local council, and popular judge at the local court of Calipo. In Chalaua, Renamo destroyed 278 homes in the local communal village, stole some cashew nuts belonging to the communal village, and burned the remaining ten tons of cashews.24 At the beginning of May 1984, the administrative post of Lumbo (Ilha de Moçambique) and the localities of Natuba, Nacoza, Entete and Tocolo were attacked and looted.25 According to the government balance sheet report of Nampula for 1985, agricultural production collapsed due to the action of the ‘Renamo bandits’. The severe threat caused by ‘bandits’ brought about constant population movements and disrupted agricultural labour. During this period, 272 schools, 181 shops (120 consumer cooperatives and 61 people’s stores) were destroyed and fourteen hospital units completely paralysed.26 The chapels and mosques were the sole buildings standing unscathed after Renamo’s attacks. High levels of violence were seen against the civilians. During the first year of the war in Nampula, over a quarter of the province’s villages were razed. Renamo’s violence against certain communities in the Nampula rural areas aimed not only to eliminate all representatives or allies of the Frelimo state, but also to conquer the social base.

The perverse effects of Frelimo’s 1984 Political Bureau meeting In the month of June 1984, Frelimo convened a meeting of its Political Bureau in Nampula. This meeting took place with the exceptional participation of 21   Ken Flower, Rhodesia’s chief intelligence officer, quoted by Tom Young, ‘The MNR/Renamo: External and Internal Dynamics’, African Affairs, 89, (1990), 498. 22   Governo da Província de Nampula, Relatório conjunto partido/Estado apresentado na reunião com sua Excelência o governador de Nampula, 15 July 1983 (AGPN-Nampula). 23  Administração do Distrito de Moma, Relatório do Comando distrital operativo de Moma, 25 February 1984 (AGPN-Nampula). 24   Ibid. 25   Conselho Executivo da Cidade da Ilha de Moçambique, Documento apresentado por ocasião da visita de sua Excelência o governador da província, 25 May 1984 (AGPN-Nampula). 26   Governo da Província de Nampula, Síntese da reunião realizada no gabinete do Governador, 28 May 1985 (AGPN-Nampula); Julie Cliff & Abdul Razak Noormahomed, ‘Health as a target: South Africa’s destabilization of Mozambique’, Social Science and Medicine, 27 (1988), 717–22.

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Lieutenant-General Alberto Chipande (Defence Minister), General Sebastião Marcos Mabote (Chief of General Staff of Army) and the governors of Sofala (Marcelino dos Santos) and Zambezia (Mário da Graça Machungo). It was the first time in the history of independent Mozambique that such a meeting took place outside the capital (Maputo). According to Samora Machel (the first President of Mozambique), the purpose of this meeting was to discuss and solve the problem of ‘armed robbers’ operating in Nampula, the disorganization of the army, the rivalries between different branches of the army, the lack of strategy, and a proper division of tasks resulting from ambitions for power within the military hierarchy.27 At the popular rally that took place after the meeting on the 25 June at the stadium in Nampula to disseminate the results of the gathering, Samora Machel stated repeatedly that the reasons why security forces did not arrest ‘the armed robbers’ in Nampula was not only because of the conflicts within the army, but also the protection these men received from the local population: There are no ‘armed bandits’ in Nampula but ‘armed robbers’ who live in the houses of their uncles, their brothers-in-law, their friends and lovers … and you are the brides of armed robbers, parasites … The armed robbers here are organized by former sepoys, the ancient chiefs [régulos] and tribal chiefs … the armed robbers are organized by those who used to receive the crumbs of the colonial feast … some turned into armed bandits, but they are not [armed bandits] … they call themselves armed bandits … We came to Nampula to evaluate human potential, our military capacity and military equipment, we have … here police and soldiers and war veterans who know the strategy and how to win a war.28

The strong hostility of Frelimo’s leadership in relation to the Nampula people, accused of being reactionary, especially since they did not ‘collaborate’ with Frelimo during the anti-colonial struggle, resulted in the excessive use of state violence against the populations in this region. Two measures were taken by the President of the Republic after the Political Bureau meeting in Nampula: (i) the full implementation of the decisions taken at the IV Frelimo Congress (April, 1983), including the organization of the population into productive blocks29 so as to better control it;30 and (ii) the reorganization of the armed forces and the planning of a vast offensive against ‘armed robbers’.   ‘Nossas estruturas não devem servir de refúgio para incompetentes: Samora Machel à população de Nampula’, Tempo (Maputo, 1984), p. 23. 28   Ibid., p. 27 (author’s translation). ‘Sepoys’ (Portuguese cipaios) were African police at the service of colonial administration. 29   Productive blocks are a set of machambas (family farms) placed in an organized manner. (They had to comprise 20 family fields to match Frelimo’s political organization.) While consisting of individual machambas, the blocks were based on communal principles. According to Frelimo, the productive blocks allow the farmer to better understand and more easily perform the technical guidelines for agricultural production. It is through the productive blocks that the party leadership can better detect those farmers who can quickly learn the new techniques for the purpose of increasing production – Tempo (Maputo) (1979), p. 31. 30   Governo da Província de Nampula, Síntese da reunião realizada no gabinete do Governador, 30 June 1985 (AGPN-Nampula). 27

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Commanders, captains, sergeants and lieutenants were demoted and replaced by war veterans who had participated in the anti-colonial struggle, though never fought in Nampula as the anti-colonial struggle had never come to this province. With this organization the government wanted to re-take full control of the army in order to better combat the Nampula ‘armed robbers’. Despite these changes, the social and military situation did not improve in Nampula province. Renamo actually even managed to increase its military and civil numbers through both abduction and voluntary recruitment resulting from good local politics. In Murrupula district for example, Renamo enlisted the support of a powerful chief who joined Renamo with 25,000 people.31 According to official data, by 1987 Renamo’s military contingent in Nampula was made up of approximately 1,800 soldiers.32 This growth had been made thanks to precise material promises, the symbolic reactivation of traditional power and the opportunity given to the population to return to their previous way of living.33 Renamo offered former chiefs and their followers an ‘anti-Frelimo’ project and socialization environment. Because of the diversity of the population’s views, this project was based on ‘flexible’ ideological principles. In August 1987, Frelimo forces, along with their Tanzanian allies (who joined in the battle in 1985), undertook several large-scale operations to destroy Renamo military bases and secure the main lines of transport and communication across northern Mozambique, including the Nacala corridor. This had limited success and, in the beginning of 1988, Renamo installed its central base in Namavura (Lunga) near the Namavura River in the administrative post of Lunga, Mossuril district. The Renamo provincial troops were then under the command of General Calisto Meque, a hardened veteran fighter from Morrumbala, in Zambezia province, who had the reputation of having magical powers and a heavy-handed authoritarian style of leadership.34 By the mid-1980s the war was total in Nampula province. In the month of November 1988 alone, Renamo attacked and ransacked twenty district capitals and twenty-one administrative post headquarters, including the district capitals of Angoche, Erati, Mogincual, Mecuburi, Mossuril, Murrupula and Nacarôa, and the headquarters of the administrative posts of Itoculo (Monapo), Covó (Nacala-a-velha)35 and Mazua (Memba).36 On 19 June 1988 Renamo occupied the capital of Lalaua district.37 It was the second time since   Ibid.   Governo da Província de Nampula, Síntese da reunião do Comando Militar provincial alargado aos membros do secretariado do comité provincial, da comissão Permanente da assembleia provincial e alguns membros do Governo provincial realizada em 7 Abril, 15 April 1987 (AGPN-Nampula). 33  Harrison, The Politics of Democratization; Dinerman, Revolution, Counter-Revolution. 34  Emerson, The Battle for Mozambique, op cit., p. 163. 35   Jacob J. Nyambir, Relatório no. 06/NIC/SIC/2.2 referente as actividades desenvolvidas na província durante o IV trimestre de 1988, 18 December 1988 (AGPN-Nampula). 36   Direcção Provincial de Apoio e Contrôle de Nampula, Caracterização e situação da Administração Pública na província de Nampula em 1988, 27 January 1989 (AGPN-Nampula). 37   Governo da Província de Nampula, Carta do governador de Nampula à sua Excelência o Presidente da República sobre a evolução, op. cit. 31

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the beginning of the war that the Lalaua capital was occupied by Renamo forces. In this occupation, Renamo spread terror by killing indiscriminately, burning mosques and vandalizing and plundering the local administration, shops and canteens. It was the first time Renamo attacked mosques. A journalist advanced the view that the ‘Lalaua events suggested Renamo might have given up any hope of regaining legitimacy in this key territory’.38 Alternatively, Renamo’s actions aimed at creating a safety belt to protect this area. The Lalaua region was important not only because it was difficult to access, but also because it had a single entry route, which would allow Renamo to better defend itself against the Frelimo army. The war was traumatic and deadly for civilians. According to the Nampula Government at the end of 1989, about 593,030 people had been affected by the war, suffering in particular from food shortages resulting from Renamo and Forças Armadas de Moçambique (FAM) operations as well as the drought that ravaged the country at large.39 The high number of people suffering from food shortages resulted also from the strategy adopted by FAM to force the population into communal villages controlled by the army, ‘where there was no food and no possibility of producing’.40 Indeed, once the army had moved the population into government-controlled areas, it usually burned down their agricultural fields so that they would not return to their areas.41 FAM thus bears its fair share of responsibility for the famine that beset the Nampula province that year. Frelimo’s strategy, which included the gathering of an ever-growing part of the population in ‘communal villages’ (which had become military ‘protected’ villages), was denounced numerous times by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Nampula. In a submission to the government of Nampula in 1989, the Bishop of Nampula wrote: The security measures, whatever their relevance, and more precisely, the communal villages, if they do not respect human dignity; if they do not expand people’s freedom, but in contrast dominate them … If, in the context of war, they do not help protect the population, but make them more vulnerable and more exposed to different forms of pressure and possible attacks and reprisals … If it is a strategy of war, it cannot be accepted by the Christian consciousness … It is not acceptable to promote violence against the population, to use them as human shields against the enemy … this would cultivate a sense of bitterness and revenge.42

By 1989 transport between the provincial capital of Nampula and the remaining districts of the province was completely paralysed by insecurity.   Africa Confidential, 32, 18 (1991), p. 4.   Governo da Província de Nampula, Relatório provincial por ocasião da visita da sua Excelência o Primeiro-ministro dr. Mário Machungo, 2 November 1989 (AGPN-Nampula), 40   Ibid. 41   Alice Dinerman, ‘O surgimento dos antigos Régulos como chefes de produção na província de Nampula (1975/87)’, Estudos Moçambicanos, 17 (1998), 95-256. 42   Manuel Vieira Pinto, Carta à sua excelência governador da província de Nampula, sr. Alfredo Gamito (Nampula, 1989), p. 12. 38 39

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The only functional means of transportation were airplanes, boats and canoes. Roads were mined or obstructed by tree trunks or trenches,43 and much of the infrastructure was destroyed.44 The London newspaper The Independent described the situation in Nampula in the following way: Mozambique can no longer be described as a state. The government does not have any more control over what exists outside the capital. It is dangerous to venture beyond the boundaries of a city, whatever it is. The only way to travel among the cities is aerial … except some units, the government army of Frelimo is broken and largely depends on Tanzanians troops, about 1,000 fighters who protect key places.45

The rapid progress of the Renamo war in the interior of Nampula can be perceived as being caused, on the government side, not only by the negligence of the central authorities in relation to the local dynamics of the populations and the relations with their chieftaincies, but also by the disorganization of the Frelimo army. The historical relations between the ‘institutionalized’ powers and these communities also explain the reasons for certain communities being treated differently by Renamo and by Frelimo: (i) the conflict that opposed the coast-enslaving Islamic societies and the Macuas enslaved in the interior; (ii) the strong antagonism and intra-ethnic hostilities between local Macuas chieftaincies for the control of land and trades routes in the interior of Macuane; (iii) the highly unpopular policies implemented under Frelimo post-independence46 – the systematic privilege accorded to the urban populations, the combination of neglect and forced ‘modernization’ of rural communities, and the forced ideological attacks on traditional institutions47 all played a decisive role in the adoption of an attitude of collaboration or resistance in relation to Renamo or Frelimo. This division came not only from the role that each of these ethnic entities had played during the slave trade of previous years,48 but also from the relations established with the colonial power. Despite the reorganization of the army, the inability of Frelimo’s leadership to fully comprehend the factors that explain the revolt of parts of the population facilitated the spread of the war and led to the government’s loss of control 43   Administração do Distrito de Memba em Nacala, Relatório sobre a situação político militar, 7 October 1990 (AGPN-Nampula). 44   In the same period, 292 of the 896 communal villages that existed in the Province were destroyed alongside 134 hospitals and 422 primary schools; see Governo da Província de Nampula, Relatório apresentado à sua excelência presidente da Assembleia popular, 16 November 1987 (AGPN-Nampula). 45   This extract is a translation of a translation. For the translation from the original, see Centro de Estudos Africanos, Incidentes documentados: desestabilização em Moçambique desde a tomada da Casa Banana, Gorongosa (Maputo: CEA, UEM, 1988). 46   Hall & Young, Confronting Leviathan, op. cit. 47  Giovanni M. Carbone, ‘Continuidade na renovação? Ten years of multiparty politics in Mozambique: roots, evaluation and stabilisations of the Frelimo-Renamo party system’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 43 (2005), 417–42. 48   R. Pélissier, Naissance du Mozambique (Orgeval, France: Pélissier, 1984), p. 166.

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of the military situation. One of the consequences was manifested by rising levels of violence against the population practised by the two armies.

The Different Phases of the War in Nampula Province The war in Nampula followed clear stages that depended on the objectives pursued by Renamo. The first phase began with the arrival of Renamo; the second phase saw the spread and intensification of the war between government forces and Renamo; the third would be marked by the establishment of Renamo-administrated areas; a fourth phase would come with the emergence of the Naparama and their involvement in the conflict and Renamo’s reaction to their presence in the areas under its administration. According to a provincial government report, during the first phase, Renamo operated in small groups, attacked columns of vehicles, burned communal villages, murdered Frelimo members, assaulted and destroyed infrastructure, and did not establish itself permanently in one place.49 The government’s analysis of the strategy adopted by Renamo was simplistic. Its argument stemmed from the fact that, despite the changes made within the army, the government forces were still not able to stop the guerrilla’s offensive, and had rarely been victorious in the few battles fought with Renamo. As we will see in the next pages, Frelimo’s forces have often remained in a defensive role. During the second phase, between 1986 and 1989, Renamo rarely assaulted convoys of vehicles or kidnapped people. Instead, it organized itself in large groups of 400 to 500 men who aimed at destroying large public buildings, including the offices of district administrators, hospitals, shops and factories, and at completely ruining the local economy in government-held areas. Renamo destroyed medication, clothes and food, and assaulted army barracks. During its first attack in Mossuril in 1986, for example, Renamo asked the population to hide in the bush while it assaulted shops and public buildings.50 The destruction of symbols of state power and state presence such as schools, health clinics, police stations and Frelimo party offices was instrumental not only to undermine confidence in the government and to demoralize Frelimo supporters,51 but also to isolate communities in rural areas and remove them from the authority of the central power.52 From the perspective of the government of Nampula province, unless the central government took immediate and urgent measures, Renamo could have quickly passed on to a third phase which would consist of assaults and the permanent occupation of administrative posts and district headquar Governo da Província de Nampula, Relatório Balanço do ano de 1985, 10 January 1986 (AGPN-Nampula) 50   Governo da Província de Nampula, Síntese da reunião do Comando Militar provincial alargado aos membros do secretariado do comité provincial, da comissão Permanente da assembleia provincial e alguns membros do Governo provincial realizada em 7 Abril, 9 April 1987 (AGPN-Nampula). 51  Emerson, The Battle for Mozambique, p. 167. 52   Hall & Young, Confronting Leviathan, p. 68. 49

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ters. This was very likely, the government reckoned, because the war was becoming increasingly decentralized and localized and because, despite the reorganization of the army ordered by Samora Machel, it was slow to respond to Renamo attacks, as demonstrated by the 1985 assault against military barracks at Mossuril53 and Memba district capitals,54 and the 1986 assault on the district capital of Moma.55 In these places Renamo seized weapons and supplies belonging to government forces, and destroyed social and economic infrastructures. The Frelimo army did not react. The apathy within the armed forces was caused, on one hand, by increasingly disorganized logistics which had led to a lack of food and military supplies56 and, on the another hand, to a lack of vehicles and medical care, delays in the payment of wages, and widespread corruption within the military’s high command, a situation that saw platoon commanders participate in the black market.57 Often the military has to fight without eating or after having to share one cob of corn, against Renamo groups of 400 to 500 armed men … Due to lack of food, the soldiers plunder family farms to survive … When the population gives them information about the enemy’s movements, because they are starving or did not eat anything, they ignore the information … or still worse, repress the person who provided them with such information.58

Not receiving regular pay, the solders lived on what they confiscated from the local population. In a report in 1986 about the armed forces, the Minister of Defence, General Alberto Chipande, acknowledged the existence of serious logistical, management and control problems within the armed forces on all levels. He declared: We are aware of the supply problems of troops, recruitment and mobilization. The armed forces lack uniforms, boots and supplies, but also fuel and spare parts for military vehicles. Besides, they do not have the necessary skills for the maintenance of an effective and continuous contact with all units.59

This lack of capacity was also caused by the low level of education of soldiers, and by the disorganization of the provincial military command of Nampula – led by veterans of the anti-colonial struggle, as we noted earlier, who had little knowledge of that province, or of anti-guerrilla warfare. By 1987 more than 80 per cent of the officers constituting the command had been recruited from the veterans’ villages. The majority of soldiers were illiterate or semi-illiterate   R. J. Manso, Mensagem relampago, NS/no. 852, Mossuril, 5 August 1985 (AGPN-Nampula).   Ibid. 55  Administração do Distrito de Moma, Relatório do Comando distrital operativo de Moma, 22 August 1986 (AGPN-Nampula). 56   Boletim de Informação de Moçambique (Maputo), 121 (1986); Herb Howe, ‘Mozambique at a standstill’, Defence: Africa and Middle East, 11/2 (1985), 14–15. 57   R. J. Manso, Mensagem relâmpago, op. cit. 58   Governo da Província de Nampula, Relatório apresentado à sua excelência presidente da Assembleia popular, 18 March 1987 (AGPN-Nampula). 59   Boletim de informação da AIM, 121 (Maputo, 1986). 53

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without the capacity to strategically defend economic infrastructure.60 Furthermore, the army lacked means of communication and technical training for combat, while desertion rates soared in the second half of the 1980s. The ranks of battle-hardened veterans diminished in the second half of the 1980s, however, and these men were gradually replaced by young and barely trained recruits. As Renamo advanced and the war intensified, the government’s army command needed to adapt and to adopt a new structure. In 1989, the Frelimo government changed its strategy once again, redeploying some of its more experienced field commanders from the south to the north of the country. The mission of the new commanders was to provide desperately needed leadership in the field and to prevent Renamo from controlling large cities and vital social and economic infrastructure, such as the port of Nacala. Its objective was also to implement more aggressive counter-guerrilla tactics developed in the south in order to maintain territorial control. (See Chapters 4 and 5 about the war in the south of Mozambique).

The State against Society in Nampula The army’s crisis of the second half of the 1980s saw many acts of indiscipline, much theft, murder, rape of women, plundering of humanitarian goods, sacking of district towns and villages by government forces, all ultimately undermining the pro-government population’s support for the government army.61 A report of the administrator of Memba in 1987 illustrates the situation: During the distribution of supplies to the population, the military escort caused disorder, shot in the air in order to appropriate food, oil, corn, beans and so on … The military deployed here responded with heavy weapons and, for about a quarter of an hour (fifteen minutes), there was an intense battle between the forces of the same army, as if they were fighting against enemies. The population and the administrative institutions abandoned the area for some seventeen hours.62

The archives of Nampula provincial government are replete with information about the violence practised by the government forces against the population: (a) From the administration of the administrative post of Imala: We inform you that the objective of people constantly leaving this post is not to escape the war but to escape the crimes and atrocities committed by our forces 60   Governo da Província de Nampula, Síntese da reunião do Comando Militar provincial alargado aos membros do secretariado do comité provincial, da comissão Permanente da assembleia provincial e alguns membros do Governo provincial realizada em 7 Abril, 29 April 1987 (APGN-Nampula). 61   Governo da Província de Nampula, Relatório apresentado à sua excelência presidente da Assembleia popular, 22 May 1987 (AGPN-Nampula). 62   Administração do Distrito de Memba, Informação no. 09/Adm/204 para o governador da Província de Nampula, 20 February 1989 (AGPN-Nampula).

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deployed in the district, the ‘Kangaroo Company’ … and its officers … rape women, beat the population without apparent reason, [and] force them to give money … We don’t know if this company came here to defend the population, but the problem of the army [perpetrating violence] against the population has worsened. Even we, the members of the party and government, are despised by the military … These are the issues behind the people fleeing Muecate to other regions of the province. The main reasons are: crimes committed by soldiers in villages and municipal districts, the shooting of people without proof of collaboration with the armed bandits … [and] capturing and violating married and single women. Their husbands have to pay money to free their wives … [and they are] shooting all the time and all over the place for no apparent reason, just to cause panic and insecurity among the population.63.

(b) From Nacala-Porto City: The president of the Executive Council of Nacala complains about the insecurity and the immoral acts perpetrated by the soldiers deployed in the city of Nacala … There are no friendly relations between sergeants, soldiers, officials and the population … The commander of the ‘Scorpion’ battalion has shot secretaries of neighbourhoods and of popular vigilance groups while others were beaten harshly with a whip by this battalion. The 190 soldiers, officers and sergeants demobilized and staying at the Nacala parachuting centre and not sent home because of a lack of financial means cause disorder in the suburban neighbourhoods of Nacala: firing against everything and everyone, killing, and beating up the population.64

(c) In Angoche, during the visit of the Prime Minister: After Renamo left the administrative capital of the district, the soldiers assaulted the city, stole and beat the population. So the pressure was put on the military command of the district to review and resolve this situation. Because the behaviour of these military men put the reputation of our army at risk, the provincial government demanded measures to eliminate these tendencies … The actions of policemen are also painful. They demand ‘respect’ from the population but ask for money instead of the usual identity documents.65

(d) In Memba: On 25 June, the soldiers of the ‘Lobo Battalion’ stationed in the district headquarters perpetrated the same actions against the population as the enemy. This group, with commander Salomão at the helm, shoots with heavy guns and weapons for thirty minutes, saying ‘assault!’, ‘assault!’, ‘raise your hands’, and utters insulting words against the population and against the leaders of the Frelimo party and the State … Simultaneously, they paint graffiti on homes and force people under the threat of 63   Administração do distrito de Muecate, Transcrição da informação proveniente do Posto administrativo de Imala, Ref. no. 62ADM/24.10, 12 July 1990 (AGPN-Nampula). 64   Conselho Executivo da Cidade de Nacala, Acta da III sessão do Conselho Executivo da Cidade, 30 November 1989 (AGPN-Nampula). 65   Administração do Distrito de Angoche, Informação alusiva à visita de sua Excelência o senhor Primeiro ministro, 12 June 1990 (AGPN-Nampula).

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death to leave the goods they carry along when they flee … 157 people were injured … The population clearly lost the confidence that they had with this army because whenever the enemy wants to reach the capital of the district and the plantation of Geba, they do not face any resistance on the part of the government army.66

e) At Ilha de Moçambique, during the visit of the Governor of Nampula: During the month of October, we denounced the incorrect behaviour of some members of the armed forces in Tocolo. They steal agricultural products belonging to the population. They cause discontent among the populations in the administrative post of Lumbo … Lately, we have received complaints about the behaviour of the armed forces who behave as if they were Renamo’s forces.67

These examples show that Frelimo soldiers also committed human rights abuses, and this transformed them into what was known in the Sierra Leonean war of the 1990s as ‘sobbels’,68 i.e. Government soldiers killing and raiding shops, disguised as their enemy. The Catholic Church regularly denounced the action of the army.69 In 1989 the mission of São Gonzaga of Malatane in Angoche, for example, accused the army of torturing people alleged to have collaborated with the ‘armed bandits’. It even advanced the conclusion that the army carried out more violence than Renamo.70 Not only did the Church denounce, but it also requested the intervention of the Nampula government to investigate the actions of the troops stationed in Muecate, Memba, Angoche, Moma and other regions. According to the Archdiocese, in the face of such abuses, the populations had no one to defend them, creating new situations of tension and discomfort that exacerbated the distrust of people toward the Frelimo army.71 It also provoked escalating authoritarian measures in affected areas. Interestingly, rather than deal with the situation, the Frelimo representatives in Nampula province accused the Catholic Church of promoting defamatory actions against the state.72 Some observers argue that, although the Mozambican Army also committed crimes against civilians, 66   Administração do Distrito de Memba, Informação no. 09/Adm/204 para o governador da Província de Nampula, 15 June 1991 (AGPN-Nampula). 67   Alfredo Gamito, Relatório do governador da província de Nampula, respeitante ao período entre 1 de Janeiro a 30 de Junho de 1991, 27 July 1991 (AGPN-Nampula). 68   A ‘sobbel’: soldier by day, rebel by night. For more details, see Ismail Rashid, ‘Sierra Leone: The Revolutionary United Front’, in Impunity. Countering Illicit Power in War and Transition, eds Michelle Hughes & Michael Miklaucic (Washington, DC: CCO/PSKOI, 2015), pp. 190–216; Paul Richard, Fighting for the Rainforest: War Youth and Resources in Sierra Leone (Oxford: James Currey, 1996). 69   In 1983, the Archdiocese of Nampula began to set up white books listing all the persons killed in the armed conflict, with a mention of the locale and date of their death, the name of their killers (government or guerrilla), and the arms used (guns, knife, bayonet, etc.). 70   Governo da província de Nampula, Relatório da situação do inimigo na província, Nampula, 28 February 1989 (AGPN-Nampula). 71   Arquidiocese de Nampula, Carta ao senhor governador de Nampula Alfredo Gamito, Nampula, 10 October 1991 (AGPN-Nampula). 72   Ibid.

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those atrocities were not on anywhere near the same scale or frequency as those committed by Renamo soldiers.73 Even if we agree with this position, the problem is that when those atrocities are committed by those who are supposed to defend the population, the impact they have on the victims’ perceptions is devastating. As we saw in Nampula province, the systematic and institutionalized state violence against the population increased not only suspicion toward Frelimo authorities, but also helped the consolidation of Renamo’s position in occupied areas. In addition to Geffray’s argument, one can advance the conclusion therefore that the war was not only the result of the villagization process, but also the result of the military policies of Frelimo – the way the war against Renamo was conducted – that strengthened the social basis of Renamo in Nampula province. In turn, we may note that this state of affairs allowed Renamo to enter its third phase and begin to ‘implement’ its political project.

Developing rebel-controlled areas Building on the government failures, Renamo proceeded to build from early 1990 a rebel administration for its freed areas. Different from the previous years, the guerrilla continued its assaults upon state public buildings, but it also proceeded toward the permanent occupation of administrative posts and district capitals and the construction of a Renamo administration. This was particularly marked in the coastal region of Nampula province as well as areas considered as important centres of economic development.74 Nampula is one of the richest agricultural areas of the entire country and one of the most populous provinces. The majority of its population is Makua-Lomué, an ethnic group that has historically been the least committed to Frelimo.75 The province of Nampula has historically been attractive for foreign investors and has seen the development of various plantations and concessions for peasant production. This was a central element of the dynamics of the war, not only because the land tenure76 and the agricultural production systems constituted a funding source for the Renamo war,77 but also because the control of large areas of Nampula province was politically decisive in relation to political negotiations which began abroad, and democratic elections, which started to loom on the horizon.  Dinerman, Revolution, Counter-Revolution, p. 62.   Governo da Província de Nampula, Informação no. 76/91/NIC/2.2 à sua Excelência o ministro da administração Estatal, Nampula, 23 October 1991 (AGPN-Nampula). 75   Albeit in a constantly changing form, Makua society in rural areas still maintains a culture in which chiefs, land and ancestors are important. See Eduardo Medeiros, Os senhores da floresta: ritos de iniciação dos rapazes Macua-Lomué do Norte de Moçambique (Coimbra: Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade de Coimbra, 1995). 76   In Nampula, local Macua patterns of land tenure gave the advantage to the lineage that controlled the land on which the communal village was built, creating serious contradictions between different traditional political and kinship groupings, which Renamo was able to exploit. 77   Marina Padrão Temudo, ‘Campos de batalha da cidadania no norte de Moçambique’, Cadernos de Estudos Africanos, 7/8 (2005), 31–51. Cassava flour (Karakata) constituted the food basis of the region. Christian Geffray estimated that about 66 tons of dry cassava were needed to feed a group of Renamo soldiers each year. For more details, see Geffray, A Causa das Armas: Antropologia da guerra contemporânea em Moçambique (Porto, Afrontamento, 1991), p. 91. 73 74

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For these reasons, definitive occupation of large areas of Nampula province became a priority for Renamo. On 25 March 1990, a contingent of 600 Renamo men occupied the district capital of Mecuburi.78 On 10 April, Renamo held the administrative post of Milhama and Muite. With reinforcements from Zambezia (Ethaca, Muthaico and Tomeia) and Niassa, Renamo captured the capital of the district of Érati/Nacarôa on 6 July 1990. On 1 July, Renamo occupied the military barracks of the armed forces of Frelimo in Tocolo (Administrative Post of Lumbo). On the same day, another group assaulted and occupied the localities of Matibane (Mossuril) and Lumbo.79 The whole area of the administrative post of Namige, particularly the coastal region between Lunga and the headquarters of the post, was under the control of the movement.80 Then on 26 June, a contingent of Renamo forces of about 500 men attacked and occupied the village of Liúpo, capital of the district of Mogincual, for the tenth time since the beginning of the war. During the days Renamo stayed in the district, it fixed pamphlets on the walls of the administration and spread its own ‘propaganda’: We want [to capture] the administrator and the secretaries of the Frelimo dynamising groups … Population, go back to the areas under our control which you fled from … Frelimo lies to the people! People, don’t stay in the communal villages … Long live Renamo … the people are Renamo.81

Renamo used slogans similar to its opponent (Frelimo) to propagate its ‘political project’. This was not strange because Renamo’s founders were former members of Frelimo. A year after the beginning of the new phase of occupation and development of an administration, Renamo occupied fifty-five local headquarters (Postos Administrativos) and district capitals. Of these, the most important were Namige and Quinga (Mogincual), Chinga (Murrupula), Lunga (Mossuril) and Lúrio (Memba). In these district headquarters the Frelimo administration no longer existed. The administration, the staff and the essential services had been repatriated by the government to Nacala-Porto.82 According to Frelimo,83 Renamo had established itself as a mercenary force to destabilize the ‘nation’. While it is true that Renamo’s hostility against Frelimo was strong, Renamo did not aim to overthrow Frelimo and seize power in Mozambique. Renamo’s war   Governo da Província de Nampula, Relatório do governador de Nampula à sua Excelência o Presidente da República sobre a evolução da situação da guerra, da ordem pública e do desenvolvimento económico e social da província, Nampula, 18 September 1991 (AGPN-Nampula). 79   Governo da Província de Nampula, Informação no. 76/91/NIC/2.2 à sua Excelência o ministro da administração Estatal, Nampula, 12 April 1991 (AGPN-Nampula). 80  Administração do distrito de Mogincual, Relatório confidencial N/ref. 57/ADM/25/04/91, Namige, 22 April 1991 (AGPN-Nampula). 81   Comando Militar Provincial, Directiva combativa no. 005/MOD.4/SIC/GCMPN/91, Nampula, 12 May 1991 (AGPN-Nampula). 82   Direcção Provincial de Apoio e Contrôle de Nampula. Caracterização e situação da Administração Pública na província de Nampula, Nampula, 10 December 1989 (AGPN-Nampula). 83  Frelimo/Nampula, Relatório da II conferência para a estruturação do partido Frelimo em Nampula, 25 May 1989 (AGPN-Nampula). 78

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aimed instead at weakening the support for the government84 so that it would accept the installation of democracy. The testimony of Afonso Dlakhama, the leader of Renamo, confirms this: In 1990, my men arrived here in the city of Maputo and elsewhere close by without any problems. My assessor [advisor] told me to take power by force because it was easy to bomb Ponta Vermelha from Catembe, but I gave up because my intention was not to take power by force … because I am the father of democracy.85

Renamo-controlled zones became spaces of ‘socialization’ and of consolidation of the ideological dimension of the guerrilla. This process allowed Renamo to attract recruits committed to creating structures that would facilitate cooperation and discipline, employing selective violence, and controlling the behaviour of fighters.86 More precisely it was necessary to build a legitimacy that provided an alternative to the state and dispensed Renamo from maintaining its authority only by force. As a response to the strong implantation of Renamo in Nampula after 1989, the government Chief of Staff of the Army decided to appoint a new military provincial commander, Lieutenant Colonel Lourenço Fortunato, without even informing the governor of Nampula.87 This substitution of the provincial commander during the second half of 1991 was the General Chief of Staff’s answer to the complaints made by the military during the fifth Provincial Conference on Defence and Security. The military protested violently against the high military hierarchy’s corruption and nepotism that prevailed within the military command of Nampula. In this period, official corruption was spread throughout the country. The military stated in a letter that they had let the enemy attack installations and large infrastructure to attract the attention of the high command in order to obtain food or payment of their wages.88 The appointment of Colonel Lourenço Fortunato had the desired effects, with the capture, near the Mecuburi River, in December 1991 of the famous chief Muerimu and his numerous clans. This success represented a great loss for Renamo, since it weakened the logistics of food supply in the central base of the region. But this was merely the loss of a battle, not the loss of the war. The reaction of the guerrilla structure was immediate. In January 1992 Renamo battalions received weapons and ammunition from Zambezia to reinforce the region they called Leopardo Norte (see map 4.1). The region was divided in two regional divisions separated by the railway line of the Nacala corridor. In the South regional division, Renamo aimed to consolidate the areas   Lisa Hultman, ‘The power to hurt in civil war: The strategic aim of Renamo violence’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 35 (2009), 821–34. 85   Interview with Afonso Dhlakama, Maputo, 15 September 2007. 86   Jeremy Weinstein, Inside Rebellion: The Politics of Insurgency Violence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 127. 87   Governo da Província de Nampula, Relatório do governador de Nampula, op. cit. 88   Governo da Província de Nampula, Informe do Comando Militar provincial de Nampula sobre a situação político-militar da província no período entre 1 a 24 de Julho de 1991, 10 August 1991 (AGPN-Nampula). 84

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under its control.89 In the North regional division of Massua, Muecate district, Renamo aimed, according to the Nampula Government, to prepare urban guerrilla groups to assault and carry out actions of sabotage in the towns of Nampula, Monapo, Namialo, Nacala, Ilha de Moçambique and Angoche.90 On 22 July 1992, a few months before the signing of the General Peace Agreement in Rome, Renamo occupied the town of Angoche once more. According to the local administration, Renamo’s infiltration in the town had been facilitated not only by a lack of coordination inside FAM, but also by information provided by some segments of the population who had established a strong alliance with the ‘armed bandits’.91 After occupation, Renamo organized a meeting with the population and forced the officer responsible for the company Electricidade de Moçambique to restore power in the town and to hang a large white flag at the entrance of the Inguri neighbourhood (inhabited by Muslim local elite) to signal that they were at peace with the population of this region.92 After Renamo left Angoche, the military under the command of Pecter Eusébio and the platoon of the military police plundered the markets, the houses and the vehicles of the Department of Prevention and Combat against Natural Disasters (Departamento de Prevenção e Combate às Calamidades Naturais, DPCCN)93 carrying food for the refugees. They also beat the local nobleman, some Muslim religious dignitaries, and the local population.94 Another military group directed by Xavier Cavilhão and Mariano Monteiro shot in the air with heavy weapons. Panic developed in the town of Angoche and some people who tried to flee by crossing over to small islands drowned after their overloaded boats capsized.95 The corruption and nepotism prevailing in the military command of Nampula explains the prevalence of disorganization within the armed forces. The looting and assassinations against the population and the structures of the party at the local level to ensure military survival will be contrasted by the good behaviour of the guerrilla forces in relation to the population residing in the recently occupied regions (district capitals). The guerrilla behaviour played a decisive role not only in the change of attitude of some social segments who had been hostile toward the guerrilla forces at the beginning of the conflict,  The administrative posts of Namige and Quinga (Mogincual), Lunga (Mossuril), Chinga (Murrupula), and Lúrio (Memba).   Comando Militar Provincial, Directiva combativa no. 005/MOD.4/SIC/GCMPN/91, 12 January, 1992 (AGPN-Nampula). 91   Administração do Distrito de Angoche, Síntese da visita de trabalho de sua Excelência o senhor governador da província de Nampula ao Distrito de Angoche, 23 February 1992 (AGPN-Nampula). 92   Interview with Amisse Abudo, Angoche-Nampula, 12 October 2006. 93   Departamento de Prevenção e Combates às Calamidades naturais (Natural Disasters Prevention Office), a State body to rescue people in case of emergency. This body was involved in many cases of corruption and offset help. Eventually, it was transformed into the INGC (Instituto Nacional de Gestão de Calamidades, National Institute of Disaster Management) and was subordinated to the Ministry of State Administration. 94   Governo da província de Nampula, Relatório sobre a visita de trabalho de sua Excelência o Governador da província ao Distrito de Angoche, 20 February 1992 (AGPN-Nampula). 95  Governo da Província de Nampula, Informação no. 1042.GGPN.18.13/92 ao Excelentíssimo senhor Presidente da República de Moçambique, 12 March 1992 (AGPN-Nampula). 89

90

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but it also facilitated the implementation of the Renamo administration in the areas considered geographically and politically strategic.

The administration in Renamo-controlled areas In the administrative posts that Renamo eventually controlled for many months, mostly in the south and coastal region of the province, the guerrilla created a civil-based administration, which worked at mobilizing the support of the population. Renamo reinstated former traditional chiefs (régulos) and created an indirect administrative system in which these assumed not only some juridical and administrative functions, but were also in charge of ruling over the population. Under Renamo’s reinvented system of indirect rule, traditional chiefs were able to return their followers to something resembling their traditional way of life. Responding to the requests made by traditional chiefs, Renamo performed operations to retrieve chiefs’ family members who were still living in Frelimo-controlled areas. For example, according to Frelimo’s representatives in Angoche and Mogovola, the Renamo attacks in the region of Aube (Angoche) and Calipo (Mogovola) in June and July 1990 both had the goal, among others, of responding to requests formulated by traditional authorities living in Renamo-controlled areas: The enemy attacks the district of Angoche, not only to steal the goods of the population but also to retrieve people of a certain ethnicity whose chiefs [live] in areas controlled by armed bandits. These traditional leaders lament the fact of being far from their families and demand their presence in the places where they live.96

At the end of 1990, the government of the district of Mogovolas alerted the Nampula Government that: The fight to dismantle Renamo’s bases can’t be won easily, even with sophisticated guns, because the ‘bandits’ operating in the region are sons, nephews, brothers-in-law [and] cousins of former traditional authorities and are living with their legitimate leaders.97

In areas under its administration Renamo provided basic health services. The Tomeia base for example had a military hospital where nurses, traditional healers and pastors of ‘Zionist’ (Pentecostal) churches treated the sick and combatants wounded in battle98 – something which has been noted by Ken Wilson in Zambezia province and by Lily Bunker in the south.99 But it 96   Administração do Distrito de Angoche, Relatório anual 1990, 12 December 1990 (AGPN-Nampula). 97   Administração do Distrito de Distrito de Mogovolas, Relatório, 15 May 1990 (AGPN-Nampula). 98  Gerhard Seibert, ‘The vagaries of violence and power in post-colonial Mozambique’, in Rethinking Resistance, eds Jan Abbink et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2003), p. 261. 99   For Zambezia, see Ken Wilson, ‘The implication of health and educational service infrastructure in Renamo-held areas of Western Zambezia’, unpublished paper (April, 1992). For the south, see Chapter 6 of this book.

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allowed also for some market activities whereby some peasants became prosperous farmers, having fed the guerrilla and managed a surplus for sale. There was also a growing free market, with roadside stands selling wood and even Coca-Cola, Fanta and imported beers.100 In parallel, Renamo ran a subsistence system where traditional chiefs taxed food for the rebels and demanded labour tribute for special fields for soldiers. One of the administrative activities performed by the traditional authorities was indeed to ensure the subsistence of the rebel army through the production and collection of food from the families of their chiefdoms.101 A government report explained: The population that lives with the enemy practices agriculture. They have very large agricultural fields of corn nearby the bases where they produce cassava and maize … and oil and salt to supply other bases in the region.102

According to Hall and Young, the level of food tax collected by chiefs for Renamo was not onerous, and labour tribute on Renamo-managed fields engaged only one adult member per household for two days a week. The key to this relatively benign state of affairs was probably the ease with which an agricultural surplus could be produced locally to support the Renamo soldiers – Nampula is a very fertile province.103 The collection of taxes in kind constituted for each régulo and their dependents the main counterpart to the military protection of Renamo, which prevented the intervention of the Frelimo state into the social life of the populations.104 Another function of the traditional authorities was to disseminate political propaganda for Renamo. Between 1991 and 1992 some traditional chiefs in the areas under Renamo’s administration in Nampula districts were holding public rallies to promote Renamo’s image as a replacement of Frelimo. During these meetings, the régulos distributed pamphlets with Afonso Dhlakama’s photograph and small flags of the Renamo party, consisting of a bird, three arrows and green, black, red and white colours. According to the Renamo structures, the bird symbolized the population that lived dispersed (as opposed to those who had been forced to concentrate themselves in the communal villages), for whom Renamo had fought. In January 1992 in Boila (Angoche district), where Renamo had formed its own administration, the traditional leader Mucaquia affirmed during a meeting with the population in the Nantulo base that: Frelimo is a fool; it doesn’t know how to work … Frelimo doesn’t know how to lead the people … Our bosses [Renamo] took power, that’s why we shall exercise power again … you, the population, why did you celebrate on Independence Day? … What

  Alex Vines, Renamo: Terrorism in Mozambique (London: James Currey, 1991), p. 75.   Ibid. 102   Administração do Distrito de Moma, Intervenção alusiva a primeira visita de sua Excelência senhor Governador da província de Nampula, 12 March 1987 (AGPN-Nampula). 103   Hall & Young, Confronting Leviathan, p. 185. 104  Geffray, La cause des armes, p. 91. 100 101

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a shame. Frelimo wanted to have nothing to do with us but today we are again in power … Long live Renamo … Long live Renamo … Down with the Frelimo secretary … Long live the chief [régulo].105

Meetings like these were frequent in almost all areas under Renamo administration106. At the gatherings, the traditional authorities told the population that it was Renamo who returned power to them and not Frelimo. They declared that ‘Frelimo [is] non-existent and [has] lost its power because Renamo [has] captured the territory’.107 The Frelimo army was also accused of crimes and atrocities committed against the people while the Frelimo party was accused of all evils affecting the Mozambican people. Such strategy aimed at ‘bolstering’ the guerrilla’s image among the people living under Renamo control. Continuing their political propaganda, Renamo’s men showed photos of Joaquim Chissano and Afonso Dhlakhama and then asked people who their president was: those who pointed at Joaquim Chissano were threatened with death, while those who pointed at Afonso Dlakhama were congratulated for having made a good choice.108

This shows that, shortly after the approval of the new Constitution (1990), with the negotiations in Rome making good progress, Renamo had begun, in the populations under its control, to promote the ideas for future choices that would be made for the country’s governance after the war, in elections. In contrast to what Alice Dinerman has argued, it seems then that Renamo did have a political project. And apparently its strategy eventually produced good results since, after the war, Renamo won the first multiparty elections in Nampula province by a margin of 14.77 per cent – meaning 40.66 per cent for Renamo and 25.89 per cent for Frelimo.109 The education of the relatives of traditional chiefs and sons of military chiefs constituted a major concern for Renamo leadership. Under its education system, special emphasis was given to the disciplines of Portuguese and the local Emacua language.110 According to Renamo’s leadership, the emphasis put on Portuguese and a local language was to facilitate the children’s entry in the modern world without losing local cultural values.111 Aside from the 105   Partido Frelimo/Comité Distrital de Angoche, Nota no. 54/SCDPFA/92, Assunto informativo para o secretário do comité provincial, 12 May 1992 (AGPN-Nampula). 106   Administração do distrito de Angoche, Síntese do trabalho realizado na sede do posto administrativo de Namaponda, Angoche, 23 March 1993 (AGPN-Nampula). 107   Partido Frelimo/Comité Distrital de Angoche, Nota no. 54/SCDPFA/92, Assunto informativo para o secretário do comité provincial, 11 May 1992 (AGPN-Nampula). 108   Administração do Distrito de Mogincual, Ataque dos bandidos armados à Liupo, Mogincual, 23 November 1990 (AGPN-Nampula). 109   Luis de Brito, Cartografia eleitoral Moçambique-1994 (Maputo: Livraria Universitária, 2000). 110   Direcção provincial de Educação de Nampula, Declarações do estudante do centro de formação de Professores primários em Momola-fugido do cativeiro dos bandidos armados da Renamo, 31 May 1991 (AGPN-Nampula). 111   Interview with General Raúl Dique, Maputo, 10 December 2015 (Raúl Dique was chief of staff for all the Northern provinces of Mozambique for Renamo); interview with Raúl Domingos, Maputo, 10 December 2015.

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teachers who voluntarily joined Renamo, the guerrilla organized attacks and the kidnapping of teachers and students from training centres so that they would come to work in their areas. For example, the assault organized in April 1991 on the training centre for primary school teachers of Momola (Eráti) aimed at kidnapping teachers and students to fulfil Renamo’s need for qualified teachers.112 The war in Nampula eventually created three categories of people: the population protected by the Frelimo state; those who lived in areas under Renamo control; and a third category of the people ‘in between’. In the face of the violence of the war, this third category of people sometimes created self-defence mechanisms as alternative survival strategies.113 The creation or the reactivation of self-defence groups to protect communities against the violence perpetrated by the institutionalized forces was not new in Africa. One of the examples is the Sungusungu in Tanzania – a pre-colonial phenomenon that was reactivated in modern times.114 In Mozambique, in opposition to the violence perpetrated by Frelimo and Renamo, a large number of families created such self-defence groups. One in particular, the Naparama, would end up playing a major role in the closing years of the war.

The Naparama: Self-defence groups against ‘institutionalized power’ Increasing anarchy on the battlefield in the waning years of the war gave rise to a new type of military actor – that is, independent militia forces led by charismatic leaders with mystical powers. Tired of being preyed upon repeatedly by both sides, these movements sought to protect their communities and free their people from the ravages of war.115 One such actor was the Naparama, whose origin is still a contested matter, as discussed by Corinna Jentzsch in Chapter 3. Who are the Naparama? Where do they come from? What signifies the expression by which they are designated? Did they appear in the 1990s or did they re-emerge from far in the past? The answers offered in this chapter are not exactly the same as those of Corinna Jentzsch, mainly because our sources are not the same. Some sources said the Naparama came from Chalaua (Moma);116 others reckoned they came from Murrupula.117 Yet another source stated: They are originating from Mavuco locality and show signs of belonging to their group: scars from ‘vaccines’. A letter, a hundred small scratches on the chest written with a blade by a witchdoctor born in Nambila and resident in the district

  AGPN: Direcção provincial de Educação de Nampula, Declarações do estudante, op. cit.   Øystein H. Rolandsen, ‘Sudan: The Janjawiid and Government Militias’, in African Guerrillas: Raging against the Machine, eds Morten Bøås & Kevin C. Dunn (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2007), pp. 151–170, p. 163. 114  E. Rouveroy van Nieuwall, ‘States and chiefs: Are chiefs mere puppets?, Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law, 28 (1996), 39–78. 115  Emerson, The Battle for Mozambique, p. 185. 116   Governo da Província de Nampula, Reunião do comando conjunto alargado com alguns membros do secretariado do comité provincial e governo provincial, 13 February 1986 (AGPN-Nampula) 117   Administração do Distrito de Murrupula, Mensagem no. 514/ADM/20.2 à sua Excelência o governador de Nampula, 18 March 1990 (AGPN-Nampula). 112 113

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of Murrupula. He began doing this a few years ago and has continued ‘vaccinating’ people until now.118

In reality, the phenomenon of the Naparama was not wholly new in Nampula society. According to government sources in the 1990s, the first manifestation of this ‘irresistible force’, as Alex Vines called it,119 was in 1974 in the plantation of Savara (Moma) of the Angoche Plantation Company (Companhia de Culturas de Angoche, CCA). It was about a ‘vaccine’ (prama) created by a healer (the Murremone) who was called by the administration in order to solve a problem of lions attacking herds of cattle on the company’s land.120 Murremone ‘immunized’ several men, ‘os Pramados’ (‘the vaccinated’) with a vaccine, and several days later they succeeded in killing all the lions terrorizing the area. The roots of the 1990s phenomenon can be traced back to Manuel António from Pebane district in Zambezia province, who is said to have risen from the dead in 1989 to conduct a divine mission to free people from the ravages of war. Using large ritual ceremonial gatherings, Manuel António ‘vaccinated’ his followers using special medicinal plants and symbolic razor cuts, in order to make those vaccinated immune to bullets.121 As several studies suggest, the Naparama are similar to the Sierra Leonean Kamajor122 or the Congolese Mayi-Mayi123 peasantry movement invested with magical power and created by exhausted societies, victims of armed conflicts that opposed the state and a guerrilla movement. At first, the Naparama’s activities sowed panic and created unease among Frelimo officials and the rebels, since in order to ‘maintain peace’ in their communities, the Naparama fought both the ‘armed bandits’ and FAM. They were accused of a host of abuses and excesses, including attacking government forces and perpetrating some of the worst atrocities against civilians in Renamo-controlled territory. The Naparama did not recognize the authority of the government.124 An official report underscored this: In our district, besides the ‘armed bandits’, we saw these last days the emergence of a movement called Naparama and ‘anti-bullet’. This group began its activ-

  ‘A longa viagem (1): 1° dia Dgelo: Naparamas’, Tempo (Maputo), (1991), p. 18.  Vines, Renamo: From Terrorism to Democracy, op. cit., p. 118. 120   Administração do distrito de Moma, Síntese da primeira visita do senhor administrador em Mucoroge, 23 November 1991 (AGPN-Nampula). 121  Emerson, The Battle for Mozambique, pp. 190–1. 122   Michel Adam, ‘Coups d’État, guerre de survie, guerres de prédation : Quelques illustrations de guerres africaines contemporaines (1991–1999)’, Ateliers d’Anthropologie, 26 (2003), 197–230; Krijn Peter & Paul Richard, ‘“Why we Fight”: Voices of Youth Combatants in Sierra Leone’, Journal of the International African Institute, 68 (1998), 183–210. 123   Arsène Mwaka Bwenge, ‘Les milices Mayi-Mayi à l’Est de la République Démocratique du Congo : Dynamiques d’une gouvernamentalité en situation de crise’, Revue africaine de sociologie, 7 (2003), 73–94. 124   Administração do Distrito de Moma, 1991b, Síntese da segunda reunião com Secretários, Reis e Chefes religiosos, 31 March 1991 (AGPN-Nampula). 118

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ities in the administrative post of Chalaua (Moma) and Boila (Angoche). It is a big concern for the party chief and the district government. We do not know the origin or purpose of this group operating with machetes. They do not surrender the weapons they retrieve but deliver them to their main leader … [they] fight against our army.125

Another report added: They do not have a government; they do not obey the instructions of the neighbourhood [secretaries] nor of the institutions of the communal villages where they live … They do not recognize the government of Mozambique … They mobilize the population of the areas most affected by the war, and perform missions that sell the recovered people back to their families for 5,000 meticais … The government is not against this movement but requires them to be disciplined and to recognize the government’s existence.126

On 11 October 1990, close to the Namilo lagoon, in the administrative post of Chalaua, a battle took place between FAM and the Naparama armed with machetes and singing traditional songs. The Naparama killed three soldiers, seriously wounded several others and captured five guns and a pistol belonging to FAM.127 According to the government of the district of Moma, these actions of the Naparama against the armed forces were not new: For a long time, there have been confrontations between the Naparama and the armed forces … but this time it escalated because [the Naparama] murdered Frelimo soldiers … There are many reports of criminal actions committed by Naparama, written by the administrator of the locality of Chalaua and the government of the district of Moma, calling for an investigation and decisions – and counter-measures against the Naparama.128

Another report of the government of the district of Angoche added: The inhuman actions committed by Naparama caused the deaths of almost seventy people including government soldiers in the administrative post of Namaponda.129

The most significant actions of the Naparama against Renamo took place in the district of Mogincual in 1991. On 28 August, a small group constituted of about ten Naparama, coming from Liúpo and Nozica, were on their way to the regional base of Renamo in Namige. On their way, they attacked 125   Governo da Província de Nampula, Síntese da reunião conjunta realizada nas instalações do comando militar no dia 28 de Junho de 1991, 23 July 1991 (AGPN-Nampula). 126   Administração do Distrito de Moma, Síntese da primeira visita efectuada pelo senhor administrador do Distrito ao Posto administrativo de Chalaua, Moma, 30 April 1990 (AGPN-Nampula). 127   Comando das Forças Conjuntas Moma-Angoche, Relatório da manobra combativa, 12 October 1990 (AGPN-Nampula). 128   Ibid. 129   Administração do Distrito de Angoche, Relatório mensal referente ao mês de Julho 1991, 12 August 1991 (AGPN-Nampula).

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a small remote base of Renamo in Naminane area (15 km from the headquarters of Namige-Liúpo) where they killed twenty ‘armed bandits’, before reaching the outpost of Renamo in Namahia. There they destroyed almost all the small military bases and killed many Renamo combatants.130 Soon António’s fighters were driving Renamo out of huge swathes of Nampula province. For some, Renamo suffered many casualties in confrontations with the Naparama because, for a long time, they believed in the existence of this anti-bullet force and thought it was possible to combat them through conventional warfare.131 The logistical crisis that Renamo experienced in this period, especially in terms of lack of ammunition and the poor military preparation of many combatants, also explains the high number of casualties and the capture of vast areas from Renamo control in Nampula.132 During a month-long operation in 1989, the Naparama retrieved 802 people in the administrative post of Namina who lived there under Renamo control.133 The advancement of the Naparama and the creation of ‘pockets of peace’ in areas that had been under strong military and administrative control of Renamo since 1989 led the government of Nampula to write: The military political situation tends to get better thanks to the actions undertaken by Naparama because they advance toward the headquarters of the administrative posts of Muite, Milhana and in the direction of the locality of Ratane.134

There were administrative posts where the armed forces of Frelimo had always had difficulties, resulting in soldiers committing crimes against the ‘local population’ that they suspected of being at the service of ‘armed bandits’. After six months in existence, the Naparama had brought peace to more than 100,000 beleaguered peasants.135 The advancement of the Naparama led the Frelimo government at the provincial level to try to co-opt the movement and form a ‘hybrid’ army with elements of the ‘modern’ and the ‘traditional’ army. Messiant argues that the Naparama were first a popular reaction to an absolute despair, and they are the ones who permitted Frelimo to repel the offensive of Renamo when the FAM and Frelimo militia had been fleeing. They were then instrumentalized by the government, in its rhetoric (proof that the people were against the people) as well as mili  Administração do Distrito de Mogincual, Relatório confidencial N/ref. 57/ADM/25/04/91, 12 September 1991 (AGPN-Nampula).   Interview with Brigadeiro Boaventura Torres, Maputo, 14 July 2014, and interview with Raúl Domingos, Maputo, 29 August 2014. 132   Interview with General Raúl Dique, Maputo, 15 December 2015. 133   Administração do Distrito de Mecuburi, Relatório referente ao mês de Maio: situação política, 20 June 1991 (AGPN-Nampula). 134  Administração do Distrito de Mecuburi, Comunicação no. 9/ADM/18.15: Carta escrita pela Renamo aos moçambicanos, 31 January 1991 ( AGPN-Nampula). 135  Howard Witt, ‘Mystic warriors gaining ground in Mozambique war’, Chicago Tribune, 9 December 1990, online at: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1990-12-09/news/ 9004110882_1_mozambique-war-rebel-civil-war, accessed 24 February 2017. 130

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tarily, often spearheading its troops, who intervened only after the ground had been cleaned by them [the Naparama].136

The Frelimo-Naparama alliance against the ‘Administration’ of Renamo Frelimo pursued the co-optation of the Naparama not only for political, economic and military reasons, but also because it was under pressure from a part of the local society that sought salvation via these warriors. The effectiveness of the movement’s actions led hundreds of people to be vaccinated voluntarily to join the group and better protect themselves from the atrocities of the two armies. António claimed in 1990 to have some 30,000 men at his disposal.137 The results of the co-optation could soon be seen. In 1991, the government of Nampula signalled in a letter to the President of the Republic, Joaquim Chissano, that the joint actions with the Naparama were producing results, not only in the agricultural domain, but also in the military field, since in the districts of Mecuburi, Mogincual and Moma, the Naparama and FAM carried out joint operations that led to the liberation of areas and people who lived under Renamo control.138 The governor of Nampula stated in a report in 1991: The seat of Mogincual district was recovered. The liberating action was [conducted by] the Naparama from Chalaua … The tranquillity and security that reign today in the districts of Mogincual, Murrupula and Moma are interpreted as a result of these actions … Recently the population of Mogincual district expressed its desire to organize [itself] traditionally (becoming Naparama) to defend their lives and their district as well.139

In Namapa district, the Naparama had even been charged with duly executing the district administration’s orders to coerce smallholders to grow cotton, historically one of Mozambique’s leading export earners and, during the colonial period, a forced crop.140 With time, from invulnerable people, the Naparama started to move away from its people’s army roots and its leaders became intransigent, authoritarian, violent and arrogant lords. They began to be involved in the economy of predation, which caused the privatization of land in Nampula province. Supported by Frelimo, they instituted an abusive legal order that infringed upon popular justice.141 Looting, kidnapping for ransom, and abuses against   Christine Messiant, ‘La paix au Mozambique: un succès de l’ONU’, in Les chemins de la guerre et de la paix: Fins de conflits en Afrique orientale et australe, eds Roland Marchal & Christine Messiant (Paris: Karthala, 1997), pp. 78–9. 137   William Finnegan, A Complicated War: The Harrowing of Mozambique (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1989), p. 225. 138   Ibid. 139   Alfredo Gamito, Relatório do governador da província de Nampula, respeitante ao período entre 1 de Janeiro a 30 de Junho de 1991, 23 February 1991 (AGPN-Nampula). 140  Dinerman, Revolution, Counter-revolution, p. 5. 141   Arnaldo Baritussio, Moçambique: 50 Anos de presença dos Missionários Combonianos (Rome: Missionari Comboniani, 2015), p. 451. 136

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civilians became increasingly common142. They began to refuse to return recuperados to their homes until their families paid a fee for their release and they served themselves at the expense of the populations whom they violated, raped and robbed. There were also reports of vandalism committed by the Naparama, for example the theft of the goods from the administrative posts of Quilua/Aube (district of Angoche) in 1991143 and the plundering, deaths and torture in Mogincual in April of the same year.144 One of the former commanders of Renamo in Nampula stated in an interview twenty years later that: They did not only attack us, they also began to kill people who were in our areas, they stole their property … and when they killed a guerrilla, they took their genitals, their tongue and heart and took them to their witchdoctors in Mecuburi and Murrupula.145

A resident of Chalaua added: The Naparama oppress the people with injustice … Since 1991, we have been plagued by war. Then we were liberated by the Naparama from Chalaua. We have heard that they defended the people, but now we see that they have other intentions … The Naparama do respect neither the military, nor the population and not even the prayer. If our women seek to prepare their meals, they are followed and raped … no one can deny them anything. Do they have that right?146

For the Archbishop of Nampula, Dom Manuel Viera Pinto, the Naparama of Chalaua-Moma perpetrated acts against civilians which were particularly violent and inhuman, all the worse since these Naparama came from the province of Zambézia, i.e. they were Macuas-Lomués, ‘who are barbarians’.147 The rise in social status that some of the Naparama leaders, such as ‘comandante Cinco’, experienced due to the goods they accumulated from theft contrasted with the material, moral and physical ‘famine’ within the government army. This disparity partly explains the increase in conflicts between the regular army and the Naparama. One of the most famous battles within the alliance was in Namialo at the end of 1991 when the fight between Naparama and government forces resulted in many deaths on both sides.148 The rapid rise and success of the Naparama stunned Renamo senior leadership. According to Emerson ‘the poor showing of its troops and the failure of local commanders to stem the rising Naparama tide, threatened to seriously  Emerson, The Battle for Mozambique, p. 191.   Administração do Distrito de Moma, Síntese da segunda reunião com Secretários, 31 March 1991 (AGPN-Nampula). 144   Administração do distrito de Mogincual, Relatório confidencial N/ref. 57/ADM/25/04/91, 18 April 1991 (AGPN-Nampula). 145   Interview with Tomas Celestino, Maputo, 18 September 2014. 146  Baritussio, Moçambique: 50 Anos, p. 451. 147   Abel Safrão, Relatório à sua Excelência Alfredo Gamito, governador da província de Nampula, Ilha de Moçambique, 2 August 1991 (AGPN-Nampula). 148   Interview with Brigadeiro Boaventura Torres, Maputo, 18 July 2014. 142 143

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undermine Renamo’s strategic position in this critical part of the country’.149 So Renamo developed a strategy to stop the progression of the Naparama forces.

Renamo’s Response to the Frelimo-Naparama Alliance Unlike in Zambezia where Renamo had constituted a local force using the same method as the Naparama (the Mulelepeia) (see Chichava’s and Jentzsch’s chapters in this book), a Renamo force with the characteristics of the Naparama never appeared in, or came to, Nampula. Instead Renamo developed a two-fold strategy to counter the Naparama phenomenon. The first aspect was to argue that the Macua people in the Naparama were instrumentalized by the Frelimo ‘southerners’. Thus, in January 1991, Renamo began to distribute pamphlets written in the Emacua language which stated: The president of Frelimo Chissano exploits the Macua ethnic group as a Frelimo slave … The Macua, whose children and cousins are in the ranks of Renamo, are exploited. The population of the Macua ethnic group is required to use machetes and spears to attack their brother of Renamo … they are also manipulated to fight against the Macua civilians who live in ‘the liberated zones of Renamo’ … Chissano never wanted the Changaans, his ethnic group of Gaza province, to use spears and machetes against Renamo, because he wants the people of the north to kill themselves, to disappear and keep Frelimo in power.150

Despite the use of the ethnic explanation to explain the Naparama attacks against Renamo forces, interviews with some military commanders of either Renamo or FAM rejected the idea that the conflict was just the result of ethnic and religious tensions, preferring to interpret it as resulting from historical reasons linked to the colonial domination and from the material crisis embodied in the villagization process. The second aspect of Renamo’s strategy to counter the Naparama was the creation of its own powerful medicine to make its soldiers ‘immune’ to the attacks of Naparama warriors151 and the sending to Nampula of the notorious Grupo limpa (an elite unit with a strong Ndau reputation of invincibility and a fierce loyalty to Dhlakama). Dhlakama personally directed the beginning of the campaign against the Naparama.152 Many soldiers (among whom were Brigadier Moiséis Machava, Colonels Fernando Rocha, Tomé Domingos, Aníbal Rafael and Manuel Limpo) were sent from the central base in Gorongosa to train small local groups in Nampula in military tactics to better combat the Naparama.153  Emerson, The Battle for Mozambique, p. 192.   Administração do Distrito de Mecuburi, Relatório referente ao mês de Maio: situação política, 20 June 1991 (AGPN-Nampula). 151  Emerson, The Battle for Mozambique, op.cit., p. 192. 152   Africa Confidential, 32, 18 (1991), p. 5. 153   According to Brigadeiro Torres, these groups only could, for instance, open fire on a well-identified target and not aim indiscriminately as was customary when groups of Naparama attacked the Renamo forces, shouting and singing songs that often frightened the rebels. 149

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From this moment, the war intensified again and Renamo was obliged to commit acts of brutality. When it attacked and captured the administrative post of Lalaua in June 1991, Renamo killed 49 people. According to the Nampula provincial government most of those killed were Naparama followers and they were decapitated.154 The violence employed by Renamo was ‘to show that Naparama’s magic was not stronger than that of Renamo’155 and to illustrate Renamo’s continuing presence and power in the area.156 After their founding, the Naparama managed to expel Renamo from several regions where the government army encountered difficulties. This success led the government to co-opt the Naparama, to run hybrid military operations and to restore state power in various regions. But in the province of Nampula it also led to a spike in armed conflict, with widespread and uncontrolled confrontations. However, Renamo’s strategy to challenge the power of the Naparama in the spiritual domain played out successfully in Nampula, as in Zambézia (see Corinna Jentzsch in Chapter 3). At the time of the signing of the Peace Agreement in Rome in 1992, Renamo controlled the same regions in Nampula as it had since the beginning of the third phase of war in Nampula in 1989.

Conclusion The war in Nampula province began in 1983. It spread rapidly and was soon widespread throughout the territory, including in the coastal regions. The war was built on the one hand by the social crisis prevalent in rural communities and resulted from the effects of both colonialism and Frelimo’s policies during its so-called Socialist period. On the other hand the war developed thanks to Renamo’s use of selective violence against communities, a strategy which facilitated the guerrilla’s penetration. The rapid progress of Renamo’s war in the interior of Nampula can be explained by the negligence of the central authorities in relation to the local dynamics of the populations. The inability of Frelimo leadership to fully comprehend the factors of dissent led the central government to react violently, not only by verbal means but also through military means, against the population of Nampula. This reaction reinforced the Renamo guerrilla militarily, enabling it to eventually occupy large tracts of Nampula province and to build its own administration there. The dynamics of the war in Nampula went through several phases. After a first phase of installation and a second of heavily attacking areas under government control, Renamo engaged in a third phase, from 1989, in consol154   Governo da Província de Nampula, Informe do Comando Militar provincial de Nampula sobre a situação político-militar da província no período entre 1 a 24 de Julho de 1991, Nampula, 19 August 1991 (AGPN-Nampula). 155   Africa Confidential, 32, 18 (1991), p. 5. 156   Africa Watch, Conspicuous Destruction: War, Famine and The Reform Process in Mozambique (New York/Washington/Los Angeles/London: Human Rights Watch, 1992), p. 40.

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idating ‘free zones’ where it built an administration. A fourth phase can be distinguished with the emergence of Naparama, introducing a third actor in the war and leading to an increase in fighting. This was a reaction of a population that did not side with one actor of the war or the other – they fought against the ‘armed bandits’ and against FAM. While the government co-opted this new actor, Renamo developed successful counter-strategies which eventually neutralized the effect of the Naparama in Nampula. Overall, this chapter has shown that the Renamo guerrilla was not simply a collection of violent bandits without any political project as is still sometimes argued. As shown by Christian Geffray or by Graham Harrison, the war in Nampula was a civil war, linked to Frelimo’s villagization policy and its political orientations (namely the method by which the Frelimo authorities extracted resources from the residents157). Adding to Geffray and Harrison, this chapter showed that the war was also the result of the military policies of Frelimo – starting with the 1984 Political Bureau’s directives. Finally, contrary to what Alice Dinerman argued, but in line with Ken Wilson, the chapter showed that Renamo did develop a civil administration in Nampula that allowed it to consolidate its political project of future governance in Mozambique.  Harrison, The Politics of Democratization, op. cit.

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Spiritual Power & the Dynamics of War in the Provinces of Nampula & Zambezia Corinna Jentzsch

Everyone wanted to be like Manuel [António], but he was the [only] one who knew about the genuine medicine. Naparama commander, Nicoadala 8 March 2012

The war in Mozambique from the late 1970s until 1992 placed a heavy burden on the Mozambican population, resulting in an estimated one million deaths and almost five million displaced.1 Though much research on the war has focused on the origins and behaviour of the rebel group Renamo (see the Introduction to this volume), others, including civilians, also played an active role. The suffering caused by the war brought about several popular armed and unarmed self-defence movements to stop the violence. One such armed movement was the Naparama, a peasant militia created by a traditional healer, Manuel António, in 1988, based on the belief in a vaccine to make people invulnerable to bullets.2 Within a year, the movement grew from a couple of hundred to several thousand members and spread across the country’s central and northern provinces. The people embraced this new force and, after being co-opted by the government, it played a strong part in fighting back the rebel group, Renamo. By 1991, the Naparama was present in two thirds of the northern territory and its success led to an until-then unknown stability during wartime, at least for a certain amount of time.3 1   Joseph Hanlon, Peace without profit: How the IMF blocks rebuilding in Mozambique (Oxford & Portsmouth, NH: James Currey, 1996), p. 16. 2   Also see Chichava’s and Do Rosário’s contributions in this volume. Depending on the local language and pronunciation, the spelling varies: Naprama, Parama, Napharama, Barama. See Kenneth B. Wilson, ‘Cults of Violence and Counter-Violence in Mozambique’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 18 (1992), p. 561, fn. 148. Naparama means ‘irresistible force’ in the language of the Macua, the largest linguistic group in northern Mozambique; see William Finnegan, A complicated war: The harrowing of Mozambique (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1992), p. 254. ‘Parama’ denotes the drug that is used during the vaccination, and ‘Naparama’ denotes the people that received the vaccine Parama (informal conversation with the late Naparama leader in Zambezia Manuel Sabonete, 16 September 2011, Nicoadala). An article in the journal of the Museum of Nampula from 1960 refers to ‘Emparrámê’ as the plant whose roots and leaves are burnt and used for the vaccine that carries the same name. See Júlio dos Santos Peixe, ‘Emparrámê’, Separata do Boletim do Museu de Nampula, 1 (1960), 145–7. A Naparama commander in Lugela district in Zambezia argued that Naparama meant ‘stop the weapons’, as Naparama stood for ‘parar arma’ in Portuguese, but this appeared to be his personal interpretation. 3   This chapter is part of a book project on militias and self-defence forces in civil wars and is based

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The formation and diffusion of the Naparama goes against the common depiction of the war as a ‘dichotomous’ conflict between Frelimo, the party in power, and Renamo. It draws attention to a phenomenon common to many civil wars in which the population is actively involved in various local arrangements to curb violence and provide security. These security arrangements include militias, self-defence forces and paramilitaries, who all become significant actors as instruments for counterinsurgent operations and/or protectors of specific communities, thereby challenging neat distinctions between insurgents and the state.4 While many of these armed groups emerge as grassroots projects, they are often co-opted by the state as part of its counterinsurgency strategy.5 This also occurred in the case of the Naparama, as Frelimo soon realized the potential of the Naparama’s power against Renamo and tolerated and at times even actively supported the Naparama’s activities. However, as in other civil wars across Africa and beyond, the state’s implicit or explicit support of militias may allow for short-term success against insurgents, but more violence in the long term.6 As I will show, though the Naparama’s military operations were crucial in re-capturing district towns and liberating people from Renamo-held areas, the group’s empowerment was accompanied by internal struggles and an even more powerful response by Renamo, which resulted in the death of Manuel António in late 1991. The military stalemate that was shortly overcome with the rise of the Naparama was followed by an intensification of war due to internal fighting and Renamo’s militant response. The chapter thus focuses on the consequences of the rise of Naparama for the dynamics of the war. The main argument that I pursue is that the short-term success and long-term failure of the Naparama can be explained by on 12 months of field research in Mozambique in 2010, 2011 and 2012 in Maputo, the provincial capitals Nampula and Quelimane, Mecubúri and Murrupula districts in Nampula province and Lugela, Namarrói and Nicoadala districts in Zambezia. Field research included oral histories and semi-structured interviews with government officials, demobilized combatants of Frelimo and Renamo, former members of Naparama and popular militias, community leaders and other community members, and archival research in the provincial governments’ archives in Nampula and Quelimane. The research project was approved by the Human Subjects Committee of Yale University under the IRB protocol number 110308177. I gratefully acknowledge funding from a MacMillan Center International Dissertation Research Grant and a National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant. I thank Michel Cahen, Eric Morier-Genoud, and Domingos M. Do Rosário for their helpful comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of this chapter, and participants at seminars at the Centro de Estudos Africanos of the Eduardo Mondlane University and the Instituto de Estudos Sociais e Económicos (IESE) in Maputo in August 2016 for their valuable questions and comments. 4   Corinna Jentzsch, ‘Militias and the Dynamics of Civil War’, PhD Thesis (New Haven, CT: Yale University, 2014); Corinna Jentzsch, Stathis N. Kalyvas & Livia Isabella Schubiger, ‘Militias in Civil Wars’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 59 (2015), 755–69. 5  Paul Staniland, ‘Militias, Ideology, and the State’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 59 (2015), 770–93. 6  Alex De Waal, ‘Counter-insurgency on the Cheap’, Review of African Political Economy, 31 (2004), 716–25; Bjørn Møller, ‘The Role of Militias and Other Paramilitaries in African (Un)civil Wars’, DIIS Working Paper, no. 23 (2006); Govinda Clayton and Andrew Thomson, ‘The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend… The Dynamics of Self-defense Forces in Irregular War: The Case of the Sons of Iraq’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 37 (2014), 920–35. (contd)

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the importance of spiritual power in the Mozambican war, which contributed to an increase in fragmentation of armed groups and an escalation of violent conflict.7 In particular, Renamo’s formation of anti-Naparama forces and disputes between two main Naparama leaders in Zambezia and Nampula provinces demonstrate how far the evolution of ‘cults of counter-violence’8 engendered a dynamic of competition for spiritual power, and by extension also for political and economic power. As the statement by a Naparama commander quoted above demonstrates, every militia leader aspired to be the one with the authentic, most powerful means to succeed on the battlefield. Such competition gave rise to conflicts between armed groups fighting for the same goal, as leaders attempted to outbid each other with regard to their spiritual power. This process of ‘spiritual outbidding’9 generated military successes that were short-lived and contributed to an ever-increasing fragmentation of the war. Overall, the chapter shows that when local social and political processes are not taken into account, the overall dynamics of war are difficult to understand. Spiritual sources of power were crucial for the Naparama’s success and influence on the battlefield. The spiritual dimension of the war was first analysed in detail by Ken Wilson in a fascinating study from 1992.10 Wilson argues that ‘an intense competition between Renamo, Frelimo and local forces has occurred for spiritually-empowered agency, and … such agency has been part of ‘progressive’, ‘traditional’ and ‘reactionary’ programmes alike.’11 As I demonstrate in this chapter, this competition for ‘spiritually-empowered agency’ did not only take place between Frelimo, Renamo, and local forces such as the Naparama, but also between different factions within the Naparama movement, which led to the further fragmentation of armed groups, and violence between them. In order to analyse the interrelation between spiritual power and the dynamics of war, I build on and add to the provincial analysis of the Naparama included in the chapters of Chichava and do Rosário in this volume by bringing a comparative lens to the analysis of the movement that includes a variety of different sources. Making use of evidence from extensive interviews with former Naparama and Renamo combatants, civilians, and local government officials in five districts across the two provinces and archival documents from the two provincial archives, I complement the view ‘from above’ based 7   For research on the link between the fragmentation of armed groups and increase in violence, see, for example, Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham, Kristin M. Bakke and Lee J.M. Seymour, ‘Shirts Today, Skins Tomorrow. Dual Contests and the Effects of Fragmentation in Self-determination Disputes’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 56 (2012), 67–93; Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham, ‘Actor Fragmentation and Civil War Bargaining: How Internal Divisions Generate Civil Conflict’, American Journal of Political Science, 57 (2013), 659–72. 8   Wilson, ‘Cults of Violence and Counter-Violence’. 9   I thank Nicolas Blarel for suggesting this term, which builds on the concept of ‘ethnic outbidding’ that denotes the competitive and ‘centrifugal’ nature of ethnic politics in political systems with weak institutions. See Donald L. Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1985); Neil DeVotta, ‘From Ethnic Outbidding to Ethnic Conflict: The Institutional Bases for Sri Lanka’s Separatist War’, Nations and Nationalism, 11 (2005), 141–59. 10   Wilson, ‘Cults of Violence and Counter-Violence’. 11   Ibid., p. 529.

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on archival government documents with the view ‘from below’ of those who participated and experienced the Naparama. I show that the main Naparama groups in Zambezia and Nampula provinces had the same origin, but evolved separately, which partly explains the diverging findings in Chichava’s and Do Rosário’s chapters with respect to Naparama’s use of violence across different districts, both against civilians and the state. I also extend Chichava’s analysis of the ‘anti-Naparama’ forces by analysing the various groups that emerged in different parts of the two provinces and how they further undermined the Naparama’s ability to ward off Renamo advances.

The Rise of the Naparama The Naparama formed in the late 1980s after a large counter-offensive by Frelimo and allied forces failed to stop Renamo’s expansion across the country. Renamo forces reached Zambezia in August 1982 and entered Nampula in April or May 1983 as an extension of a second offensive across Zambezia (see Map 3.1).12 Both provinces experienced an escalation of violence in late 1986. To counter the rise of Renamo, the Mozambican military, together with allied forces from Zimbabwe and Tanzania, began a counter-offensive in late 1986 and early 1987. This operation returned all district towns to Frelimo control by July 1988, but did not succeed in creating enduring stability. As a response to the continued instability, the Naparama emerged in late 1988 in the border region between Nampula and Zambezia provinces, soon spreading to their various districts over the course of 1989 and 1990. The war in Zambezia and Nampula provinces took on a character different than in the south of the country, partly due to historical legacies. First, both provinces have a long history of opposition to Frelimo due to their historical marginalization and Frelimo’s failure to mobilize the population for the party’s cause.13 Thus, Renamo could exploit local grievances and benefit from more support by peasants and Frelimo representatives than in Mozambique’s south.14 Second, Renamo was able to benefit from thick forestation and the 12   Jean-Claude Legrand, ‘Logique de guerre et dynamique de la violence en Zambézie, 1976– 1991’, Politique africaine 50 (June 1993), pp. 91–2; Alice Dinerman, ‘From ‘Abaixo’ to ‘Chiefs of Production’: Agrarian Change in Nampula Province, Mozambique, 1975–87’, The Journal of Peasant Studies, 28 (2001), p. 51; Domingos Do Rosário, ‘Les Mairies des “autres”: une analyse politique, socio-historique et culturelle des trajectoires locales – le cas d’Angoche, de l’Île de Moçambique et de Nacala Porto’ (PhD., Bordeaux, 2009), p. 305. See also Chichava’s Chapter 1 and Do Rosário’s Chapter 2 in this volume. 13   Legrand, ‘Logique de guerre’, p. 88; Sérgio Inácio Chichava, ‘Le “vieux Mozambique”: Étude sur l’identité politique de la Zambézie’, (PhD., Bordeaux, 2007); Do Rosário, ‘Les Mairies des “autres”’. 14   For a critical view of this argument, see Morier-Genoud’s Chapter 5 in this volume. Some analysts argue that the lack of popular support led to more massacres and atrocities against the population in the south. See Margaret Hall, ‘The Mozambican National Resistance Movement (RENAMO): A Study in the Destruction of an African Country’, Africa: The Journal of the International African Institute, 60 (1990), 53; Finnegan, A Complicated War, p. 72. However, the level of Renamo’s perpetration of violence against civilians in the centre and north increased over the course of the war, amplifying people’s discontent with the rebels and their support of the new Naparama force.

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porous border with Malawi to achieve a high level of military organization and stage large-scale attacks on economic infrastructure and district towns.15

Civilian responses to wartime violence The population in Nampula and Zambezia provinces suffered severely from the consequences of war. In addition to the violence perpetrated by both Renamo and Frelimo forces, the coastal areas of Nampula and the central areas of Zambezia were affected by famines in the late 1980s. Drought, poor harvest, and theft of relief goods by local officials, soldiers and civilians led to hunger and mass starvation.16 In early 1987, the situation in Zambezia was the worst in the country, with 105,000 people affected by hunger.17 People did not remain passive victims of war, however. They developed various strategies to respond to the violence, but only few of them succeeded in successfully protecting the population. Most people migrated. At the time of Naparama’s emergence, 500,000 people in Zambezia province were displaced or affected by the war and 100,000 refugees had fled to neighbouring Malawi.18 The displaced no longer had access to their fields and they were dependent on limited supplies of aid relief. In addition to migrating, people developed unarmed strategies of defence, such as peace zones – areas in which people were able to convince Renamo and Frelimo not to attack. Such peace zones emerged in the north with support from the Catholic Church and Jehovah’s Witnesses.19 The most well-known case of an unarmed defence strategy was a peace zone in southern Mozambique. It was created by a spirit medium in the village of Mungoi in Manjacaze, in the province of Gaza.20 When violence in Gaza escalated in 1987, people believed that the spirit of a former headman, Augusto Sidawanhane Mungoi (also Mongoi), awakened and spoke through his granddaughter Cristina Chemane, a traditional leader who became his principal medium.21 After a severe attack  Finnegan, A Complicated War, p. 71.   Memba Death Toll Still Rising’, Mozambiquefile 153 (April 1989), pp. 8–9; ‘Mass Starvation in Memba’, Mozambiquefile, 152 (March 1989), pp. 4–5. 17   ‘Milhares de víctimas da fome e da guerra’, Tempo 847 (Maputo, 4 January 1987), p. 23. 18   Fernando Manuel, ‘Para compreender o presente’, Tempo (Maputo 1989), p. 7. In all of Mozambique in late 1989, one third of the country’s 15 million people were threatened by famine, 100,000 had been killed, more than 1 million people had fled the country, and 2 million were displaced within Mozambique; see Karl Maier, ‘A Program for Peace’, Africa Report (1989), p. 58. 19   Wilson, ‘Cults of Violence and Counter-Violence’. 20   Gil Lauriciano, ‘Spiritual Revolution: Another Revolution in the Countryside’, Domingo (Maputo) (1990). In the context of Mozambican society and culture, the spirit mediums relevant here are ancestral spirits. The spirits of the dead that cannot get to rest are believed to influence the world of the living. The descendants acquire the support of the spirits through spirit possession, a process by which spirits speak and act through a living person. Spirit possession provides the living with knowledge and power. See David Lan, Guns & Rain: Guerrillas & Spirit Mediums in Zimbabwe (London, UK and Berkeley, CA: James Currey, 1985); Wilson, ‘Cults of Violence and Counter-Violence’, p. 542; Francisco Lerma Martínez, O povo macua e a sua cultura. Análise dos valores culturais do povo macua no ciclo vital, Maúa, Moçambique 1971–1985 (Maputo: Paulinas, 2008). 21   Karl Maier, Into the House of the Ancestors: Inside the New Africa (New York, NY: John Wiley, 1998), p. 51–63. People in the village stated that Mungoi had received his powers from his mother who had been a powerful traditional healer. See Mary B. Anderson and Marshall Wallace, Opting Out of War: Strategies to Prevent Violent Conflict (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2013), p. 146. 15 16

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in December 1987 during which 92 people died, the spirit asked – through his medium – for a meeting with Renamo, during which it demanded the group to never attack the village again.22 At first the rebels did not listen, but after the spirit of Mungoi sent his message directly to spirit mediums in Renamo camps, the area was protected. Schools remained open and villagers could work their fields.23 Thus, the village of Mungoi became an ‘oasis’,24 allowing people to work and travel safely in the area. The spirit of Mungoi is just one famous example of many, in which people mobilized cultural resources to bring an end to the war. Other important examples include the peace zones of Chief Capiteni and Chief Gadina in Morrumbala district in Zambezia province and of Samatenje, close to Renamo’s Gorongosa headquarters in Sofala province.25 Samatenje remained truly neutral by playing Renamo and Frelimo off against each other, selling war medicines to both sides, and supposedly being protected by dangerous animals that would attack anyone who entered his area with a weapon.26 However, peace zones such as Mungoi’s provided limited relief from the hardship of being removed from one’s areas of origin. Peace zones were static and did not extend from one area to another. Thus, people were not protected in their area, but had to move into such peace zones to be spared rebel violence. Moreover, the activities of traditional authorities and the creation of peace zones did not only have a military dimension, but also an economic one. Peace zones provided ‘major opportunities for trade and production in an environment of scarcity’.27 Opportunities emerged not just for the community that would be able to engage in trading and farming, but also for the traditional authorities. For example, Mungoi asked for presents or work in exchange for liberating family members from Renamo-held areas.28 Traditional war medicines were not provided for free, but sold to communities and individuals. This mixture of military, economic, and social effects of the ‘counter-cults of violence’ had significant implications for the evolution of these movements until the end of the war, which I will discuss below.29 As an alternative, some community residents in the centre and north developed more offensive strategies of armed protection that spread across district borders. The formation of self-defence forces and community-initiated militias – of which Naparama was one – appeared more viable over time, as residents were able to ensure that they could remain in their home towns. Cultural resources of spiritual protection were also vital in the case of  Maier, Into the House of the Ancestors, p. 52.   Anderson & Wallace, Opting Out of War, Chapter 11. 24   Carolyn Nordstrom, A Different Kind of War Story (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997), p. 148. 25   Wilson, ‘Cults of Violence and Counter-Violence’, 554–5. 26   Ibid., p. 557; Alex Vines, Renamo: Terrorism in Mozambique (London: James Currey, 1991), p. 118; Maier, Into the House of the Ancestors, p. 66. 27   Wilson, ‘Cults of Violence and Counter-Violence’, p. 556. 28   Ibid., p. 555; Jane Perlez, ‘Spared by Rebels? The Spirit Says That’ll Be $2’, The New York Times, 24 August 1990, p. A4 29   Ibid.; Wilson, ‘Cults of Violence and Counter-Violence’, p. 555. 22 23

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community-initiated militias. The organization of self-defence forces was partly possible due to the different characteristics of spirit mediums in the Bantu culture of the centre and north compared to those in the southern part of Mozambique. For example, while the Shona mhondoro of Zimbabwe and southern Mozambique primarily provides group protection, the Macua-Lómuè munepa of northern Mozambique provides an individual with certain abilities and protection.30 This difference has consequences for the kinds of movements that emerged in various regions in Mozambique. While Mungoi in southern Mozambique provided group protection, Naparama (and other spirit mediums) in northern Mozambique provided special powers to individuals.31 The formation of Naparama built on community defence forces organized by the party-state and local administration, the ‘popular militias’ (milícias populares) and community initiatives of self-defence. Beginning in the early 1980s, Frelimo relied on the popular militias – initially created as political forces in communal villages and state companies – as the first line of defence against the growing threat of Renamo. The military took over the command of these forces and provided training. In addition, Frelimo formed forças de defesa territorial (‘territorial defence forces’) in 1985, which received rudimentary military training to defend the rural areas in the districts.32 These forces, however, lacked morale, materiel and efficient leadership. In Namarrói district in Zambezia, for example, the local administration explained the high desertion rate for the militias by pointing to weak and inefficient leadership and a lack of weapons.33 Community initiatives for local defence spread in the mid-1980s. The journalist Gil Lauriciano reported in 1986 of ten thousand civilians being armed with spears and knives to defend their communities in various districts in Zambezia.34 In Marea, a village in Namarrói district in Zambezia province, people used spears and machetes to defend themselves after they had fled into the mountains and developed elaborate techniques to control the movement of people.35 In the village of Nahipa in Mecubúri district, the grupo decidido (‘the 30  Lan, Guns & Rain; Wilson, ‘Cults of Violence and Counter-Violence’, p. 542; Lerma Martínez, O povo macua. 31   See, on the spirits among the southern Mozambican Tsonga, the sikwembu, Alcinda Manuel Honwana, Espíritos vivos, tradições modernas: possessão de espíritos e reintegração social pós-guerra no sul de Moçambique (Maputo: Promedia, 2002). 32   It is unclear what the exact difference is between the milícias populares and the forças de defesa territorial; in many districts, the ‘popular militia’ appeared to be part of the ‘territorial defence forces’. 33   República Popular de Moçambique, Província da Zambezia, Administração do Distrito de Namarrói, Informação do Governo Distrital sobre as actividades realizados referentes aos meses de Janeiro a Setembro 1989, 2 October, 1989 (AGZ, Quelimane). 34  Gil Lauriciano, ‘Resistência popular cresce na Zambezia: Dez mil pessoas armadas com zagaias’, Notícias (1986). 35   Interview with religious leader, 1 May 2012, Pm9, Namarrói, Zambezia. In order to protect the identities of the respondents, the interview citations indicate date, location, the interviewee’s role during the war, and gender of the interviewees: N (Naparama); F (Frelimo combatant); R (Renamo combatant); M (militiaman); P (religious leader); L (local leader including traditional and other community leaders); H (traditional healer); G (government representative); m (male); f (female).

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decided group’) emerged before the arrival of Naparama – a group of civilians armed with spears and machetes to patrol at night.36 In Namacurra, the ‘Anakabudula’, peasants armed with spears and machetes, emerged in 1986 to protect the district from Renamo forces.37 As a consequence of their limited means and capabilities, many militiamen and community defence forces joined the emerging Naparama. The Naparama provided the villagers with the necessary courage, offensive tactics, and effective leadership to confront and successfully pursue Renamo combatants.

The formation of Naparama Zambezia and Nampula provinces witnessed the emergence of the Naparama, the most important community-initiated militias in the late 1980s. The Naparama leader Manuel António was from the district of Namuno of Mozambique’s northern-most province, Cabo Delgado.38 He was responsible for the formation of Naparama in a few districts in Nampula and many districts across Zambezia, and became the group’s main leader in Zambezia.39 António maintained that he had died of measles as a child, had been buried, and then was resurrected after seven days.40 He told the story that he had spent six months in the mountains, where he had received a divine mission from Jesus Christ to liberate the Mozambican people from the suffering of the war, and learned of a medicine to turn bullets into water.41 António’s story varies in different accounts, however. In Nordstrom’s account, António received his mission on Mount Namuli in Gurué district in the border area between Nampula and Zambezia provinces.42 Other accounts state that he learned about traditional medicine in the mountains in his province of origin, Cabo Delgado.43 Since Mount Namuli is the legendary origin of the Macua and Lómuè people, the narrative of receiving the mission in a place as culturally significant for  The initiative for the group came from the local administration; nevertheless, the group attracted many youths and took on the character of a community-based group. See interviews with former Naparama combatants, 26 October 2011, Nm29, Nahipa, Mecubúri, Nampula; 22 October 2011, Nm27, Mecubúri, Nampula. 37   Rosário Jaime Lemia, ‘Pós-Independência, guerra e reassentamento da população no distrito de Namacurra (1975–1998/9)’, BA Thesis (Maputo: Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, 2001). 38   The story I tell here differs in many details from those told by Chichava and Do Rosário in their contributions to this volume, which is based mainly on documents from government archives. This is due to my use of a variety of different sources, including newspaper and interview material. It shows that the Frelimo administration had limited knowledge about Naparama’s origins and what happened in other districts, and thus the information included in the government documents is often incomplete. 39   See the Naparama’s presence across Zambezia and Nampula provinces in Map 3.1. Interviews with former Naparama combatants, 19 September 2011, Nm11, Nicoadala, Zambezia; 20 September 2011, Fm2-N, Nicoadala, Zambezia. 40   Rachel Waterhouse, ‘Antonio’s Triumph of the Spirits’, Africa South (Harare, May 1991), p. 14; Nordstrom, A Different Kind of War Story, p. 58. 41   In the Macua-Lómuè culture, ancestral spirits live in cemeteries, the wilderness, rivers, and mountains. See Lerma Martínez, O povo macua, p. 207. António’s stay in the cemetery and mountains is therefore significant for receiving magical powers from ancestral spirits. 42  Nordstrom, A Different Kind of War Story, p. 58. 43  Interview with former Naparama combatant, 30 September 2011, Nm20, Nicoadala, Zambezia. 36

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the potential recipients of his services as the Namuli mountain served as a powerful legitimation for Manuel António’s work. Manuel António mobilized followers by ‘vaccinating’ them with a medicine. In order to become Naparama combatants, youths had to go through an initiation ritual that took place as follows: Thirty youths were taken to be treated. [Manuel António] vaccinated us with razor blades. [He] cut our bodies with razor blades and put the medicine [into the wound]. Others he rubbed the whole body [with the medicine]. After all this, we were put to a test, [he] took sharpened machetes and attempted to cut [us], but because of the medicine, the machetes did not hurt us. He took a rifle and shot in our direction and nothing happened with us. And then we were told the rules that we had to respect. We paid five meticais for a small ceremony.44

The rules that new recruits learned about concerned their (and their families’) behaviour in the household and on the battlefield. They were akin to common rules that users of traditional medicine had to respect, such as not taking a bath for a couple of days or not to eat certain foods. Naparama’s code of conduct for the battlefield ensured their surprising success. Naparama combatants were not allowed to look back, only look ahead; no one was allowed to be in front of the other; no fighting in the shade, always in the sun; if the enemy was in the shade, we were not allowed to be in the shade as well … we could not retreat when we heard shots, we had to go there where they [Renamo] were.45

By continuously advancing, often while singing, and not turning back, Naparama created such fear among Renamo combatants that it often did not come to a direct confrontation between the two forces. Renamo combatants left their bases as soon as they heard Naparama approaching. Those Naparama combatants who violated any of these rules, in contrast, ‘stayed in the bush; when someone shot, the bullet chased you until it hit you’.46 All deaths among the Naparama combatants were explained by reference to violations of these rules. Manuel António introduced himself as the only Naparama initiator and claimed that his medicine was the authentic one, but other accounts of Naparama’s formation contradict António’s version of the story. There is ample evidence that the various Naparama forces across Zambezia and Nampula, including those of Manuel António, had the same origin. The initial vaccine appears to have come from Lalaua district in Nampula province. After   Interview with former Naparama combatant, 9 September 2011, Nm2, Nicoadala, Zambezia.   Ibid. 46   Interview with former Naparama combatant, 9 September 2011, Nm1, Nicoadala, Zambezia. The same former Naparama combatant reported that there was a medicine that commanders had that could provide relief when someone violated a rule, so that those combatants would not die in battle. When combatants were surprised by an attack but had sexual relations shortly before that moment, they had to rub their body with salt or ash to purify it. 44 45

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António’s death, rumours spread that António had learned the medicine and skills from a ‘powerful and venerated spirit leader and healer who lived in the remote bush of Nampula province’.47 This spirit leader presumably was the elder Zinco from the village of Méti in Lalaua district, as several interviewees mentioned that António had reached other districts in Nampula coming from Méti.48 The various accounts of António’s story and the origin of the Naparama vaccine and ‘movement’ may be explained by its rapid diffusion across Zambezia and Nampula and the decentralized character of its organization. Once Naparama formed in Nampula province, the militia spread across district and provincial boundaries. According to the accounts of journalists, of former Naparama combatants, and of a resident from Ribáuè, Manuel António mobilized the first peasants in Ribáuè district in Nampula province in late 1988 and then entered Zambezia in early 1989.49 In Ribáuè district, António initiated several men who then accompanied him on his travels as his personal guard. Among them was Manuel Sabonete, who took over the leadership after Manuel António’s death and is still considered the Naparama leader in Nicoadala district in Zambezia today.50 The group entered Zambezia in the area of Alto Ligonha in Gilé district and first worked in Alto Molócuè.51 They then moved into the districts of Ile and Mocuba.52 Later, António also formed Naparama groups in Pebane, Maganja da Costa, Namacurra, Nicoadala, Lugela, Namarrói, Milange, Gurué and Inhassunge (see Map 3.1). The Naparama groups increased their offensive capabilities over time. In Alto Molócuè, Manuel António first worked on improving road security by vaccinating bus passengers, and then, once he received the (indirect) support of the local administration, formed small groups to attack Renamo strongholds in the northern part of the district. The Naparama militia soon created a base in Nampevo, a locality at the border between the districts of Mocuba and Ile, and from there launched offensives into Mocuba, Ile, and Gilé.53 The  Nordstrom, A Different Kind of War Story, pp. 69–70.  Interview with civilian, 29 November 2011, m23, Chinga, Murrupula, Nampula; interview with former Naparama combatant, 20 September 2011, Fm2-N, Nicoadala, Zambezia. Dinerman assumes that Zinco produced his own Parama vaccine independently of António and then created a group of Naparama combatants in Namapa district in 1990 with the help of the district administrator who was previously the head of the local administration in Lalaua. See Alice Dinerman, Revolution, Counter-revolution and Revisionism in Post-colonial Africa: The Case of Mozambique, 1975–1994 (Abingdon: Routledge, 2006), p. 7. 49  Waterhouse, ‘Antonio’s Triumph of the Spirits’, p. 14. See also interview with former Naparama combatant, 20 September 2011, Fm2-N, Nicoadala, Zambezia; interview with civilian, 29 November 2011, m23, Chinga, Murrupula, Nampula; interview with former Renamo combatant, 15 October 2011, Rm2, Mecubúri, Nampula. 50  Interview with Naparama combatant, 30 September 2011, Nm20, Nicoadala, Zambezia. Manuel Sabonete, the current Naparama leader, claims that Manuel António and his first group of Naparamas from Ribáuè also vaccinated people in Muecate and Lalaua districts, but I was not able to confirm this information. Interview 30 September 2011, Nm20, Nicoadala, Zambezia. 51   Fabião Manuel Pereira, ‘Particularidades da dinâmica do conflito armado no distrito do Alto Molócuè, 1982–1992: Violência armada e guerra mágica’, BA Thesis (Maputo: Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, 1999), p. 82. 52   Interview with Naparama commanders, 30 September 2011, Nm20, Nicoadala, Zambezia; 23 August 2011, Gr-Nm1, Quelimane. 53   Pereira, ‘Particularidades da dinâmica do conflito armado’, p. 86. 47

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base at Nampevo served as a launching point for Naparama’s epic attack on Renamo’s regional base at Muaquiua in early-mid 1991.54 In Nauela, a former Renamo stronghold, Naparama began to punish the population for supporting Renamo and pillaged their property. Consequently, Naparama lost the support of the people and Manuel António was forced to move to Mocuba, the district to the south, to be able to recruit more youths.55 In Mocuba, Manuel António established new headquarters, until he moved the latter to Nicoadala, presumably in 1990. Although they may have had the same origin, the Naparama in Nampula evolved independently of Naparama in Zambezia province. The formation of Naparama in Nampula province is not very well known. This is partly due to the fact that António monopolized the media attention, thereby obscuring the story of Naparama manifestations in other regions. In contrast to the Naparama leaders in Nampula province, Manuel António spoke Portuguese well, came to bars in Mocuba and Quelimane, and frequently invited journalists (and also researchers such as Carolyn Nordstrom) to come and observe his initiation ceremonies. Therefore, he was well known in Mocuba and Quelimane, received frequent national and international press coverage, and was presented as the Naparama’s main leader.56 In Nampula province, militia units were formed when an acquaintance of Manuel António from Ribáuè district, Ambrósio Albino, started his own group in Murrupula district. Ambrósio Albino was a former commander of the late president Samora Machel’s special forces Boina Vermelha (Red Berets). He had left the military after being wounded in battle. He had learned how to prepare the medicine from Manuel António in Ribáuè and became one – or maybe the main – leader of the Naparama in Nampula.57 In 1990, Albino travelled from Nampula city to Móthi, a small village close to the district town of Murrupula, to treat a traditional healer. When Renamo units attacked the village during his visit, Albino offered to vaccinate youths with the Parama vaccine to help the people of Móthi avoid further attacks.58 Nampila Mupa,59 the traditional   See Wilson, ‘Cults of Violence and Counter-Violence’, p. 565.   Pereira, ‘Particularidades da dinâmica do conflito armado’, p. 84. 56  See for example, Lauriciano, ‘Spiritual Revolution’; Karl Maier, ‘Renamo Flee at Sight of Rag-tag Army’, The Independent (London, 27 July 1990); David Borges, ‘O Último dos Paramas’, Grande Reportagem, 111 (1992), pp. 48–53. Analysts and political commentators assumed that the Naparama in Nampula belonged to Manuel António’s group, but António distanced himself from the Naparama in Moma when they perpetrated violence against civilians, and claimed that these were not ‘authentic’ Naparama; see Wilson, ‘Cults of Violence and Counter-Violence’, p. 573. 57   Interview with civilian, 28 November 2011, m22, Chinga, Murrupula, Nampula. Albino’s nephew confirmed that Albino was from Lalaua, but lived in Ribáuè and then moved to Nampula city. See interview with former Naparama commander, 30 November 2011, Gr-Nm2, Nampula. A Naparama commander in Nicoadala confirmed that one of the members of Manuel António’s personal guard was called Ambrósio, and he was responsible for vaccinating new members, but it remained unclear whether this person and Ambrósio Albino were the same person. See interview with Naparama commander, 8 March 2011, Nm18, Nicoadala, Zambezia. 58  Interview with Naparama commander, 3 November, 2011, Nm32, Móthi, Murrupula, Nampula; interview with Naparama combatants, 30 November 2011, Gr-Nm2, Nampula. 59   In interviews and documents, Nampila is also referred to as ‘Mpila’, ‘Mbila’ or ‘Nhambila.’ ‘Mupa’ is also spelled ‘Mópo’ in government documents. 54 55

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Map 3.1  Overview of Naparama initiators and leaders in Zambezia and Nampula provinces (Source: Interview and archival sources, Corinna Jentzsch; Design and creation: Valérie Alfaurt, LAM/CNRS 2016.)

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Table 3.1  Overviews of Naparama initiators and leaders in Zambezia and Nampula provinces according to interview and archival sources

Initiator

Zambezia Province

Nampula Province

Manuel António

Gilé, Alto Molócuè, Mocuba, Gurué, Ile, Nicoadala, Namacurra, Pebane, Maganja da Costa, Lugela, Namarrói, Inhassunge, Milange, Morrumbala, Mopeia

Ribáuè, Lalaua, Mecubúri

Ambrósio Albino

Ribáuè, Murrupula

Silva Taitosse Mirasse

Mecubúri, Namapa

Nampila Mupa

Pebane, Maganja da Costa

Murrupula, Moma, Mogovolas, Angoche

healer and local leader (‘rei’) of Móthi accepted, and together they formed a Naparama unit.60 From Murrupula, Naparama spread across several districts in Nampula. Nampila became an important Naparama leader in Murrupula and neighbouring districts, and brought the vaccine to Moma, and presumably also to Mogovolas and Angoche districts (see Map 3.1). In 1990, local administrators in Pebane district in Zambezia close to the border to Nampula province asked Nampila to work in their district, where he (presumably) died in 1991. Albino taught the preparation of the medicine to his nephew Silva Taitosse Mirasse, who had accompanied him to Murrupula, and Silva mobilized peasants in Mecubúri and Namapa districts (see the overview of Naparama initiators in Table 3.1).

Frelimo’s response to Naparama Although the Frelimo government was at first sceptical of the emerging Naparama movement, it soon tolerated and even supported the militia. Observing events in war-torn Angola, where two insurgent movements were fighting against the government, government and party officials feared at first that the Naparama would evolve into a second insurgent force against the government. The local administration was also concerned that the group might make financial and material demands or seek compensation during or after the war. Tellingly, before Manuel António could work in Mocuba district, the local administration demanded he confirm that his goal was not money or political power, but only the protection of the population.61 60   Some residents of Nampila’s village claimed that Nampila already had a medicine that he mixed with Albino’s to create an even stronger vaccine. He had already treated the area around the village to prevent Renamo from attacking. See interview with former Naparama combatant, 4 November 2011, Nm36, Móthi, Murrupula, Nampula. 61   Interview with former Naparama leader, 6 June 2012, Nm46, Lugela, Zambezia.

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When local Frelimo officials realized that Naparama forces were loyal to the government and could support its war effort and maybe even alter the military stalemate, most of them supported Naparama’s recruitment efforts and some even agreed to joint military operations. Chichava (in Chapter 1), for example, reports about Frelimo’s co-optation of Naparama in Alto Molócuè in Zambezia province. In Mecubúri in Nampula province, the representatives of the local administration actively recruited youths for the Naparama and its forces ended up replacing Frelimo armed forces.62 The decision to tolerate the Naparama and even cooperate with them in certain districts was based on pragmatic calculations to further local power interests, not a change in the official party ideology of scientific socialism that despised anything ‘traditional’. Frelimo officials at the provincial and national level never officially acknowledged their cooperation with Naparama in certain districts, even if the party had abandoned all references to Marxism-Leninism at its party congress in 1989 and was changing its attitudes towards traditional authorities in the early 1990s. As the national government denied any (formal) collaboration with Naparama, Naparama was not considered a party to the conflict during the peace negotiations between Frelimo and Renamo and was therefore not included in post-war demobilization programmes.63

The Competition for Spiritual Power The evolution of the Naparama in the two provinces demonstrates how fragile spiritual power was, how little institutionalized it stayed, and how easily it could be challenged. The early success of Naparama can be explained by the spiritual dimension of the armed conflict. According to Wilson, Renamo and Naparama (and Frelimo) are examples of ‘cults of violence’, as their violent activity possessed ‘ritualistic elements which the perpetrators – who in such circumstances see themselves as some kind of brotherhood socially discrete from the victims – believe provides or imputes value or power into the activity’.64 Renamo leaders made use of spirit mediums in their bases and referred to the war as a ‘war of the spirits’ as they aimed to protect the ancestral spirits that Frelimo sought to abandon.65 Naparama severely challenged Renamo’s superiority in the spiritual domain as it emerged as a ‘cult of counter-violence’ to   Interview with former Naparama combatants, 26 October 2011, Nm29, Nahipa, Mecubúri, Nampula; 16 October 2011, Nm-24, Mecubúri, Nampula; 22 October 2011, Nm27, Mecubúri, Nampula; interview with local government official, 17 October 2011, Gf1, Mecubúri, Nampula. 63   João Paulo Borges Coelho & Alex Vines, ‘Pilot Study on Demobilization and Re-integration of Ex-combatants in Mozambique, USAID’s Mozambique Demobilization and Reintegration Support Project (656-0235)’, University of Oxford, Refugee Studies Programme, Queen Elizabeth House (1992). 64   Wilson, ‘Cults of Violence and Counter-Violence’, p. 531. 65   Christian Geffray, La cause des armes au Mozambique: Anthropologie d’une guerre civile (Paris, 1990); Otto Roesch, ‘RENAMO and the Peasantry in Southern Mozambique: A View from Gaza Province’, Canadian Journal of African Studies, 26 (1992), p. 472. 62

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challenge Renamo’s ‘spiritual power’.66 The main proof of Naparama’s prowess and spiritual superiority was the death of Renamo’s northern commander Calisto Meque – a powerful and feared personality believed to have spiritual powers – that Naparama combatants claim Manuel António caused during a battle at Renamo’s base of Muaquiua in early-mid 1991.67 However, Naparama’s cult of counter-violence was itself challenged, and provoked counter-movements, such as those of special forces formed by traditional healers in Renamo camps, and of rival Naparama forces.

Anti-Naparama forces Due to the competitive logic of spiritual power, the Naparama forces were soon challenged by their own means. Renamo leaders in the areas in which Naparama was active soon realized that they had to respond to Naparama with a similar force in order to regain supremacy. Renamo forces in the border area between Nampula and Zambezia provinces therefore created their own versions of Naparama. Leaders identified traditional healers capable of initiating members of Renamo’s existing auxiliary forces – the mujeeba (also called mujuba, mudjiba, mujiba, majiba, madjuba or madjuhba) – to empower them to successfully respond to Naparama’s threat. These anti-Naparama forces were modelled on the Naparama; youths were initiated into the groups by use of a medicine that was tied to a certain code of conduct on the battlefield. In Nampula province, traditional healers in the Renamo base of Namilasse in Murrupula treated youths with a vaccine that was supposed to empower them to confront the Naparama and the Frelimo army in the town of Murrupula: The régulo was Mário. The Naparamas came from the town and killed many people here. So the régulo arranged a traditional healer to form a group here, the Mutapassa. This drug was the same as the Parama [medicine] because sometimes those from Frelimo fled.68

The vaccine for the auxiliary Renamo forces supposedly had the same effect as the Parama medicine. The group used spears, but also had a few firearms. Mutapassa combatants followed similar rules as the Naparama regarding prohibited food, but their main rule was that they were not allowed to shoot unless others did first.69

  Wilson, ‘Cults of Violence and Counter-Violence’, p. 529.   Whether Naparama killed Meque is contested, however, as Frelimo claimed to have done so much earlier during a battle in the town of Gilé in July 1988. See ‘Mozambique: Setback to Peace’, Africa Confidential, 32, 4 (1991), p. 4; Wilson, ‘Cults of Violence and Counter-Violence’. 68   Interview with civilian, 24 November 2011, m18, Namilasse, Murrupula, Nampula. Other interviewees identified the traditional healer as Sabala from Taveia in Ribáuè district in Nampula who had treated youths in Ribáuè-Sede. See interview with civilian, 28 November 2011, m22, Chinga, Murrupula, Nampula; interview with former Frelimo combatant, 28 November 2011, Fm13, Nampaua, Murrupula, Nampula. 69   Interviews with civilians, 24 November 2011, m18; 24 November 2011, m19, Namilasse, Murrupula, Nampula. 66 67

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The conflict also escalated in Zambezia province, where Renamo sought to create a force as similar to the Naparama as possible. Zambezia’s anti-Naparama force emerged in the early months of 1991, led by the traditional healer Mulelepea (or Mulelepeya/Malelepea; Mulelepeia in Chichava’s contribution to this volume), which may even have led to the defection of some Naparama combatants.70 Renamo leaders chose between several traditional healers when struggling to respond to Frelimo’s counter-offensive, and finally settled on a healer whose powers resembled those of the Naparama initiators: Frelimo had intensified their attacks here in Nauela. This was when Renamo hired Mulelepea of Namixaxen. However, there was another man called Namukhotxen of the area of Nanthupa. Renamo asked the latter how they could solve the critical situation provoked by the enemy, and Namukhotxen answered that he was capable [to help] because he could transform himself into a lion and decimate the enemies. Renamo didn’t accept his proposal. By contrast, Mulelepea said that he would use magic, vaccinating the warriors so that Frelimo’s bullets didn’t penetrate their bodies. He was authorized to recruit men, usually youths called anamavaka [spear users], to be vaccinated. They began their military operations. Renamo’s guerrilla fighters advanced in the second line and the anamavaka in the first line of offence.71

Mulelepea (Mulelepeia in Chichava’s Chapter 1) was an elder of about 70 years and claimed that he had learned how to transform himself into a child to escape detention by the sepoys (cipaios, i.e. ‘native police’) during the colonial period. He may have been linked to the other Naparama initiators through his connection to the traditional healer Zinco in Méti, Lalaua, as Pereira speaks of ‘Meto’ as the place where Mulelepea learned about the vaccine.72 When Mulelepea heard that there were Naparama in Nauela, he claimed that António’s vaccine was weak and went to Nauela to put his abilities into practice.73 He travelled to other bases in other districts and also reached Renamo’s regional base Maquiringa in Namarrói district.74 Although Renamo strove for similarities between the Naparama and the anti-Naparama forces to ensure that the latter could cope with the strength of the former, there was one major difference. In contrast to Naparama’s largely voluntary, bottom-up mobilization, the formation of the anti-Naparama forces was a top-down decision from the Renamo leadership. In other regards, however, Mulelepea’s forces resembled those of Naparama. Mulelepea’s combatants had to follow similar rules of conduct as the Naparama.75 Moreover, in the same way as Naparama conducted joint operations with Frelimo,   Legrand, ‘Logique de guerre’, p. 103. See also Chichava’s Chapter 1 in this volume.   Interviewee cited in Pereira, ‘Particularidades da dinâmica do conflito armado’, p. 94. Translation from Portuguese by the author. 72   Ibid. 73   Ibid., p. 95. 74  Interview with former Renamo combatants, 22 June 2012, Gr-Rm3, Rumala, Namarrói, Zambezia. 75   Ibid. 70

71

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the Mulelepea combatants advanced in front of the regular Renamo units to make use of their special forces to clear the area. Renamo’s strategy to challenge the power of Naparama in the spiritual domain played out successfully. Mulelepea’s warriors succeeded in posing a significant threat to Naparama and Frelimo units. Mulelepea’s force had their first confrontation with Naparama in April 1991 in Nauela, during which 25 Naparama combatants died.76 Mulelepea’s combatants were called ‘Khonkos’, which means the strong and powerful.77 A former Frelimo soldier in Murrupula claimed that ‘Khonkos’ denotes people who are ‘crazy’ and ‘don’t like to joke around’.78 This demonstrates that Frelimo soldiers considered these forces as unpredictable, which increased their threat on the battlefield. Naparama combatants were more afraid of the Khonkos than of Renamo combatants, as Mulelepea’s forces were, according to some former Naparama combatants, supposedly difficult to catch with bare hands and – in contrast to regular Renamo fighters – were able to kill Naparama with their spears.79

The fragmentation of Naparama The Naparama’s spiritual power was not only easily challenged by its enemies, but it also suffered contestation internally. In addition to Renamo’s spiritual counter-offensive, the fragmentation within the Naparama movement severely limited Naparama’s further expansion and escalated the armed conflict, as it contributed to the death of the two main Naparama leaders in Nampula and Zambezia provinces. While Manuel António may have been responsible for the death of Nampula’s Naparama leader Nampila (discussed below), his own death in a battle between Naparama and Renamo forces in December 1991 in Macuse in Namacurra district is rumoured to have been caused by traitors stemming from his own group.80 Above all, stories of betrayal attempt to explain the waning power of the Naparama forces, but they also point to crucial conflicts within Naparama over power and resources.

Cultivating reputations as the most powerful Naparama leader The power of armed forces that rely heavily on traditional resources depends largely on the charisma and reputation of their leaders as powerful traditional healers and fearless warriors. Such reputation is important to gain the trust and support from the local population to provide resources and recruits to the emerging group. But such reputation can be easily contested, in particular   Pereira, ‘Particularidades da dinâmica do conflito armado’, p. 98. Also see Chichava’s Chapter 1.   Ibid. 78   Interview with former Frelimo combatant, 28 November 2011, Fm13, Nampaua, Murrupula, Nampula. 79   Pereira, ‘Particularidades da dinâmica do conflito armado’, p. 100. 80   There are many versions of this story, but all are about António’s lack of protective powers due to a betrayal by his mistress, his assistant, or a former Naparama member who had joined Renamo. See interviews with religious leader, 8 September 2011, Pm2; civilian, 14 September 2011, f1; and community leader, 23 September 2011, Lm3a, Nicoadala. See also Pereira, ‘Particularidades da dinâmica do conflito armado’, p. 91; Lemia, ‘Pós-Independência, guerra e reassentamento’, pp. 57–8. 76

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when leaders are confronted with deaths among their own troops on the battlefield and when the leadership of a large militia is tied to certain benefits and resources. This also occurred in the case of the Naparama. The mobilization success of Naparama forces depended on their reputation as courageous warriors who would survive even the heaviest episodes of fighting. As soon as a force was accused of dying in battle, the power of the traditional healer in charge was in demise, since his medicine appeared to have no effect. Each of the Naparama leaders declared to be better than the other – to have the ‘authentic’ and most powerful medicine – as claiming the monopoly on the vaccination of youths was a gateway to money, power and fame. Zambezia’s main Naparama leader (and the most famous one), Manuel António, sought to establish a monopoly on youth initiation into militias by cultivating his reputation as a powerful leader with a medicine able to defeat Renamo and protect thousands of peasants from the violence. His strategy proved successful; for a long time, he worked as the main Naparama initiator in the province. When he reached a new district, he first introduced himself to the local administration and asked for a meeting with the population. During the meeting, he re-enacted his own resurrection in order to establish people’s trust in his powers. A resident of Namarrói recalls António’s public ceremony like this: The first day I saw Naparama was on a Sunday. The Administrator Mucutueliua had invited many people in order to see how [the Naparama] did things, there by the church. We didn’t wait long and went to watch. They dug a grave as if it was a cemetery and they started singing and carried [Manuel António] over to [the area] where the student housing is today and buried him there. They put a mat [in the grave] and a big rectangular mirror and he started talking [predicting the number of] troops and weapons in the base of Sahia and in the base of Mussisse. Everything that was at the base. Then they covered the grave. When he left [the grave], they started to sing and started a fire with big pieces of firewood. He went [to the fire], sat down and started to take piece after piece [out of the fire] and put them on his chest. They brought some leaves and a mortar … The youth who wanted to join the group came and took a leaf from the mortar and when they took a machete and struck [his] body, they put the leaf [on the wound] and the wound healed right away. The next day, they left and went to test whether the medicine worked. They advised the new Naparama combatants that whoever ducked down or retreated [would die]. Even though the enemy had a weapon, you should not withdraw – they even captured [the enemy] and brought the captured men here with their weapons.81

The main strategy by which Manuel António sought to gain trust in his abilities and support from the population was to retrieve people abducted by Renamo. In fact, many people remember strongly that with the advent of Naparama, they could finally return home.82 Naparama’s major task came to   Interview with civilian, 26 May 2012, m28, Namarrói, Zambezia. See similar descriptions of the ceremony by Nordstrom, A Different Kind of War Story, pp. 58f.   Karl Maier, ‘Triumph of Spears over Guns Brings Refugees Home’, The Independent (London, 1990).

81

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be the capture – not the killing – of Renamo combatants and collaborators, and the ‘recuperation’ of the population from Renamo-held areas: We didn’t go [on missions] to kill. If a [Renamo combatant] was shooting over there and no more bullets were left in the magazine, we said ‘drop your weapon’. Really – you are here and he is where that mango tree is [demonstrating the proximity between himself and the Renamo combatant], [we said] ‘drop your weapon’. So he approached to fight with his bare hands – ‘let’s go, brother’. We, this movement, from the beginning to the end, it was all about recuperating [population]. It was not about killing. We recuperated people, even [when they were] armed. We captured weapons. Then we took the people [and the weapons] and presented them to the government.83

The Naparama turned out to be very successful in this strategy, which bolstered popular support and the fame of the Naparama leader. The British journalist Karl Maier estimated in February 1990 that Naparama had succeeded in returning over 100,000 displaced to their homes.84 To further strengthen the support among the people, Naparama forces also focused on securing areas freed from Renamo, so that the displaced could return to their districts. By creating the opportunity to return, Manuel António created the expectation among the peasants to be able to work their fields and provide for themselves, ending the dependence on the government and relief supplies. This meant that Naparama enjoyed much support from among the displaced and was able to recruit among them volunteers for their forces, as in Nicoadala district in Zambezia: Where did Manuel António mobilize the people to initiate them into Naparama combatants? That was in the village [for the displaced]. Because many refugees lived in the village – people tired of the war. Thus when [Manuel António] Parama arrived and said he was bringing [this medication], all of those who were in the village and suffered agreed [to participate], and the headquarters was there in the village.85

In fact, Manuel António deliberately targeted the displaced young men living in impoverished refugee camps around government-controlled hamlets for recruitment ‘with a promise of a means to restore their dignity’.86 In addition to providing a safe return for the displaced, Naparama took on the task to defend the people in their villages. Naparama’s main task was to ‘defend the population’,87 and ‘save our sons, belongings, and family members’.88 In both 83  Interview with former Naparama combatant, 30 September 2011, Nm18, Nicoadala, Zambezia. 84   Maier, ‘Triumph of Spears over Guns’. 85   Interview with former Naparama combatant, 9 September 2011, Nm1, Nicoadala, Zambezia. 86  Maier, Into the House of the Ancestors, p. 67. 87   Interview with former Frelimo combatant, 13 September 2011, Fm1, Nicoadala, Zambezia. 88   Interview with former Naparama combatants, 30 September 2011, Gr-Nm2, Nampula.

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provinces, former Naparama combatants claimed to be the main – or even only – armed group that protected the population. As a consequence of the widespread success of Manuel António’s forces, his predominance was uncontested. When his troops managed to assault Renamo’s main base at Muaquiua in Mocuba district, António became famous in both rural and urban areas. National and international press coverage increased his fame even more.89 However, Manuel António had to build up his reputation slowly, as an example from Mecubúri demonstrates. One of the first districts in which Manuel António vaccinated peasants was Mecubúri in Nampula province, where he went shortly before or after his visit to Ribáuè. When the combatants he had vaccinated died in battle, Mecubúri’s residents were unconvinced of the power of his vaccine and refused to join. António left the district without leaving a group of Naparama behind. One Mecubúri resident claimed António was working on both sides of the conflict and joined Renamo after leaving the district – an expression of general mistrust towards António.90 This was not the end of Naparama in the district, however. When Mecubúri residents later learned about the elder Nampila and his apparently more powerful medicine, a group of youths went to Murrupula to receive the vaccine.

The challenge to Manuel António’s predominance Manuel António’s predominance in Zambezia, based on his fame and reputation, did not remain unchallenged. When the Naparama leader in Nampula province, Nampila, arrived in Pebane district, he reportedly encountered Manuel António upon arrival.91 In the early fall of 1990, they got into a struggle for power. Both leaders accused each other of not using the authentic medicine, which supposedly explained why their forces were dying in battle. A Naparama commander of Manuel António’s forces went as far as accusing Nampila of collaborating with Renamo: When the elder [Manuel António] arrived, the other [Nampila] was [vaccinating] the other side [Renamo] without the proper medication. Because when he prepared a group to go to the bush, they died. This means that the medicine that he used did not have any effect.92

The local administration in Pebane was concerned about the conflict between the two leaders, as it diminished the Naparama’s credibility among   See, for example, Lauriciano, ‘Spiritual Revolution’; Maier, ‘Renamo Flee at Sight of Rag-tag Army’; Maier, ‘Triumph of spears over guns’; Borges, ‘O Último dos Paramas’. 90   Interview with former Frelimo and Naparama combatant, 26 October 2011, Fm6/N, Nahipa, Mecubúri, Nampula; interview with former Naparama combatant, 26 October 2011, Nm29, Nahipa, Mecubúri, Nampula; interview with former Naparama combatant, 22 October 2011, Nm27, Mecubúri, Nampula. 91   A local leader claimed that Nampila left Murrupula because Ambrósio Albino and Nampila had a disagreement, as Albino was more powerful, and Nampila left in anger. I could not confirm this information. See interview with local leader, 27 June 2012, Lm21, Murrupula, Nampula. 92   Interview with Naparama commander, 8 March 2012, Nm18, Nicoadala, Zambezia. 89

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the population. A local government report from November 1990 identified the source of the conflict as being related to the question of which leader had the superior knowledge – ‘who knows more’.93 In an interview, the former district administrator of Pebane confirmed that the conflict was a classic struggle for power and each leader accused the other of ignorance and incapability.94 In fact, Manuel António’s subordinate maintained that Nampila and his troops did not know about the correct secrets – the taboos that combatants had to obey in order for the vaccine to have the desired effect: [Nampila] was not a confirmed traditional healer of Naparama because we have this secret that we weren’t allowed to eat certain foods. Had we started doing it and gotten into an ambush, we would have died right away. And we could not sit and eat however we liked – that was dangerous.

Nampila’s son defended the authenticity of Nampila’s medicine by arguing that the fact that their troops were not hit by mines and bazookas proved that they did respect Naparama’s rules: [Manuel] said, ‘these [Naparama] don’t know the Parama medicine. I prefer my drug, [as] my soldiers do not die’. I said that, ‘[With] my drug, if you violate [the rules], you die. If you don’t violate [the rules] – [if you hit] a mine, you will escape; [if a] bazooka [hits you], only the clothes the person is wearing will be burnt’.95

Linked to the struggle for spiritual power was also a generational conflict. The local government report cited above also points to the fact that Manuel António’s disrespect for Nampila was grounded in Nampila’s age and reputation rather than his alleged lack of botanical knowledge. Manuel António was a young and dynamic man who was independent of traditional hierarchies, had no prior experience as a healer, and acquired his leadership skills as a Naparama initiator. By contrast, Nampila was an elder, a respected local leader and healer, and had been known for his use of powerful traditional medicine since the colonial period.96 Nampila’s Naparama force was a ‘family enterprise’: Nampila, the eldest, prepared the medication, his son and his brother conducted the vaccination, and his other brother was the local Frelimo secretary who checked that all the people who came to be vaccinated had permission to do so from their respective local administration. António’s forces were independent of the hierarchy of traditional authorities and clans, and thus he had no inclination to respect Nampila for his age, rank and reputation.  República Popular de Moçambique, Província da Zambezia, Administração do Distrito de Pebane, Boletim Informativo No. 8 do mês de Outubro 1990, 2 November 1990 (AGZ, Quelimane). 94   Interview with former district administrator, 24 May 2012, Gm25, Gurué, Zambezia. 95  Interview with Naparama commander, 3 November 2011, Nm32, Móthi, Murrupula, Nampula. 96   Interview with former Naparama commander, 4 November 2011, Nm34, Móthi, Murrupula, Nampula. 93

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Frelimo recognized the significance of such leadership conflicts for the Naparama’s effectiveness in the war against Renamo and the more general risk of an escalation of the conflict. Pebane’s local administration decided therefore to geographically separate the two leaders and it sent Manuel António to Maganja da Costa, a neighbouring district (see Map 3.1). Nampila’s son interprets António’s relocation to Maganja as an expression of the local government’s distrust for the rival Naparama leader. According to Nampila’s son’s testimony, Manuel António was discontent with his dislocation to Maganja, as he had difficulties finding enough people to be initiated into his Naparama forces: Since Manuel said that his troops didn’t die in battle [and some did die], he was sent to Maganja da Costa, and he went, as he couldn’t object. After [the relocation], he said, ‘I don’t have any money because you treated all the people here. I will thus treat people in Mulapane [in Pebane].’ Even in Pebane, he treated 500 people.97

Overall, this internal struggle demonstrates that the two leaders did not only compete for spiritual power, but also for economic power – for more recruits and more resources. Both leaders charged youths for the initiation ceremony, and people brought them money, chickens or maize. Nampila’s son complained that António was greedy for money and fame; although Nampila had given him the prerogative to mobilize youths in Maganja – and thus a unique opportunity to make money – , António was unhappy with his relocation and violated the deal by returning to Pebane.98 According to this narrative, Manuel António claimed that Nampila had already vaccinated all the youths in Maganja, so that none were left for his own troops, and this gave him a reason to pursue Nampila in order to kill him. The conflict between the two leaders soon escalated and ended with Nampila’s disappearance close to Mocuba. When Nampila and his son decided to return to Murrupula, they were called to Mulevala in Ile district to help Naparama combatants to assault a Renamo base. According to Nampila’s son, Manuel António met Nampila in Mulevala at a time when the two were supposedly not protected by their medicine, abducted Nampila, and killed him.99 What exactly happened with Nampila remains unclear, however, and his disappearance has created many rumours.100 For example, one resident of Móthi recounted that a visitor told Nampila’s family that Nampila was still alive. According to his story, Nampila had escaped from Manuel António with Zimbabwean soldiers stationed in Zambezia and today lives in Zimbabwe.101  Interview with Naparama commander, 3 November 2011, Nm32, Móthi, Murrupula, Nampula. 98   Ibid. 99   Ibid. 100   In a different version of the story, Manuel António kidnapped Nampila in Inhassunge and held him in a pig shed. See interview with former Naparama commander, 8 March 2012, Nm18, Nicoadala, Zambezia. See also interview with local government representative, 4 November 2011, Gm10, Móthi, Murrupula, Nampula. 101   Field Notes, 7 November 2011, Murrupula. 97

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Conflicts about claims of authenticity and power last up to the present. The Naparama leader in Nampula who brought the vaccine to Murrupula in 1990, Ambrósio Albino, today claims to have been the leader of all the Naparama forces in Nampula and Zambezia provinces. He maintained in repeated interviews that the story usually attributed to Manuel António – that he died, was resurrected and then received a message from God to liberate the Mozambican people – is his own story. Ambrósio recounted that he taught all the other Naparama leaders – including Zinco in Lalaua and Nampila in Murrupula – about the vaccine.102 After teaching António, the two healers supposedly agreed for Albino to remain in Nampula province, and António to travel to Zambezia to mobilize people for the Naparama. As ‘proof’ of his claim to have founded the Naparama, Albino keeps a laminated document in his briefcase – a report of a provincial government delegation that investigated the Naparama forces in Murrupula district.103 When the district administrator was concerned about the emergence of Naparama forces, he asked the provincial government to send a delegation to find out more about the until-then unknown group. In October 1990, the delegation met with Ambrósio Albino and was told that he was the main Naparama leader who had learned about the Parama vaccine from his uncle in Tanzania. Albino’s nephew claims that Albino’s forces in Nampula were the ‘real’ Naparama and much more powerful, as they survived in battle – in contrast to António’s forces: ‘The most acclaimed work was that of the Naparamas, while [Manuel António’s force] was called anti-bullet [anti-bala] and many of them died. And [Manuel António] himself died in Zambezia’.104 The claim that Albino founded Naparama and was the leader of all Naparama forces appears implausible because there is ample evidence that – as elaborated above – Albino and António met in 1988 in the district of Ribáuè in Nampula province, where António had arrived from Lalaua. It is more likely that António trained Albino, and after treating people and demonstrating the force of the vaccine, they left Ribáuè together.105 This version of the story is confirmed by reports stating that the vaccine originated in Ribáuè, since this could be attributed to the original treatment of youths and the formation of the first Naparama unit.106

Conclusion Naparama’s emergence was an expression of people’s longing for peace and an end to the constant struggle for survival, among the displaced in particular,   Interview with Naparama commander, 7 October 2011, Nm21, Nampula.  Partido Frelimo, Comité Provincial, Departamento de Trabalho Ideológico, Nampula, Relatório do levantamento e estudo efectuado sobre o fenómeno ‘Napharama’ no distrito de Murrupula, 15 November 1990 (personal archive of Ambrósio Albino). 104   Interview with Naparama commander, 30 November 2011, Gr-Nm2, Nampula. 105   Interview with civilian, 29 November 2011, m23, Chinga, Murrupula, Nampula. 106  Dinerman, Revolution, counter-revolution and revisionism, p. 7. 102 103

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but the group’s success was temporary. During a time of intense violence and famine in the late 1980s and early 1990s, communities in Zambezia and Nampula embraced the new force, as it promised a more durable solution to the war than displacement and neutrality. Frelimo tolerated and in some cases even aligned with the community-initiated militia, as state security forces were overwhelmed by Renamo’s security threat. Naparama also provided a means for local leaders to settle local conflict. The secret of the group’s success lay in its appropriation of cultural resources for self-defence, which resonated with local communities as well as Renamo combatants and shaped their reputation of military prowess. Naparama’s success on the battlefield forced Renamo leaders to find ways to regain the upper hand in the spiritual and military realm and led to the formation of anti-Naparama forces. These forces copied the militia’s secret of success – the means to instil courage in combatants for the use of offensive tactics, with the only difference that they claimed to possess a more potent medicine. These new forces, in conjunction with a new military offensive in which the Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama trained and led special forces from Gorongosa into Zambezia, contributed to Renamo’s regaining of power. While Naparama, once tolerated or co-opted by the government, promised a powerful response to Renamo, its spiritual superiority was soon challenged by anti-Naparama forces fighting for Renamo and rival Naparama factions. The dynamics between the two rivals, and also within the new militia group, demonstrate the potential for innovation inherent in the use of cultural resources by armed groups, as traditional religion was adapted to respond to the wartime threat. However, they also show the fragility of spiritual power, as any advance in the spiritual realm could be challenged by a claim of even greater authenticity and power. This spiral of ‘spiritual outbidding’ shaped the dynamics of the war in its final years, increasing the fragmentation and polarization of the Mozambican social, political and military landscape.107 The demise of the Naparama, and the continuation of war, can only be understood in conjunction with the fragmentation that occurred within the movement. When Renamo overcame its initial surprise of the militia’s power, developed a strategic response, and succeeded in killing Naparama combatants, the necessity to explain such deaths provoked rivalries between Naparama leaders who all claimed to have access to the ‘authentic’ vaccine. In addition, the militia’s success among the population gave rise to economic opportunities, as new recruits paid for their initiation and military operations provided opportunity for looting. Thus, for Naparama leaders, mobilizing more recruits promised access to economic – and also political – resources. This implies that different leaders competed for the support of the same clientele and attempted to ‘outbid’ each other with regard to their spiritual power, as the community was the one that fostered their credibility and provided access to such resources. In their search for the best strategies of survival,   Stephen C. Lubkemann, ‘Migratory Coping in Wartime Mozambique: An Anthropology of Violence and Displacement in “Fragmented Wars”’, Journal of Peace Research, 42 (2005), 493–508.

107

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community residents remained flexible in their support, which underlines the fragility of spiritual power and the fluidity of wartime loyalties during Mozambique’s war, and explains the eventual disintegration of the Naparama and contributes to our understanding of the dynamics of the war in Zambezia and Nampula provinces.

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4

The War as Seen by Renamo Guerrilla politics & the ‘move to the North’ at the time of the Nkomati Accord 1983–1985* Michel Cahen

On 28 August 1985, the Zimbabwean and Mozambican government troops attacked the headquarters of the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo) located at Casa Banana.1 Casa Banana is situated to the east of Gorongosa Mountains, at the far north of the Gorongosa National Park, about 22 km east of Vinduzi, to the north of the Nhadué River.2 Renamo expected the attack and forewarned its local groups so that they would not be affected.3 It withdrew its forces from the base, leaving part of the heavier armament that it had seized from the government.4 Despite the statement given by Samora Machel, president of the People’s Republic of Mozambique and of the party in power, the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo), saying: ‘We’ve broken the backbone of the snake’, this was not an important military victory. A foreign journalist based in Mozambique, very supportive of Frelimo, rightly commented: ‘the problem is that the snake doesn’t have a backbone’.5 Renamo continued to operate after the loss of Casa Banana and a few months later even re-conquered its central base.   Translated from the Portuguese original version by Olga Regina Raphaelli and edited by Eric Morier-Genoud and Brad Safarik. 1   According to Peter Stiff, Zimbabwean troops led the entire operation: ‘elite troops of Zimbabwe’s 1st Parachute Batallion captured Renamo’s Gorongosa HQ on 28 August 1984 [sic: 1985]. This attack had been made possible by the ZNA taking over responsibility for offensive operations in the Manica, Sofala and Tete Provinces from the FPLM. This was additional to their responsibilities in the Beira Corridor … It is ironic that the reconnaissance of the base and the successful assault afterwards was controlled by Colonel Dudley Coventry … He had originally established the base for Renamo in the old Rhodesian days, so he knew it well. Before the assault, he briefed FPLM commanders at Chimoio on Renamo’s history.’ Peter Stiff, The Silent War: South African Recce Operations 1969–1994 (Alberton: Galago, 1999), pp. 379–80. Thanks to Eric Morier-Genoud for drawing my attention to these pages. 2   Stephen A. Emerson indicates the location as being ‘between the Cavalo location and Panda mountain, to the northwest of the Canganetole village’. Cavalo is less than 1 km from Vinduzi. Canganitore (Canganetole in Emerson’s book) had been the airstrip of Casa Banana. Stephen A. Emerson, The Battle for Mozambique: The Frelimo-Renamo Struggle, 1977–1992 (Solihull, UK: Helion and Company, 2014), p. 136. 3  Interview with Brigadier-General Inácio Faque Ferraria, Beira, October 2014. Dhlakama himself told his version of the take-over of Casa Banana in Jaime Nogueira Pinto, Jogos Africanos (Lisbon: A Esfera dos Livros, 2008), pp. 226–8. 4  Emerson, The Battle for Mozambique, op. cit. 5   In English publications, the episode was translated as follows: ‘We have broken the back of the snake, but the tail will still thrash around’, in Paul Fauvet & Marcelo Mosse, Carlos Cardoso: Telling the Truth in Mozambique (Cape Town: Double Storey, 2003), p. 138. Emerson, The Battle for Mozambique, op. cit., used the same translation: ‘We have broken the back of the snake … The tail will still thrash around for a while. Now we are pursuing the head of the snake’, p. 140. *

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Renamo left behind heavy armament at Casa Banana as well as part of its archive, which the security services of the Mozambican government hurried to analyse and use against the guerrilla.6 Some of the documents were soon published to prove that Pretoria still supported Renamo, if clandestinely, with arms or other items, only months after the signature on 16 March 1984 of a Non-aggression and Good Neighbourhood Agreement, commonly called the Nkomati Accord, which set forth that the Mozambican government would no longer support the African National Congress in exchange for the South African government ending its support of Renamo. The Mozambican government published excerpts of the ‘Cadernos de Gorongosa’ (‘Gorongosa Notebooks’), i.e. fragments of Renamo’s archives where the presence of South Africa in the rebel group’s life could be undoubtedly ascertained. There were two consecutive editions of the Notebook entitled Documentos de Gorongosa (‘Gorongosa Documents’). The second edition was larger and bilingual, with a new section entitled ‘1984: Diary/Desk Diary’ which created a third section after ‘Notebook 2’ and ‘Notebook 3’.7 Afonso Dhlakama, Commander-in-Chief of Renamo’s forces at the time, immediately declared that the documents published were fakes, forged by SNASP.8 In a certain way, he was right: as the title indicated, they were ‘extracts’, more precisely extracts carefully chosen for one sole purpose, i.e. to provide evidence of the South African presence in Renamo. In these extracts, the ‘focus’ on South Africa created the impression that this country had an almost daily presence in the guerrilla forces’ activities, and that Renamo was therefore nothing more than the ‘regional military branch of Apartheid’, that is, a non-political phenomenon of a mercenary nature, hence the use by Frelimo of the expression ‘armed bandits’ or ‘BAs’ (abbreviation for bandidos armados) used since 1980.9 There is no question about South Africa’s continued support to Renamo after Nkomati, even if at a reduced level.10 However, whether before or after 6   It was not the first time that Renamo lost ‘papers’. This had already happened in 1980 when government forces overran the Sitatonga base. See the interview of Dhlakama in Jaime Nogueira Pinto, Jogos Africanos, op. cit., pp. 227–8. 7   Documentos de Gorongosa (extractos)/Gorongosa Documents (extracts) (Maputo, 1985), 108 sheets (216 pp.), 2nd ed. For the original documents I have accessed and used, I use the term Cadernos de Gorongosa (Gorongosa Notebooks), to distinguish them from the extract published by the government. 8   SNASP: National Service for Popular Action and Security, the feared political police of the Frelimo regime. Alex Vines, author of one of the first detailed studies on Renamo, did not realize that the Documentos de Gorongosa published by the government, which he calls ‘the Vaz diaries’, were nothing more than a selection. Concerning Vaz, Vines refers to José Francisco Vaz but he might have wanted to refer to Joaquim Vaz who was Dhlakama’s personal secretary at the time. See Alex Vines, Renamo: From Terrorism to Democracy in Mozambique? (Amsterdam: Centre for Southern African Studies; London: James Currey, 1996), 210 p., pp. 24–25. 9   Before Zimbabwe’s independence, the Frelimo government explicitly denounced the Rhodesian forces’ incursions into the Mozambican territory as ‘counterrevolutionary activities’ which was a political qualifying adjective. Considering that Zimbabwe’s independence should have put an end to these military activities, and considering that this did not happen, the government then used the expression ‘armed bandits’ to deny any political purport to the rebellion. 10   I will not deal with this topic in this chapter. Afonso Dhlakama (several interviews with the author) continues to state that South Africa stopped its support to the movement once and for all after the Nkomati Accord.

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the Nkomati Accord, such support was never of the kind that the South African army provided to Unita in Angola.11 In the Angolan case, the Apartheid regime wanted to beat once and for all the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) which it considered communist due to the presence of Cuban troops, and because Namibia was still occupied and the MPLA supported its liberation movement, SWAPO. In Mozambique, the Apartheid regime never aimed at beating Frelimo. It only aimed at forcing it to change and stop its support for the African National Congress (ANC). Unlike the support given to Unita, the South African army never supported Renamo: this was the task of the South African secret services and, in comparison to Angola’s ‘expensive war’, the Mozambican conflict was a ‘cheap war’ without any heavy arms supply. A direct analysis of the Cadernos de Gorongosa themselves, and not only of the extracts published by the government, reveals that South Africa is rarely mentioned, and at times only indirectly via the expression ‘o exterior’ (‘outside’, which could also be used to refer to Malawi). A Renamo guerrilla fighter would not see a South African in his daily routine. Indeed, it is quite likely that the vast majority of guerrilla fighters – particularly those who were not based at Casa Banana or at any other central base on the Gorongosa Mountains – never saw a South African during all the war years. On the whole, most arms had to be taken from the enemy because supplies from outside were in fact quite rare. Said differently, the Cadernos captured by the Mozambican army were genuine documents, but they were ‘doctored’ so as to produce just over 200 pages of documents with references to South Africa, thus giving the impression of a permanent presence of the Apartheid regime in the guerrilla war. How many ‘Cadernos de Gorongosa’ were seized by the government forces in total? This is an important question for which I have no answer: perhaps 50, 100 or 200? They were notebooks bound in hard paper, of the type that could be bought at the time (and today still) in South Africa.12 There were also military manuals (copies of Portuguese manuals) with Renamo covers. Where did those ‘Cadernos de Gorongosa’ end up? I still do not know. Be this where it may, it would be most important to locate them and safeguard them in an archiving institution. Indeed, these Cadernos are a historical treasure of contemporary history. They include handwritten transcriptions of several thousand decoded radio messages, sent by local Renamo groups to the General Staff, or vice versa. There are also bundles of typewritten pages. Their importance lies in the fact that these are internal documents that were not meant to be published or even read by outsiders. They were not written for the sake of appearances; on the contrary, the language used is spontaneous, as used by Renamo cadres, 11   The National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (Unita) is an anticolonial movement created in 1965. It fought in a civil war against the MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola) until 2002, and received support from South Africa until 1991, while the MPLA was supported by the Cubans. Unita was militarily defeated with the death in combat of its leader Jonas Savimbi, on 22 February 2002, in Moxico province. 12   I thank Father Diamantino Guapo Antunes (Superior of the Consolata Institute in Mozambique) for this observation.

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revealing their fears, their values, etc. They do not conceal difficulties since the General Staff needed to know the real situation. Unlike Frelimo, Renamo has no well-organized archives deposited in an institution.13 For reasons that cannot be expounded here, I had the opportunity however to see and study some of the Cadernos that ‘got lost’ from the main group through the action of someone who worked for a foreign government (not mine) and wanted to understand more about Renamo and diverted some of these documents. They probably constitute only a small part of the whole, but they are sufficient to demonstrate the extraordinary wealth of the documents seized in August 1985. Should they re-appear one day, it would then become possible to establish a solid database on Renamo during the years 1983 and 1985, with information about its structure, personnel, detailed military geography, battles, materiel, psychology, etc. But we have not reached this desired stage yet… It is rare to be able to study a guerrilla war in that way, using its own written documents. Having been able to work on such documents is the added value of this chapter. This said, it is worth noting that some earlier works also used Renamo sources,14 though mainly oral ones – interviews with combatants, veterans, political leaders or documents written and published ex post facto (something I have also done myself).15 These works are usually of a different nature, that is, journalist investigation,16 non-governmental organization (NGO) reports or writing by NGO staff,17 anthropologists18 and political scientists.19 An exception is the works by André E.A.M. Thomashausen, who was in close contact with Renamo during the war. 20 Be this as it may, the fact is that Renamo has never been studied 13   Frelimo archives are deposited at Arquivo Histórico de Moçambique (Maputo). Even if they are not freely accessible, need an authorization and if some sensitive documents seem to have been withdrawn from the archive, at least they exist. 14   I do not consider as using ‘Renamo sources’ works based on interviews of Renamo prisoners in government jails such as William Minter, The Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo) as Described by Ex-Participants: Research Report Submitted to Ford Foundation and Swedish International Development Agency (Chicago/Amsterdam: Holland Committee on Southern Africa, 1989); and Apartheid’s Contras: An Inquiry into the Roots of War in Angola and Mozambique (London: Zed Books, 1994). 15   See for example my book Les Bandits: Un historien au Mozambique, 1994 (Paris: Publications du Centre culturel Calouste Gulbenkian, 2002) [Portuguese version: Os outros: Um historiador em Moçambique, 1994 (Basel: P. Schlettwein, 2003)]. 16   William Finnegan, A Complicated War: The Harrowing of Mozambique (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992). 17   Jean-Claude Legrand, ‘Logique de guerre et dynamiques de la violence en Zambézie, 1976– 1991’, Politique africaine, 50 (1993), 88–104; and ‘Passé et Présent dans la guerre du Mozambique: Les enlèvements pratiqués par la Renamo’, Lusotopie, II (1995), 137–50. 18   Carolyn Nordstrom, ‘The Backyard Front’, in The Paths to Domination, Resistance and Terror, eds Carolyn Nordstrom & Joann Martin (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), pp. 260–74; and A Different Kind of War Story (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997). 19  Vines, Renamo; Otto Roesch, ‘Renamo and the peasantry in southern Mozambique: a view from Gaza Province’, Canadian Journal of African Studies, 26/3 (1992), 462–84; Carrie L. Manning, ‘Constructing opposition in Mozambique: Renamo as political party’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 24, 1 (1998), 161–89; Jocelyn Alexander, ‘Terra e autoridade política no pós-guerra em Moçambique: o caso da província de Manica’, Arquivo: Boletim do Arquivo Histórico de Moçambique, 16 (1994), 5–94. 20   André E.A.M. Thomashausen, ‘The Mozambique National Resistance’, in Weerstandsbewegings

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on the basis of internal documents written by Renamo itself. Almost all primary written documentation related to Renamo has been until today produced via ex post facto interviews by what I call the ‘Frelimo social world’, that is: not just Frelimo as a party, but Frelimo with its State,21 its controlled population and all the Mozambican intellectual circles and Frelimo’s foreign sympathizers. Needless to say, researchers must always keep a critical distance from their sources: I hope to have accomplished that but, first and foremost, my objective was to innovate by studying Renamo on the basis of unpublished written documents produced by Renamo itself during the war. A major hurdle with the Cadernos, which I did not manage to fully overcome, was to establish the precise location of all events. The messages refer indeed to names of many areas and places which do not appear on any maps. I made use of various means to resolve this puzzle,22 and this has allowed me to work out an approximate geography of the major provincial zones, of the regions, sectors and local zones of Renamo – see Map 4.1 on pp. 110–11. An added problem was different spellings for the name of a same place; although sometimes this was easy to solve (Nhamatope/Inhamatope, Bomba/Bamba), other names proved hard or impossible to recognize. Worse still, the names of some places were illegible while others were legible but could not be located. When the latitude and longitude coordinates were given, they were not always precise (many of them stationed a place in the middle of the Indian Ocean!). Sometimes the coordinates varied in different messages for the same place, or they were not decoded correctly. (contd) in Suider-Afrika, ed. Christiaan Jacobus Maritz (Pochefstroom: Departement Sentrale Publikasies, Potchefstroomse Universiteit vir Christelike Hoër Onderwys, 1987), pp. 29–66. 21  The famous and pioneering book by Christian Geffray was based on research conducted with the help of the military and secret services of Frelimo government: La cause des armes au Mozambique: Anthropologie d’une guerre civile (Paris: Karthala-CREDU, 1990) [Portuguese version: A causa das armas: antropologia da guerra contemporânea em Moçambique (Porto: Afrontamento, 1991)]. It is worth noting here that research by Otto Roesch was explicitly done to defend an opposite point of view (see note 19). 22   I used the following sources for the locations, which are listed below in the chronological order of their edition: – Ministério das Colónias. Comissão de cartografia, Dicionário Corográfico da província de Moçambique. 1° Fascículo. Territórios de Cabo Delgado (Companhya do Niassa). 2° Fascículo. Distrito de Moçambique. 3° Fascículo. Zambézia. Distrito de Quelimane. Distrito de Tete (Lisbon: Tipografia Cristóvão Rodrigues – Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade, 1919), x + 176 pp., 1921, x + 134 pp., 1926, x + 290 pp. – Província de Moçambique. Direcção dos Serviços de Agrimensura, Mapa das povoações criadas até 31 de Dezembro de 1959 e sua situação legal (Artigo 4° do Regulamento para a Concessão de Terrenos do Estado na Província de Moçambique, aprovada pelo Decreto n°3983, de 16 de Março de 1918) (Lourenço Marques: Imprensa Nacional de Moçambique, 1960), 60 pp. –  United States Board on Geographical Names, Mozambique. Official Standard Names approved by the United States Board on Geographic Names (Washington, Geographical Names Division, US Topographic Command, 1969), iv + 506 pp. – Mozambique. Mosambik, Index of Geographical names. L’index des noms géographiques. Verzeichnis der geographischen Namen ([Moscovo], 1987), 15 pp. – website ‘Geographical Names’, www.geographic.org/geographic_names/index.html. – website ‘Places in the World’, www.places-in-the-world.com. Some maps from the Direcção Nacional de Geografia e Cadastro were also used, 1/250,000, identified in footnotes.

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Another problem was to find out who the authors of the messages were: at times this was easy, for example, a name followed by a rank or a position such as ‘Amade Viagem, R.T. National Chief’.23 But it took me some time to figure out, and subsequently to confirm, for example that ‘Zacarias Pedro’ was a pseudonym for Afonso Dhlakama,24 and that many times the messages sent to the ‘DD’ (Defence Department) or to the EMG (General Staff) were actually also sent to Dhlakama. Be this as it may, the documents describing the regions are very uneven. In the extracts from the Cadernos de Gorongosa that I analysed, some regions were well referenced while others were almost non-existent. I diligently plodded through the hundreds of messages, most of which were handwritten. The work was rewarding as it provided information that, though scattered, made sense from a wider perspective. Information was given on Renamo occupation areas, military equipment, hierarchy, the nature and length of battles, the strategy of both Renamo and Frelimo to control the population, voluntary recruitment or otherwise, desertions, wounded and deaths in combat or through illnesses, the centralization of goods, control of the black market inside the guerrilla camps, schools and hospitals inside Renamo areas, witchcraft, relations with the civil population and the militia (mudjibas), sex, the psychology of combatants, etc.25 One does not read the voice of the elementos (‘individuals’, i.e. the regular soldiers) in the Cadernos, but that of different levels of the hierarchy, from the Commander-in-Chief or the General of a big Coordination Group (GC), a province or a region, to the simple zone commanders (more rarely). Another issue, of an ethical nature, needs mention. I gained access to the Cadernos before a normal deposit was made in an archival institution, that is to say, before other researchers could double check the information. My plan is, in the short or medium term, to have the Cadernos deposited in an archive as well as accessible online for other researchers. Hopefully this will be done soon after this volume is published. Let us now ‘dive’ into the Cadernos!26 * * *   Translator’s Note: R.T. or RT (abbreviation for Rádio-Transmissão) means Radio Transmission.   Another pseudonym of Dhlakama was ‘Trinta e Cinco’ (Thirty-Five).   Not all of these aspects are studied in this chapter, but they will be analysed in a book to be published in Portuguese: ‘Nós não somos bandidos’: A vida diária de uma guerrilha de direita – a Renamo na época do Acordo de Incomati (1983–1985), forthcoming. 26  For practical reasons, I have named as CG1, CG2, CG3, etc., the Caderno de Gorongosa 1, Caderno de Gorongosa 2, etc. (Gorongosa Notebook 1, Gorongosa Notebook 2, etc.), even when they are actually not ‘notebooks’, but typed pages or loose handwritten pages. I have made up the following numbering (which does not appear in the Cadernos): – CG1/[Resistência Nacional Moçambicana – henceforth RNM]. Departamento de Defesa e Segurança. Serviço das Comunicações (Mozambican National Resistance. Security and Defence Department. Communication Services) – 109 typed pages and a handwritten one, 268 messages from the General Military Staff from 28/07/84 to 10/07/85 to the regions and sectors, and vice-versa. – CG2/[RNM], Livro de registo para G[rupo] C[oordenador] Sul assim como 2a Zona Sul começado em 15/11/84 ([Mozambican National Resistance], Registration book of the South C[oordination] G[roup], as well as 2nd South Zone started on 15 November 1984) – handwritten notebook of 119 23 24

25

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The 1980–84 period is critical in Renamo’s history. Following on the Lancaster House Agreements signed on 21 December 1979 and Zimbabwe’s independence on 18 April 1980, all Renamo members stationed in Rhodesia had to leave the country. Some of them left for South Africa, still under the Apartheid regime, but others returned to Mozambique. The disappearance of the guerrilla’s rearguard closest to the centre of the country (where Renamo’s founders came from) pressured the guerrilla to permanently settle in Mozambique – including its Commander-in-Chief, Afonso Dhlakama – and to organize for survival, which meant establishing stronger relationships with the local population, particularly with the traditional chiefs whom Frelimo had tried to repress immediately after Independence Day on 26 June 1975.27 Part of Renamo’s leadership and of its infrastructure moved to sheets (238 pp.) numbered by hand,* including 385 messages from 28 October to 21 November 1984.** Although only the Grupo Coordenador Sul (South Coordination Group) was mentioned in the title, this notebook also includes messages for the Região Centro (Centre Region). [* pages 58–82, stapled in this bundle by mistake, were separated here: see CG11] [** the dates I mentioned here, regardless of those included in the titles of the Cadernos, are the actual dates of the messages no matter the dates of their copies in the Cadernos]. – CG3/[RNM], Livro de registo G[rupo] C[oordenador] Sul assim como 1a x 2a Zona Sul começado em 24/12/84 ([Mozambican National Resistance], Registration book of the South C[oordination] G[roup], as well as 1st & 2nd South Zone started on 24/12/84) – handwritten notebook of 317 messages from 21/12/84 to 22/01/85. –  CG4/[RNM], sem título [Registo G[rupo] C[oordenador] Sul] ([Mozambican National Resistance], no title [Registration of the South C[oordination] G[roup]) – set of handwritten pages, probably separated from a Caderno, including 58 messages (the last one incomplete), from 20/01/85 to 02/02/85. – CG5/[RNM], ‘Caderno Xavier’ ([Mozambican National Resistance], ‘Xavier Notebook’) – handwritten notebook signed with such name, including 1,000 messages from 01/07/83 to 01/01/84 from/to several Renamo military regions in the country. This notebook is from 1983, the oldest of them all. – CG6/[RNM] sem título [livro de registo para as mensagens do G[rupo] C[oordenador] Centro] ([Mozambican National Resistance]), no title [registration book for messages of the Centre C[oordination] G[rupo]) – handwritten notebook including 185 messages + one typed page, from 28 October to 4 November 1984. – CG7/[RNM], Livro de registo para as mensagens do G[rupo] C[oordenador] Norte começado em 18/08/84 ([Mozambican National Resistance], registration book for messages of the North C[oordination] G[roup] started on 18 August 84) – finished on [date is almost illegible]: 5 November 1984 – incomplete handwritten notebook (the last pages were pulled out), but 10 loose pages should be added to it, of 259 messages (284 including the loose pages) from 16 August to 5 November 1984 (12 November 1984 with the loose pages). Despite the title, several messages are related to the Centre and the South. – CG8/[RNM], Livro de registo para as regiões C[entrais] de Gorongosa comensado [sic] em 12 November 1984 – handwritten notebook of 426 messages, from 12 November to 11 December 1984. Despite the title, several messages are related to the North and the South. – CG9/[RNM], Livro de registo para as Regiões C[entro] de Gorongosa começado em 16/12/84 ([Mozambican National Resistance], Registration book for the C[entral] regions of Gorongosa started on 16 December 1984) – handwritten notebook of 398 messages, from 3 December 1984 to 21 January 1985 + one typed leaflet of 1 June 1984. –  CG10/[RNM] ([Mozambican National Resistance]), bundle of stapled handwritten pages numbered from 58 to 82, that is, 48 pages with 80 messages from 7 to 24 January 1985, which continue from the previous notebook, but which had been mistakenly inserted in another bundle of unrelated pages [see CG2]. 27   This decision was taken one day after Independence Day (25 June 1975), something which illustrates how Frelimo’s hostility towards this social stratum was constitutive of its model of State production and the creation of a ‘New Man’. (contd)

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South Africa however, in particular the ‘Estado Maior da Retaguarda’ (‘Rearguard High Command’) in Phalaborwa as South Africa took over support to Renamo from Rhodesia, so as to coordinate logistics and listen into enemy transmissions. In the aftermath of the Nkomati Accord – and even if, as it has been pointed out, the South Africa secret services had continued to support Renamo clandestinely – almost all Renamo members were operating permanently inside Mozambique. Shortly before the Agreements were signed, two airplanes dropped by parachute a massive load of tons of materiel, 70 men and five women into Maputo province,28 including the Chief of Staff, Raul Domingos.29 Even though Renamo still needed some ‘outside support’, it had henceforth to learn to find what it needed to survive inside the country. This consolidated the trend set in motion by Zimbabwe’s independence, namely, the quest for the stabilization of Renamo areas where tens of thousands peasants lived a self-sufficient existence, outside of Frelimo’s governmental sphere of influence, under the protection of Renamo. That means that between 1980 and 1984 Renamo became a wholly Mozambican movement – even if its ‘shameful origin’ (as a result of the Rhodesian and, later on, South African support) had long-term consequences regarding both its internal operational rules and its weak international recognition. I am not going to expound once more on the reasons that made it possible for a movement supported by the Apartheid regime to enjoy the support of peasants in large rural areas and, in some regions, sympathy in urban centres.30 What is unquestionable is that it was during this period that the nature of the war changed. While it could be safely stated that there was a civil war in the centre of the country and in the western part of Zambezia during this period, this was not true of all the country until then. Zimbabwe’s independence and the Nkomati Accord had therefore the opposite effect to what Frelimo expected: Renamo ended up settling wholly in Mozambique and the war consequently became a countrywide civil conflict. That was a process however. If a ‘date’ needs to be established, the crossing of the Zambezi River in 1982 by General Calisto Meque, and the unification   Among these was Hirondina Herculano, chief of logistics, one of the rare female leaders in Renamo (who was not part of the Destacamento Feminino, the Female Battalion). 29   According to a SNASP agent infiltrated within Renamo, the drop was exceedingly important: he speaks of about three hundred tons for two years of autonomy. See Paulo Oliveira, Renamo, uma descida ao coração das trevas: dossier Makwakwa (Lisbon: Europress, 2006), pp. 112–3. 30   On these issues, see the seminal work of Christian Geffray, La cause des armes, op. cit.; See also Finnegan, A Complicated War, op. cit.; Mark F. Chingono, The State, Violence and Development: The Political Economy of War in Mozambique, 1975–1992 (Aldershot: Avebury, 1996); Roland Marchal & Christine Messiant, Les chemins de la guerre et de la paix: fins de conflit en Afrique orientale et australe (Paris: Karthala, 1997); Carolyn Nordstrom, A Different Kind of War Story; Anders Nilsson, Peace in Our Time: Towards A Holistic Understanding of World Society Conflicts (Göteborg: Padrigu/Gothenborg University, 1999); João C. Graziani Pereira, A política da sobrevivência: camponeses, chefes tradicionais e Renamo no distrito de Marínguè, 1982–1992 (Maputo: Promedia, 2006); Emerson, The Battle for Mozambique, op. cit.; and some of my works, such as: Mozambique, analyse politique de conjoncture 1990 (Paris: Indigo Publications, 1990); Les Bandits, op. cit.; ‘De la guerre civile à la plèbe: la Renamo du Mozambique – Trajectoire singulière ou signal d’évolution continentale?’, in Du social hors la loi. L’anthropologie analytique de Christian Geffray, eds Yann Guillaud & Frédéric Létang (Marseilles: IRD Éditions, 2009), pp. 73–88. 28

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in August 1982 of Renamo with the Partido Revolucionário de Moçambique (Revolutionary Party of Mozambique) – the Zambezian guerrilla force that had been fighting Frelimo since 1976 in the Milange region – can be cited as a turning point.31 From then Renamo began to control extensive areas, far from its birth regions (Manica and Sofala) and to organize the lives of hundreds of thousands of Mozambicans. Prior to the signing of the Nkomati Accord, sectors of the South African State put pressure on Renamo to accept the amnesty offered by the Mozambican government and offered its fighters the alternative of staying in South Africa as civilian exiles. In the same way, as in Rhodesia some years earlier, Renamo declined both. Thereafter, the South African secret service trained men of the Rearguard High Command in parachuting and dropped them, as mentioned, in the south of Mozambique shortly before the signing of the Accord. This was followed by a first attempt at negotiations between Frelimo and Renamo in Pretoria, South Africa, from the beginning of October 1984 – seven month after the Nkomati Accord. Renamo was represented by Joaquim Vaz, who had been the 1st Chief of Staff of the North, Mateus Ngonhamo, Security Chief, and Evo Fernandes, Secretary-General. This negotiation attempt failed as Frelimo’s only offered an amnesty and the integration of Renamo into the party-state.32 But the negotiation went on for many weeks, to which the Cadernos refer at length. If the negotiation failed, they still structured the war. Because of the negotiations, Renamo felt it had to expand ever more towards the north of the country (Niassa and Cabo Delgado) and tighten the siege on the capital Maputo in the southern-most region of the country. What the present chapter will do thereafter is to look at Renamo not just as a military group at the command of a foreign power, but also as an organization capable of establishing strategic and political objectives. This meant ‘politicizing’ Renamo even if the military dimension remained dominant. After describing in a first section Renamo’s geography, I will in a second section focus on the guerrilla’s strategy to move north, which was a military decision as well as a symbolic one to prove the capacity of Renamo to exist hundreds of kilometres away from South Africa and distant from Malawi and its capacity to take over ‘liberated areas’ established by Frelimo during the anticolonial war. The third and last section will study the way Renamo deployed policies towards the populations. Although this chapter will not study all aspects of Renamo’s daily life during these turning-point years,33 the chapter will reveal many new facets of Renamo’s organization and ways of working, the implications of which (not least on how we understand this particular guerrilla force) will be discussed in the conclusion. 31   See the ground-breaking chapter on the Revolutionary Party of Mozambique (PRM) by Sérgio Chichava, Chapter 1 in this book. 32   It is in this sense that the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Joaquim Chissano, later expressed the following meaningful point of view: ‘I don’t see any problem in having Renamo ministers in my government once they joined Frelimo’. 33   See note 25.

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Renamo Military Geography Through my analysis of the Cadernos, I have been able to work out a map of the military regions under Renamo control towards the end of 1984. As noted in the introduction, there are still many uncertainties. The boundaries of the regions are only estimates, particularly boundaries of sectors, and errors are therefore inevitable.34 Still, broad tendencies are clear and a look at the map is most informative. Most probably in 1984, as a consequence of the Nkomati Accord, Renamo reorganized itself and the General Staff was divided into three provincial commands (or ‘Grupos Coordenadores’, ‘Coordination Groups’), one in the north with General Raul Dique Majojo, one in the Centre with General Ismael, and one in the south with General Raul Domingos. These macro structures were geared mainly towards logistics and to figure out what operations to carry out (depending in part on their communication interceptions). The Coordination Groups were, in turn, divided into zones, which were themselves divided into military regions.35 The more divided a command was and the more sectors and zone it had, the more present Renamo was and the more institutionalized its organization was. This was the case of the central regions of the country. The provinces of Manica and Sofala contained within their territory no less than six Renamo military regions: the Crocodilo region in the south of Sofala and Manica, the Leão Centro36 region in central west of Sofala and central south of Manica, the Peixe region in the west of Manica, the Tigre Centro region in the north of Sofala (containing the sabotage sector of the famous Commander Bobe37 on 34   It was not possible to map out these internal zones inside the sectors, as they were very local and small in size. 35   Translator’s note: a translation of the names of Renamo military regions and sub-regions follows:

Crocodilo = Crocodile

Peixe = Fish

Elefante Sul = South elephant

Rinoceronte = Rhinoceros

Leão = Lion

Leão Sul = South lion

Leão Centro = Centre lion

Leão Norte = North lion

Tigre = Tiger

Tigre Sul = South tiger

Tigre Centro = Centre tiger

Tigre Norte = North tiger

Leopardo = Leopard

Leopardo Sul = South leopard

Leopardo Centro = Centre leopard

Leopardo Norte = North leopard

Búfalo = Buffalo

Búfalo Sul = South buffalo

Búfalo Centro = Centre buffalo

Búfalo Norte = North buffalo

Gato = Cat

Gato Sul = South cat

Gato Centro = Centre cat

Gato Norte = North cat

  For reasons still unknown to me, the same animal names were often used in different regions. It is therefore important to distinguish between, for instance, Leopardo Sul, Leopardo Centro and Leopardo Norte (south, centre and north Leopard). 37   ‘Bobe’, a.k.a. Bob Charlton (based on the name of the famous football player) was the pseudonym of Hermínio Morais. For more information on this commander, see Cahen, Les bandits, op. cit. 36

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Map 4.1  Renamo military regions by the end of 1984 (Cartography: Valérie Alfaurt, LAM/CNRS 2016)

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the Beira-Caia railway line), the Leopardo Centro region towards the north of Manica and the ‘Chímica’38 region towards the far north of Manica and far south-west of Tete. Based on the study of the Cadernos, one can say that all the names of the places mentioned on the map, except for Beira39 and the northern bank of the Save River, are referred to as Renamo military operational areas and cover all provinces. This does not mean Renamo occupied the totality of these provinces, far from it. But it was capable of carrying out operations in large areas of all these regions. Unfortunately, I could not map out Renamo’s ‘liberated zones’, though I worked out some of them, where the population lived in a stable life without much military or civil interference from the State.40 Further up north, we can notice that in 1984 Renamo’s presence was lighter: bearing in mind that its three sectors are vast, the province of Tete was affected by war only in the east and south. The province of Zambezia was quite affected, but it had only two extensive regions, Leão Norte and the even bigger Gato Norte. The province of Nampula was covered by one region only: Leopardo Norte. The south of Nampula province, in particular the district of Angoche (which would later on become a Renamo bastion) did not seem to be affected towards the end of 1984 (at least Angoche and other places in this province are not mentioned in the Cadernos). The far west of the province of Nampula also did not seem to be affected. Further north, the giant province of Niassa was affected mainly in its southern parts, although the Unango area was affected towards the end of 1984 by activities from the Tigre Norte military region (see below).41 As to Cabo Delgado province, a symbolic target for Renamo because it was a Frelimo bastion during the anticolonial war, no more than 50 per cent of its territory was included in the Búfalo Norte military region – efforts focused on reaching the Mueda district in sector no.1 (a high priority defined by Dhlakama himself, below). In these ‘frontier’ and expansion areas, Renamo’s military regions had their sectors, but it seems that the lower level, that of zones, was absent in most cases, something which reflects a less dense local settlement of the guerrilla there. In the south of the country, we must distinguish between the thinly populated zones, such as in the north and the interior of Inhambane province, and the interior of the Gaza province. The vast Gaza province, where Frelimo   I did not find any message linking the name of commander Chímica to the name of a region. I have therefore given his name to the region he commanded. It is possible that his region was Búfalo Centro. 39   Renamo still carried out some actions in the town of Beira, but I will not discuss them in this chapter. 40   At the end of the war, Onumoz (Operação das Nações Unidas em Moçambique, United Nations Operation in Mozambique, 1992–95) published a map of Renamo’s zones in 1992 – a reproduction may be found in Vines, Renamo, op. cit., p. 2 and in Sayaka Funada-Classen, The Origins of War in Mozambique: A History of Unity and Division (Somerset West, SA: African Minds, 2012), p. 10. 41   Unango is a place that has become sadly famous for being a zone for deportation of ‘unproductive’ people expelled from the town of Maputo in 1983 during the ‘Production Operation’, which consisted of a massive repression against the urban economy’s informal sector. 38

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always enjoyed massive support, was under only one Renamo military region called Búfalo Sul. The Inhambane province had Gato Sul and Tigre Sul regions. In turn, the far south of the country had three Renamo military regions for Maputo province alone, which is not a very big geographical area: Leopardo, Elefante and Leão (all of them ‘Sul’). Did it reflect a strong Renamo presence? Probably not. We must remember that, unlike the interior of the Inhambane and Gaza provinces, Maputo province was, and remains, densely populated (let alone the Maputo-Matola conurbation), something which allowed for (and demanded) a stronger Renamo presence. I think, however, that the density here also has a different explanation than in the centre of the country: what we have here is a Renamo decision to establish itself in the province containing the capital, hence a special effort. The three military regions in the Maputo province were grouped together under ‘1a Zona Sul’ (‘1st South Zone’) under the command of General Raul Domingos who, one can say, was by then already the no. 2 in Renamo. As to ‘2a Zona Sul’ (‘2nd South Zone’), it grouped together the regions of Búfalo Sul (Gaza), Tigre Sul and Gato Sul (Inhambane) and was commanded by General Vareia Manje Languane.42 The central regions came under the ‘Grupo Coordenador Centro’ (‘Centre Coordination Group’, GCC) with two ‘Zonas Centro’ (‘Centre Zones’) while the northern regions came under the ‘Grupo Coordenador Norte’ (‘North Coordination Group’, GCN) headed by General Raul Dique Majojo, with a ‘1a Zona Norte’ (‘1st North Zone’, Zambezia and Niassa) and a ‘2a Zona Norte’ (‘2nd North Zone’, Nampula and Cabo Delgado). Not all regions were within a ‘zone’ or a ‘coordination group’; there were some ‘autonomous’ areas, like the Rinoceronte region (Tete) and also perhaps ‘Chímica’. As the Cadernos reveal, the autonomous regions sent their messages directly to the Defence Department, the General Military Command or the Commander-in-Chief, while the regions inside zones or groups corresponded (though not always) via the higher provincial rungs. On the other hand, as the headquarters were in the centre of the country, in Casa Banana, the Cadernos show that many messages of the sectors belonging to the central regions did not go through the Centre Coordination Group or its military regions: they went directly to Dhlakama. Finally, we must also note that Renamo’s spatial structure did not always match the country’s official provincial boundaries. In short, we can say that the Renamo structure, organized in multiprovincial General Staffs or Coordination Groups and Provincial Zones, in regions, sectors, local zones (and sometimes subzones) with their local ‘OPs’ (operational units) and permanent ‘ambushes’, attests to a heavy hierarchy that was all geared towards expansion. Yet this expansion often caused problems, something we will come back to later. For now, we must note that Renamo’s internal structure at the end of 1984 was mature for a civil war across the whole country even if the military regions were still deeply imbalanced, as shown by the number of soldiers each area contained. 42  It seems however that for Military Staff duties (logistics, operations planning, etc.), Raúl Domingos had power over the entire South of Mozambique, up to the Save River.

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Table 4.1  Synoptic table of the number of Renamo soldiers by military region, December 1984 Regions

Number of Soldiers1 1st South Zone (Maputo): 1,229 (9.99%)

Leão Sul

373

Elefante Sul

292

Leopardo Sul

564

2nd South Zone (Gaza and Inhambane): At least 1,725 (14.02%)2 at least 592

Búfalo Sul Gato Sul

between 641 and 962

Tigre Sul

at least 492

2

Centre Coordination Group (Manica and Sofala): At least 4,996 (40.62%)3 ?

Crocodilo

?

Gato Centro Leopardo Centro

at least 428

Tigre Centro

at least 330

4

?

Peixe Leão Centro

at least 2,056

5

‘T. Chímica’ region

?

6

1st Battalion

338

2nd Battalion (‘Gorongosa’)7

[338?]

3rd Battalion

[338?]

Special Forces

?

8

Autonomous Rinoceronte Region (Tete): 745 (6.06%) 1st North Zone (Zambezia and Niassa): 2,708 (22.02%) 766

Leão Norte Gato Norte

1,158

9

446

Tigre Norte 2nd Battalion (‘of Zambezia’)

[338?]

2nd North Zone (Nampula and Cabo Delgado): 897 (7.29%) Leopardo Norte

581

Búfalo Norte

316

Total Mozambique, minimal estimate: 12,300 (100%)

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1. Including wounded soldiers; recruits not included. It is not clear if the women from the Destacamento Feminino (DF, Female Battalion) are included in the numbers by region, except for the Leão Centro region, where they are included. 2. For the total provincial estimate, out of prudence, I considered the lower number of the two estimates for Gato Sul (641 instead of 962). 3. There were two ‘Zones’ in the GCC (Centre Coordination Group), the GCS (South Coordination Group) and the GCN (North Coordination Group), but the documentation did not allow me to work out calculations of the central military regions by zones. Soldiers in Casa Banana are not included. As there is no data for the four regions, I used the minimal value of the regions for which there is data to work out the total for the Centre provinces, i.e. the Elefante Sul region with 292 soldiers. I included the battalions stationed in the centre of the country in the number of soldiers of the GCC. 4. For the Leopardo Centro region, only operational soldiers, and only for July 1984. 5. Including 472 women of the Destacamento Feminino. See also note 37, infra. 6. See footnote 38 on ‘Chímica’ Region. 7. It seemed reasonable to assume that all battalions had similar or near- similar numbers, therefore I used the number of the 1st Battalion which is known. A battalion normally had 300 men in infantry, plus some others for artillery, intelligence, nursing, etc. There were three companies for each. 8. Without data. 9.  This number includes the EM (Military Staff) of the GCN (37 soldiers) and the Battalion stationed in Zambezia in this provincial total. Sources: – Soldiers of 1st South Zone: CG3/131, Do E.M. 1a Zona Sul para EMG, 1/1/ January 1985; CG3/283, Do EM 1a Zona [(Sul]) para EMG, 16/1/ January 1985. – Soldiers of Gato-Sul region: CG2/302, Do EM da 2a Zona Sul para EMG, 13/12/ December 1984; CG3/155, Do EM 2a Zona Sul para EMG, 26/12/ December 1984. – Soldiers of Búfalo-Sul region: CG3/157, Do EM 2a Zona Sul para EMG, 19/12/ December 1984; CG3/242, Do EM 2a Zona Sul para EMG, 31/12/ December 1984. – Soldiers of Tigre-Sul region: CG3/160, Do EM 2a Zona Sul para EMG, 28/12/ December 84 [(doubtful numbers]); CG3/215, Do EM 2a Zona Sul para EMG, 31/12/ December 1984; CG4/38, Do CH do EM da 2a Zona Sul p[(ara]) EM[(G]), no date [(January 1985]). – Soldiers of 2nd South Zone: CG3/292, Do EM 2a Zona Sul para EMG, no date [(December 1984, copy dated 20/1/ January 85). – Soldiers of Leão-Centro region: CG1/1, Do Departamento de defesa e Segurança [(do GCC]) para Comandante Zacarias Pedro, 28/7/84. –  Soldiers of Leopardo-Centro region: CG8/93, Do C*/Avelino Samuel para DD[(RNM]), 11/11/ November 1984. –  Soldiers of Tigre-Centro region: CG9/289, Do C/Reg[(ional]) Afonso Pande para EMG, 9/1/ January 1985; CG9/310, Do CH/ reg[(ional]) do efetivo [(da região Tigre-Centro]) para EMG, 13/12/ December 1984. – Soldiers of Rinoceronte region: CG1/97, Do C/Regional da região Rinoceronte para Estado Maior General, 24/1/ January 1985. – Soldiers of the North zones: CG7/29, Do CGN para DDRNM**, 24/8/August 1984. * Translator’s note: C/(abbreviation for Comandante) means Commander. **  Translator’s note: DDRNM (abbreviation for Departamento de Defesa da Resistência Nacional Moçambicana) means Defence Department of the Mozambican National Resistance.

A first consideration in relation to Table 4.1 must be to the estimated total of men countrywide, i.e. 12,300 soldiers (‘continuadores’ not included43). In 1992, eight years later, when Renamo demobilized at the end of the war, 21,979 soldiers showed up at the United Nations’ (Onumoz) demobilization centres, among whom were 5,885 (26.78 per cent) individuals aged 16 years or under, i.e. child soldiers. On the government side, 70,902 soldiers showed up, among   Often statistics mention the presence of ‘Continuadores’, that is: children who had or did not have arms. On Frelimo’s side, the ‘Continuadores’ was one of the ‘mass democratic organizations’ of the party-state, for children. Before they could join the OJM (Organization of Mozambican Youth), children (at least the literate ones) had to join the Continuadores, which was a kind of youth scout group associated with the party. 43

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whom 5,631 aged 16 or under (almost the same absolute number as that of Renamo, but proportionally much lower: 7.94 per cent).44 If we remove the child soldiers to compare the numbers of soldiers in 1992 and December 1984, we find 16,093 Renamo soldiers over 16 years in 1992.45 My estimate of a total of 12,300 Renamo soldiers in 1984 sounds thereafter quite plausible. Renamo would have gone from 12,000 to 16,000 soldiers (over 16 years old) in eight years, which means a recruitment of around 500 individuals per year, which is much more significant than it seems as, at the same time, we must take into account the important losses suffered in combat or to illnesses. A second consideration concerns the numbers of soldiers per province. If, not surprisingly, the centre of the country has by far the greatest contingent of soldiers (41 per cent of all troops are in Manica and Sofala46), Zambezia holds 18.39 per cent of the 22.02 per cent troops of the 1st North Zone, something which certainly reflects the unification of Renamo with the Revolutionary Party of Mozambique, especially in the Gato Norte region, in the west of Zambezia.47 Together Manica, Sofala and Zambezia saw the strongest presence of Renamo. The 2nd North Zone (with 7.29 per cent in 1984) would be in the following years the area with the biggest Renamo expansion, with the emergence of real strongholds, particularly on the coast of Nampula and Cabo Delgado. We must also highlight High-Zambezia (Tete province), covered by the Rinoceronte military region, where we can note interestingly that the areas where Renamo was strongest (Furancongo, etc.) had been strongholds of Frelimo in the ‘Tete Front’ during the liberation struggle. The history of the transfer from the war against the Portuguese to that against Frelimo is yet to be investigated, but these two periods in that province have something in common: the marginalization of the population by the modern State. As for the big south, this is a territory of relative Renamo weakness, with 9.99 per cent and 14.02 per cent of the total troops present in the 1st and the 2nd South Zones respectively. 44   These ratios can be calculated based on the age of 18 years, but as the Mozambican law only considers illegal recruiting youths below the age of 16 (Decree no. 3 of 1986), the calculations here were based on the age of 16 years. The sources used for the data calculated ratios based on 18 years of age. See Ton Pardoel, ‘Socio-Economic Profile of Demobilized Soldiers in Mozambique’ (Maputo: UNDP, 1994) quoted by Jeremy M. Weinstein, Inside Rebellion: The Politics of Insurgent Violence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 114–15 (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics). 45   One can assume that the proportion of child soldiers was higher in 1992 than in 1984, given that this recruiting pattern is a consequence of society’s exhaustion. The practice was used by both sides, but more on the Renamo side, as it did not have at its disposal the ‘S.M.O.’ (Serviço militar obrigatório, mandatory military service). 46   The number of soldiers of the Leão Centro region is surprising, but it may include data related to the EMG and troops in movement. 47   The Revolutionary Party of Mozambique (PRM) had begun its struggle against Frelimo in 1976 in the western areas of Zambezia, where Frelimo had a policy of compulsory strategic hamlets (‘communal villages’) for the peasants (see Chichava’s Chapter 1 in this volume). Nevertheless, Zambezia in its whole was the province where the number of communal villages was the lowest. Therefore, the implantation of Renamo in the central and eastern parts of the province cannot be explained by this rural policy of Frelimo, and must be sought in the longue durée marginalization process of this province.

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What is interesting about these military statistics is that we can see Mozambique’s subsequent political landscape, starting with the first multiparty elections in 1994. If this ‘landscape’ already existed in 1984 – but obviously without the political expression allowed after 1994 – that is most probably because it was historically rooted in Mozambique’s social strata and their relations to the modern State and the capital city, be it in terms of integration or marginalization or opposition in relation to the ‘centre’. It is thereafter not surprising to note that Renamo (even when it was ignorant of the reasons) managed to capitalize on the 20th century marginalization of some areas of the country caused by the decision in 1898 to change the capital city from Ilha de Moçambique to Lourenço-Marques, and by the regional social and economic consequences arising from that strategic choice, which was kept unchanged by Frelimo.48 Be this as it may, while negotiation attempts were taking place between Frelimo and Renamo in South Africa at the end of 1984, one of Renamo’s main aims was to move towards the north of Mozambique. Let us turn to this subject and see how Renamo’s expansion unfolded.

Moving North Renamo’s move to the north of Mozambique aimed at consolidating the guerrilla’s presence in the provinces of Zambezia and Nampula and, after a push into Niassa and Cabo Delgado, to solidify its extension to the whole of the country. Areas like Cabo Delgado, and in particular Mueda, were heavily charged with symbolism. Mueda had been the place where the official history claimed the first demand for the independence of Mozambique was made, to which the Portuguese administration had responded with a massacre on 16 June 1960.49 It was also in these areas, inhabited by the Maconde people, that the first battles of the war of liberation occurred. Later, these areas liberated by Frelimo became its strongholds, and, after independence, the Maconde people maintained very strong support for that party.50 In the messages exchanged in 1983 between the regions of Gato Norte (Zambezia province) and Leopardo Norte (Nampula province),51 there are already mentions of operations in these provinces as well as also observa48   On the historicity of the regional imbalances in Mozambique, see Michel Cahen, ‘Mozambique: histoire géopolitique d’un pays sans nation’, Lusotopie, I/1-2 (1994), 213–66 and Sérgio Chichava, ‘Le “Vieux Mozambique”: l’identité politique de la Zambézie’, PhD Thesis in political sciences (Université de Bordeaux 4, 2007). 49   On the myths of the so-called ‘Motim de Mueda’ (Mueda Mutiny), see my study ‘The Mueda Case and Maconde Political Ethnicity. Some notes on a work in progress’, Africana Studia (Porto), 2 (November 1999), 29–46. 50  Paolo Israel, ‘Kummwangalela Guebuza: the Mozambican general elections of 2004, in Muidumbe and the Roots of the Loyalty of Makonde People to Frelimo’, Lusotopie, XIII/2 (2006), 103–25. 51   The names of the regions were numbered up to the beginning of 1984 (ex. Region no. 5, etc.), but in the text below, all the regions are referred to by their animal names.

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tions about the land. Regional Commander of Leopardo Norte, without doubt in reply to a request for information, claimed that ‘at a regional level … there are AC (aldeias comunais, communal villages) in all towns, districts and locality seats and there are many ACs in the zones which are equipped [sic] with FPLM,52 including militiamen, but there are others not equipped’. 53 The more communal villages there were, the easier it was for Renamo to enter a province, since an attack and the destruction of a communal village, together with the order given to the populations to go back to and inhabit their traditional scattered areas, was the most effective way of building a social basis and extending the zones under rebel control. In the Gato Norte region, on 19 July 1983, a FPLM military member was hit by an exploding mine on the Namarroi-Ile road (west Zambezia) and a mudjiba54 captured important military materiel; in the 3rd sector (north-west of the same province) an FPLM military vehicle drove over a mine, resulting in six FPLMs dead.55 In the Leopardo Norte region, in August, soldiers laid an anti-tank mine in the Tolela Agronómica de Nametil route, south of Nampula.56 On 31 August 1983, 23 combatants attacked the Calipo AC (west of Nametil) – ‘the AC was set on fire by the population’.57 The same military region announced the complete destruction of the bridge on the Ligonha River, in the Naoro zone, in Iapala, which signalled an advance towards the far west of Nampula province.58 Many messages from these regions of expansion complained about the shortage of materiel, even though this was before the Nkomati Accord, a period when South Africa almost officially supplied military materiel to Renamo. The   Translator’s Note: when translating Renamo’s popular Portuguese into English, it was not possible to be totally faithful to the peculiar expressions, spelling mistakes, and so forth; therefore, as much as possible, the translator tried to express, but not reproduce, such style. FPLM: Forças Populares de Libertação de Moçambique (Mozambique People’s Liberation Forces), the government army. Within the Cadernos, both abbreviations FPLM or FAM (Armed Forces of Mozambique) are used, sometimes in the plural (FPLMs, FAMs) expressing soldiers of the army and not the institution (‘two FPLMs were killed’, etc.). 53   GC5/747, Da Região n°  9 ao EMG (from Region no.  9 to EMG) (1983). I numbered all the messages included in the Cadernos to facilitate the analysis during the research and to improve presentation. Thus, the messages mentioned in this work will look like this: number of Caderno (refer to note 26) + number of message + title of message as it appears in the Caderno + date of message. For example: CG9/61, Do C/R.R.R. para EMG (From C/R.R.R. to EMG), 10 December 1984 stands for Caderno de Gorongosa no.  9, no. of message 61, ‘Do Comandante Regional da Região Rinoceronte para Estado Maior General’ (‘from Regional Commander of the Rinoceronte Region to the General Military Staff’), 10 December 1984); CG10/53, Do C/Reg Chimica para DD (from Reg. C/Chimica to DD), 15 January 1985 stands for Caderno de Gorongosa no. 10, no. of message 53, ‘Do Comandante Regional Chimica para Departamento da Defesa’ (‘from Regional Commander Chimica to the Defence Department’), 15 January 1985; etc. The dates given refer to the dates of the messages; the dates of copies of messages are not given, except when the date of a message does not exist. 54  The mudjibas were civilian youngsters, sometimes armed, working for Renamo in areas controlled by Renamo, or for the traditional chiefs recognized by Renamo. See more details below. 55   GC5/485, Da Região n° 8 ao DD (from Region no. 8 to the Defence Department) (no date, but in July 1983). 56   GC5/201, Da Região n° 9 ao DD (from Region no. 9 to the Defence Department), 16 August 1983. 57   GC5/523, Da Região n° 9 ao DD (from Region no. 9 to the Defence Department) (September 1983). 58  GC5/747, op. cit. 52

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Leopardo Norte (Nampula) logistics chief complained, for example, in August/ September 1983, that his region had only one 82 mm mortar, and that ‘no other base in the region has one’.59 In the Gato region (Zambezia), there were complaints that ‘the regional base only had six RPG-7 bazookas and two 60 mm mortars’.60

After the Nkomati Accord There are many months with no information at all between Cadernos de Gorongosa no. 5, which focused on the year 1983, and other Cadernos which go up to 1985. Available information shows however that, starting in September 1984, the Renamo command put intense pressure on its military regions in the north of the country to intensify their war activities and expand further north. All this occurred while negotiations were taking place between Frelimo and Renamo in Pretoria, and it aimed at demonstrating Renamo’s military might nationwide. Afonso Dhlakama, the Commander-in-Chief, was indeed not satisfied with the status quo, as can be perceived in a message of 17 September to General Raul Dique Majojo, of the North Coordination Group: 1. I inform you that I am fed up with the Tigre-Niassa region because they are doing absolutely nothing. We know that they don’t have arms, but they must carry out activities such as burning communal villages and making progress to cross Lichinga into the districts in the north of the capital [of the province], since the enemy is sleeping and has almost no soldiers in those districts. This is good tactics as the enemy is scattered in the province and worried, instead of just operating within one single zone. 2. Those in Cabo Delgado must also advance further north of the Montepuez road, this means bringing into line a group that can carry out operations lasting 20 to 30 days. 3. Those in Nampula must also destroy all enemy planning and, in small groups of 15 combatants, carry out operations near the town capital of Nampula and in the capital of the districts as the enemy has plans of attacks our bases during the 25th September festivities for FPLM day.61

Two weeks later, he confirmed his message and specified his order: 1. You must order the regions of Leão, Leopardo, Tigre and Búfalo to intensify their attacks on all enemy positions with artillery, carry out ambushes on roads with car traffic and eliminate Frelimo’s agents. 2. Our combatants in Cabo Delgado must push further north and go to Mueda

  GC5/413, Da Região n° 9 ao DD (from Region no. 9 to the Defense Department) (no date, but in August and September 1983). 60   GC5/419, Da Região n° 8 [região Gato Norte] ao DD (from Region no. 8 [Gato Norte region] to the Defence Department) (no date, but between August and September 1983). The RPG-7 were extremely important as they could destroy or stop armoured vehicles and tanks. 61   CG7/135, Do C/Zacarias [Pedro], para Ch. GCN Dique Raul (from C/Zacarias [Pedro] to GCN Commander Dique Raul), 17 September 1984. 59

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district in order to eliminate enemy agents, burn down all infrastructure, and attack enemy positions. 3. In Niassa, they must use artillery to attack the town of Lichinga; other groups must use artillery to attack the districts of Majune, Mandimba, Macalonge and kill all the Frelimo members in the district capitals. 4. Nampula and Zambezia must do the same, for example in Mocuba Quelimane Maganja da Costa Morrumbala Gurué Alto-Molócué Namatil [Nametil] the town of Nampula Namialo Mueconte [Muecate?], these positions must be attacked with artillery while some small groups must ambush the roads and other small groups are used to eliminate members of the Frelimo party and our mudjibas must be fully committed to these operations of elimination of agents of the Frelimo party. 5.) These operations are to be carried out in tandem with the negotiations between Renamo and Frelimo which are taking place in Pretoria.’62

In another message two days later, while asking for an overall intensification of operations in the provinces of Nampula and Zambezia (military regions of Leopardo Norte, Leão Norte and Gato Norte), in particular against the railway line Quelimane-Mocuba, Dhlakama summarizes the topic of a push to the north: ‘Our forces in Niassa and Cabo Delgado must carry out operations and cannot remain idle, they must attack and burn down all the communal villages and [kill] enemy people … Those in the Mueda sector must burn down all the communal villages in the Mueda district, as our enemy hasn’t started its offensive against this sector yet. N.B.: I want all these instructions to be carried out without delay’.63

The order to move north was accompanied by a reinforcement of the high military hierarchy in the given regions. On 25 October, Dhlakama announced to General Raul Dique Majojo, of the North Coordinator Group (GCN), that today at 23.00 you will receive the parcels and the Generals António Pedro and Henriques Samuel will make a parachute jump on Viola 64, [you] must light fire at 22.30, that is 30 minutes before 23.00 today 25/10/84. N.B.: keep security of all 65 and do not say much.66

Thus, two important generals were parachute-dropped near the regional base of General Abel Tsequete (Leão Norte region) in Viola, centre-east of Zambezia, with the ‘parcels’ (weapons, medical supplies and medicines, etc.). It is not known whether those generals had come back from ‘abroad’ (South

  CG7/198, Do C/Zacarias [Pedro] para chefe coordenador Raúl Dique Majojo (from C/Zacarias [Pedro] to coordinating Commander Raúl Dique Majojo), 1 October 1984. 63   CG7/201, Do C/Zacarias [Pedro] para CH Raul Dique (Mensagem n°4/10/84) (from C/Zacarias [Pedro] to Commander Raul Dique (message no. 4/10/84)), 19 October 1984. 64   DZ: Drop Zone, area for landing of parachutes. 65   The plural used here (‘all ’) is not a mistake as there was always one main DZ and a secondary one in case of a security warning in the first DZ. 66   CG7/226, Do C/Zacarias [Pedro] para CH Raul Dique Majojo (Mensagem n°X/10/84) (from C/ Zacarias [Pedro] to Commander Raul Dique Majojo (Message no. X/10/84)), 25 October 1984. 62

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Africa or Malawi) or from the headquarters in Gorongosa, but the result was the same – military hierarchy build-up. The ‘parcels’, during these post-Nkomati times, were insufficient however and an order was given by Dhlakama to give priority to General António Pedro, who would be charged with the expansion in Nampula and Cabo Delgado: 1. I know that what you received was very little, but I’m addressing this issue so that we can urgently deliver a much larger load. Still, everything that we deliver must go to General António Pedro … You can distribute as you want the medicine, combat rations, rice and flour … 2. The group of General António shall keep more projectiles, mortar shells and the other resupplying materiel, which are needed in the Nampula and Cabo Delgado regions. 3. Congratulations to all the generals and soldiers of the North zone.67

The fact that the ‘parcels’ were dropped in Zambezia,68 a long way from the far north, shows that Renamo had not yet established itself adequately enough in Nampula and Cabo Delgado to ensure a ‘D.Z.’ in those provinces. This can be seen in the very different ‘sizes’ of the northern regions in Table 4.2. We can see that the regions more to the north, which had to expand most geographically, were the weakest in term of numbers of soldiers (Tigre in Niassa and Búfalo in Cabo Delgado). Conversely one region (Gato, west and south Zambezia) had more than a third of all soldiers (34.31 per cent) while two regions in Zambezia (Gato and Leão) had more than a quarter each (totalling together 57.76 per cent). These figures reveal the province of Zambezia as a Renamo stronghold, which it had been since 1982 and was to remain until then. The GCN was a significant structure, with generals, a technical team (RT, soldiers, medical support, etc.), security, etc. The percentage of ill soldiers was 1.8 per cent, which is low (it must refer solely to those in hospital). The high number of ‘non-operational’ soldiers, more than a quarter of the total number (26.69 per cent) is surprising: soldiers without weapons, or perhaps confusion in the statistics with yet-to-arm recruits?

Leopardo Norte The push north aimed in the first place to strengthen the war efforts in Nampula province, in the 2nd North Zone under the command of General António Pedro, and in particular in the Leopardo Norte region. In the last months of 1984, the Leopardo region seemed to be involved in coming close to Nampula, the capital of the province as well as the port of Nacala, and to expand north, towards the border with Cabo Delgado. One can mention in relation to this the ambush in the Lourenço zone on 5 September 1984, 13 km from Nampula, on 67   CG7/243, Do C/em chefe das F.A. da Renamo para os generais António Pedro e Henriques Samuel (Mensagem n° X/10/84 (from Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Renamo to Generals António Pedro and Henriques Samuel (Message no. X/10/84)), 30 October 1984. 68   See footnote 113 below for a list of the ‘parcels’.

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Table 4.2  Number of soldiers in the military regions in the north, August 1984

Total of soldiers indicated (and calculated) Northern regions Total

Totals

Operational

Nonoperational

Including sick soldiers

3,182 [3,267]1

2,360 [2,393]2

822 [872]3

[61]

Zambezia Leão

766

498

268

24

Gato

1,112 [1,121]3

835

286

16

37

37

-

-

446

362

84

5

581

427

[154]4

[11]

316

234

80

5

E.M. GCN Niassa Tigre Nampula Leopardo Cabo Delgado Búfalo

1. I have not taken into account here the doubt mentioned in note 2 following. 2. The sum of the figures for the four provinces equals 2,393, but perhaps the indicated total does not include the 37 men of the CGN (in which case the total would be 2,356 instead of 2,360). 3. As the sum of 835 and 286 is 1,121, it is possible that a simple number inversion may have occurred when decoding was carried out. 4. The number of non-operational soldiers was clearly omitted during decoding, since I have calculated it here by a simple subtraction: 154. Source: data of message CG7/29, Do CGN para DDRNM (from CGN to DDRNM), 24 August 1984.

the Nampula-Murrupula road, and the destruction on 11th of the same month of Caramojabo69 AC, inside the district of Nampula with the ‘liberation of the population’. On the same day, ‘our informers in the 3rd sector of the Leopardo region’ destroyed Ninicua AC, in the Nilupalo zone, Namapa district, ‘liberating people’. It is the first reference to an attack on Namapa district, on the Lúrio River bordering Cabo Delgado province. The reference to the protagonists of such attack is very interesting: ‘our informers’, that is, not the soldiers nor Renamo mudjibas, which is to say that in those areas, support for Renamo precedes its military arrival and that the ‘informers’ performed political work in the area beforehand.70   It probably refers to Canameja, 20 km west of Nampula.   CG7/124, Do Grupo Coordenador Norte para C/Zacarias Pedro (from the North Coordination Group to C/Zacarias Pedro), 1 October 1984.

69

70

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Mention of the activity of ‘informers’ occurs again, particularly in the area between Nacala and Namapa: many times, those who destroy ACs are described as ‘our informers’. On 16 September 1984, the Maueta AC, in the zone of Burtalo (district of Nacala-a-Velha) is destroyed, ‘liberating people’; on 17 September, it is the turn of the Matirene AC, in the Mialo zone, Covo (district of Nacala-a-Velha) ‘liberating people’; on 20 September ‘they burn down the Machino AC, zone of Itoculo seat … liberating people’;71 on the same day it is the turn of Namisir AC, zone of Cano [Covo?]72 (district of Namapa) ‘liberating people’;73 and on 23 September, ‘our informers of the Leopardo region’ again burned down Piloto AC, in Mililena [?] zone, ‘liberating people’.74 While it is clear that Renamo was expanding in Nampula province, it is not clear at all if the areas where Renamo gained ground had been pro-Frelimo during the anticolonial war like in Tete province. Ethnic factors may have played a role, albeit very indirectly: the high mistrust and suspicion of Frelimo towards the Makhuwa people, in these rich agricultural soils, certainly explains much of the heavy grouping of peasants in strategic hamlets (‘communal villages’) and authoritarian policies in cotton zones.75 Thus it may have been an easy task for Renamo to enter the Makhuwa areas despised by Frelimo.

Tigre Norte Tigre region, part of the 1st North Zone, commanded by General Raul Dique Majojo,76 was responsible for the vast province of Niassa. During the anticolonial war, Frelimo had entered the province but through the north, from Tanzania. Renamo men entered the area from the south, through the rich agricultural lands of Mecanhelas, near Malawi, and Cuamba (with the railway line Nacala-Nampula-Cuamba-Malawi as the target). On 2 September 1984, part of the Cuamba-Malawi railway line was mined and disassembled, and on the 5th of the same month, the town of Mecanhelas was attacked with artillery. On 8 October 1984, Renamo forces ‘burned down five communal villages in the zone of Lipumbecue [?], in Mussangulo,77 district of Mandimba, executing the secretary of the grupo dinamizador78 and an agent of the enemy’.79   20 km north of Monapo, west-south-west of Nacala.   Near Odinepa, 40 km east of Namapa, close to Lúrio River. 73   CG7/124, Do Grupo Coordenador Norte para C/Zacarias Pedro (from the North Coordination Group to C/Zacarias Pedro), 1 October 1984. 74   CG7/90, Do G.C.N. para o C/ Zacarias Pedro (from G.C.N. to C/Zacarias Pedro), 26 September 1984. 75   About Nampula province Governor Gaspar Zimba’s attempts to reinstate forced labour of cotton similar to colonial times, see M. Cahen, Mozambique, la révolution implosée: Études sur douze années d’indépendance (1975–1987) (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1987, pp. 64–8). 76   It seems that this general concurrently commanded the 1st North Zone and the North Coordination Group that comprised the two North Zones. 77   This is Massangulo, near the border of Malawi, north of Mandimba. 78   Translator’s Note: Grupo Dinamizador (‘GD’). The grupos dinamizadores were at the same time pre-cells of the party in power (Frelimo) and municipal base structures. 79   CG7/202, Do G.C.N. para o C/ Zacarias [Pedro] (from G.C.N. to C/ Zacarias [Pedro]), 16 October 1984. In the message, it says ‘Leão’, but it must be a mistake because Mandimba is in the operational area of the Tigre region. 71 72

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The effort to the north (Lichinga and beyond), the north-east (Maua and Marrupa) and the east (Nipepe) was very clear too: on 14 August, ‘our forces’ destroyed a (communal?) village in Borone, Malucape zone, district of Morrupa [Marrupa?] ‘and killed one unarmed FPLM who was on holidays’: was he in uniform or was he accused? On 20 August, they executed ‘nine enemy agents’ (three secretaries of GD, two militiamen, three members of the OMM [Organization of Mozambican Women], and one member of FPLM on holidays) in the Nipepe AC,80 which was burned down.81 On 3 September, the Muoco82 AC was destroyed and again ‘1 FPLM on holidays was executed’, and the following day two wooden bridges on the rivers Pavala and Niparecue were burned down in the Muoco zone, on the Cuamba-Maua road; and most importantly, on the 6th of the same month the ‘position IN’83 in Majune was attacked further north, 120 km to the east of Lichinga on the same latitude.84 On 17 September, it was announced that ‘we have organized an 80-soldier group of the Tigre region to settle a base of the 4th sector 30 km from Lichinga, before 25 September 1984.85 … The group will take an R.T.’86,87. On the 27th of the same month, ‘our forces in the Tigre region’ burned down Marmanica AC, near Lichinga, ‘killing 5 FPLM, seizing 2 PPSH arms88 and military equipment, and liberating people’ and attacked the Machumane AC, 45 km east of Lichinga, ‘killing 4 civil militiamen’.89 The month of October was crucial for the push north of Niassa. On 5 October, the GCN announced to the EMG: We inform C/  Zacarias90 that the 2nd sector in the Tigre region is already in the north of Lichinga, in Muecube [i.e. administrative area of Muecube], Lichinga district, and has already carried out the burning of communal villages and the execution of enemy agents … We also let you know that the newly-formed 4th sector of the Tigre region will settle down in the south of Lichinga and it is already on its way … The 3rd sector in the Tigre region which is in Mua91 will move to Marrupa district as there are not many targets where it currently is.92

  District of Maua, south-east of Niassa.   CG7/51, Do G.C. Norte para o C/ Zacarias [Pedro] (from North G.C. to C/Zacarias [Pedro]), 31 August 1984. 82   27 km south-east of Maua. 83   ‘IN’ stands for ‘inimigo’, that is to say ‘enemy position’ (that is, Frelimo’s and the State’s). 84  In coordinates 13°26’S/36°11’E. CG7/152, Do GCN para C/Z[acarias Pedro] (from GCN to C/Z[acarias Pedro]), 13 September 1984. 85   Is it by chance, or a symbolic date selected for this going to the North? Let us note that it was the twentieth anniversary of Frelimo’s official date for the beginning of the anticolonial armed struggle. 86   At the same time, the radio-transmission operator and device. 87   CG7/53, Do Grupo Coordenador Norte para C/Zacarias Pedro (from the North Coordination Group to C/Zacarias Pedro), 17 September 1984. 88   Soviet submachine gun (Pistolet-Poulemiot Chpagina, in Russian). 89   CG7/161, Do GCN para C/Z[acarias Pedro] (from GCN to C/Z[acarias Pedro]), 3 October 1984. 90   Note that Commander Zacarias is one of the pseudonyms of Afonso Dhlakama. 91   That is Maua, on the Cuamba-Marrupa road, 100 km north-east of Cuamba. 92   CG7/168, Do GCN para C/Z[acarias Pedro] (from GCN to C/Z[acarias Pedro]), 5 October 1984. 80 81

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As we can see, priorities were merely military: a sector was moved, instead of creating another, not worrying about stabilizing the liberated zones at this stage, something which would cause major problems subsequently (see below). On 2 October, ACs in Maposo and Lutisse Zones, both in Mucumbe,93 were burned down, ‘liberating people’; on 3 October, one AC in the Madama zone, Lichinga district, and another in the Vagie (?) zone, near the provincial capital city of Lichinga, ‘liberating people and taking great quantities of civilian articles’; and on the 4th of the same month, Muembe94 was attacked, ‘burning down the communal village there and liberating people’.95 On 5 October, our forces in the Tigre region used artillery to attack [the] provincial base [sic: capital] of Lichinga, and according to SR96 the mortar shells fell near the airport … On 6/10/84 our forces in the Tigre region burned down communal villages in the zones of Luisa, Nhande, Naumcocola [Namucoco] and in the district of the Lichinga province [sic], liberating people and executing enemy agents … On 6/10/84 … they unscrewed bolts on ten stretches of the railway line between Cuamba and Lichinga … later executing four enemy agents … our forces in the Tigre region used artillery to attack [the capital of] the district of Marrupa and according to SR, the mortar shells fell near the capital.97

This attack on Marrupa is evidence of a major effort towards the north-east of Niassa. On 8 October, the communal village in Lugasse zone, Nairobe locality, Magune (i.e. Majune) was burned down.98 Operations in the north of Niassa were intensified: On 26/10/84 our forces in the Tigre region burned down a communal village of Nucuanha Dumbatena, in Lichinga … killing 5 enemy agents, of which one was responsible for the collective Machamba [and] taking a lot of money in meticais … On 24/10/84 the Tigre forces unscrewed the bolts of the railway line between Lichinga and Cuamba, in Luguisiua zone, Lichinga district … On 24/10/84, our forces in the Tigre region burned down communal villages of the Lique position, in Chinenge [50 km south of Lichinga], Lichinga district, taking large quantities of money in meticais and medication … On 22/10/84 our forces in the Tigre region burned down communal villages of Masiuto, in Monte Chacasse zone, in the locality of the Lichinga district, killing 2 unarmed militiamen and a secretary of the Grupo Dinamizador … On 18/10/84 our forces in the Tigre region burned down communal villages in the Mavagona zone, in the locality of the district of Unago [Unango].99

It is noteworthy that ‘liberating people’ is not always mentioned, which does not necessarily mean that this population remained loyal to Frelimo; there is simply no data in this regard. What is very clear though is that attacks on   This is Mucumba, 5 km south-west of Marrupa.   50 km east-north-east of Lichinga, on the road to Mataca. 95   CG7/173, Do GCN para C/Zacarias Pedro (from GCN to C/Zacarias Pedro), 7 October 1984. 96   Reconnaissance Services. 97   CG7/183, Do GCN para C/Zacarias Pedro (from GCN to C/Zacarias Pedro), 11 October 1984. 98   CG7/202, Do GCN para C/Zacarias [Pedro] (from GCN to C/Zacarias [Pedro]), 16 October 1984. 99   CG7/247, Do GCN para C/Zacarias Pedro (from GCN to C/Zacarias Pedro), 30 October 1984. 93

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communal villages were Renamo’s preferred means to enter new zones and establish themselves in the heart of populations. The high priority given to military expansion caused big problems however. A radio message noted the following in relation to the move further north of the 2nd sector of the Tigre region: C/ Zacarias, in the Tigre region the enemy is killing the population in the Santarem zone where we had established the base of our 2nd sector; we do not have sufficient soldiers to settle OPs100 in the zones abandoned by our forces after they moved in great numbers to the strategic zone and with many targets … Whenever our forces abandon zones, the enemy appears and massacres the population as the number of soldiers we have in the regions is not enough to cover these zones and defend the population against the massacres carried out by the enemy … We ask for further advice.101

Here, there is evidence of a clear contradiction between the macro-political imperatives (heighten military pressure on Frelimo, expanding the guerrilla war while negotiations were taking place in Pretoria) and the micro-political stabilization of the liberated zones. Tellingly, at that time, the priority was and remained military.

Búfalo Norte In Cabo Delgado province –  the former main region of the anticolonial struggle – with little armament, or armament yet to arrive, the forces of the Búfalo region strove to attack the ACs in the Pemba and Montepuez Zones.102 Thus these forces destroyed: (i) on 22 July 1984, an AC in the Tepere zone (south of Namuno) ‘liberating people’ (no battle was mentioned); (ii) on 28 July, an AC in the Mulamba (?) zone, in Mesa-Mutepuez (Montepuez) and ‘killed one militiaman plus five individuals of the vigilante group, liberating people’; (iii) on 29 July an AC in the Alto-Namuno zone (50 km to the south of Montepuez on the road to Tepere) ‘liberating people’ (no battle mentioned); and (iv) on 8 August, an AC in the Metete zone (30 km to the east of Montepuez) in Mesa ‘liberating people’ (no battle mentioned). On 10 August, ‘they had a battle with the enemy in the Chicoma AC, Chilaite zone, in Chiure-Ocua [south-east of Cabo Delgado], during which military equipment was seized’ – no mention was made of ‘liberating people’; but on the same day, during a second contact with ‘the enemy of Chilaite’ in the same village, ‘this time [they] liberated 40 people’, that is, not the entire village. Other actions continued and, on 6 and 7 August, ambushes occurred on civilian vehicles on the road from Namuno to Montepuez in the Mulela 100   OPs, abbreviation for ‘[Bases] op[eracionais]’: small operational bases usually located around the main bases, as a tool for their defence. 101   CG7/173, Do GCN para C/Zacarias Pedro (from GCN to C/Zacarias Pedro), 8 October 1984. 102   According to Emerson, op.  cit., p. 135, Renamo guerrillas arrived in the province of Cabo Delgado on May 1984, which is quite plausible, but he is absolutely wrong when he says that ‘they quickly won the support of the Maconde people’, which he must be confusing with the great Macua (or Makhuwa) constellation.

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[?] [zone]. ‘The Land Rover MLQ 15-36 vehicle plus an M.W.B tractor were burned down’.103 The details provided in the messages (here, the make and number plate of the car and the type of tractor) are typical of Renamo’s strong hierarchy (the high command needs to be informed of everything) and of the bureaucratic culture of the movement. On 30 August, a civilian vehicle was ambushed on the Montepuez-Balama road (south-west of Montepuez), and 1 FPLM was killed, 3 AK-47s were seized and ‘one individual from the population was killed and three were injured’. On 3 September, a ‘contato IN’ (a contact with the enemy) was made in the Mulema(?) zone, in Ocua, on the border between Cabo Delgado and Nampula provinces, opposite Namapa on the other side of the Lúrio River, when four Renamo soldiers were injured.104 On the 7th, a ‘contato IN’ was made in the Namatupune (?) area, Petecula (Petácula) zone, ‘when NF105 retreated due to lack of ammunition’. On the 28th of the same month, ‘our Tigre forces’ carried out an ambush on the Meloco-Muico road (south-east of Cabo Delgado), in the Percula zone (Régulo Petácula, between Muico and Meloco), in Meloco, district of Montepuez, when ‘the enemy withdrew in disarray’.106 Renamo’s favourite target, however, was to attack the ACs, as happened on 16 August in the Montepuez and Ocua Zones (Chiure);107 on 1 September, with an ambush on an ‘enemy column’ on the road linking Samora AC to Chela, village of Bilibiza (northwest of Pemba); and on the 5th of the same month, there was an attack against an ‘enemy pedestrian column’ to the north of Chioco village, with no deaths on either side.108 On the 24th, ‘Our Búfalo forces burned down the Mejope AC, in the Marie zone, and destroyed a cooperative store and a health centre, seizing several types of medication and civilian items’; if the Marie zone means Mariri, 30 km west of Ancuabe, this would mean a move to the north-east of the province. The next day, they destroyed Navupe AC, its health centre and one cooperative shop, and ‘seized medication and civilian articles’. There is no mention in these actions of the ‘liberation of populations’,109 but by the end of September, Renamo forces attacked the Chiure AC, ‘liberating people’110. Another way of analysing the reality of Renamo’s regions is to check the amount of weapons they had at their disposal at any given moment. 103   CG7/1, Do Grupo Coordenador Norte para C/Zacarias [Pedro] (from the North Coordination Group to C/Zacarias [Pedro]) (no date). 104   CG7/81, Do Grupo Coordenador Norte para C/Zacarias Pedro (from the North Coordination Group to C/Zacarias Pedro), 17 September 1984. 105   Translator’s Note: NF (abbreviation for Nossas Forças) means Our Forces, the forces of Renamo. 106   CG7/133, Do Grupo Coordenador Norte para C/Zacarias [Pedro] (from the North Coordination Group to C/Zacarias [Pedro]), 31 September 1984. 107   GC1/16, Do Grupo Coordenador Norte para C/Zacarias [Pedro] (from the North Coordination Group to C/Zacarias [Pedro]), 21 August 1984. 108   CG7/81, Do Grupo Coordenador Norte para C/Zacarias Pedro (from the North Coordination Group to C/Zacarias Pedro), 17 September 1984. 109   CG7/133, Do Grupo Coordenador Norte para C/Zacarias [Pedro] (from the North Coordination Group to C/Zacarias [Pedro]), 31 September 1984. 110   CG7/128, Do Grupo Coordenador Norte para C/Zacarias [Pedro] (from the North Coordination Group to C/Zacarias [Pedro]), 21 September 1984.

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The Cadernos provide many details on this aspect, but they are not always correct or easy to explore.111 They do give an idea of the situation however. Thus, before the resupply of 25 October 1984 in Viola, Zambezia (cf. supra), the state of affairs of the Búfalo Norte region was as indicated in Table 4.3, which is based on a list mentioned in a message that ended with the following comment: ‘To deal with this situation, we will urgently organize a group to resupply the Búfalo region with 30 boxes of AK-47 ammunition, which the North Coordination Group received from the group of provincial C/ Calisto [Meque]’.112 Meque’s group had brought materiel and ammunition to the North Coordination Group and was going back to the south with goods bought in Malawi. Even with this resupply, the total armament of the Búfalo region was not very substantial. Besides, most of it was not in the operational bases, but in the command’s hideouts. Note that the operational aspect was still weak – the majority of the armament was kept in the hideouts, i.e. not for immediate fighting. The hideouts of the regional command were naturally relevant for the purpose of preparing the sectors to be established. However, one month later, on 25 October, the materiel dropped by parachute together with the two provincial generals in the Viola D.Z. to alleviate the shortage113 of materiel had still to be transported from Zambezia to Cabo Delgado in endless military resupplying convoys. The situation in this growing region was difficult for Renamo, as one can see in the message of 8 September: the situation of our forces in the Búfalo region is not good because the enemy is launching an offensive against the regional base of the 1st sector114 … We gave instructions for scattering the groups to burn the villages and kill enemy agents in the zones near the districts of Montepuez, Namuno, Chiure, and to carry out ambushes on the roads from Chiure to Mecupe [Mecufi?], Mecata [Mucacata?] to Metalo [Metoco?], so as to oblige the enemy to disperse their forces that were concentrated in the districts of Chiure and Montepuez’.115

But Dhlakama’s orders had to be obeyed and the push to the north continued: 111   It seems that the transcription of the lists of materiel was a task particularly difficult for the decoders and the numbers indicated are often wrong. 112   CG7/126, Do Grupo Coordenador Norte para C/Zacarias [Pedro] (from the North Coordination Group to C/Zacarias [Pedro]), 22 September 1984. 113   The message ‘Do GCN para C/Zacarias Pedro (CG7/234, from GCN to C/Zacarias Pedro). Message no. X/10/84, 27/10/84’, has the list: ‘a) 140 AK-47 ammunition boxes, b) 22 boxes of explosives, c) 3 electric wire rolls, d) 2 seft-wire rolls, e) 20 boxes of D-4 detonators, f) 35 boxes of S-4 detonators, g) 8 untoothed RTs [?] without supports, h) 346 blankets, i) 111 pairs of boots, j)  232 pairs of sandals, l)  185 pairs of military uniforms, m)  2,246 cans of ‘N’ combat ration, n) 3 bags of flour, o) 6 bags of rice, p) 69 8-volt batteries, q) 5 boxes of 1.5-volt batteries and medication’, which, on the whole, is not so little. The most important was, for sure, the RTs and the equipment for the soldiers, such as blankets, boots, etc. The nature and diversity of the ‘parcels ordered’ (combat rations, etc.) make me believe that they came from South Africa. (The omission of ‘k’ is due to that letter not being present in the Portuguese alphabet.) 114   This base was most likely in the Meloco area, west of Namuco. 115   CG7/53, Do Grupo Coordenador Norte para C/Zacarias (from the North Coordination Group to C/Zacarias), 8 September 1984.

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Table 4.3  Armaments of the Búfalo Norte region, September 1984 Búfalo regional base

Commander’s hideouts

1st sector1

Total indicated2

AK-47 ammunition boxes

10

10.5

10.5

31

HK-21 ammunition boxes

-

25.5

-

?

39

174

22

157 [235]

-

183

-

2543

60 mm mortar shells

17

145

14

176

81 mm mortar shells

20

65

-

85

Anti-tank mines

8

28

5

49 [41]

Items

Complete RPG-7 projectiles RPG-7 rockets

Anti-personnel mines

9

30

10

49

Boxes of explosive mass

2

[90]4

1

134

Anti-personnel mine detonators

2

-

10

?

S4 detonators

7

-

-

?

D4 detonators

2

4

3

23 boxes [9]

Electric wire rolls

1

-

-

35

Metres of Coltex wire

15

10

9+1 rolo6

1,109

-

25.5

-

?

Metres of Seft wire

1. The 2nd sector is not mentioned (it operated in the Pemba region). Perhaps it was too recent a creation. It is possible that, at least in some cases, the discrepancy between the total given and the sum of the columns is related to this sector. 2. The question mark (?) indicates that the total is not mentioned in the reference; the number in [brackets] indicates the total calculated based on the numbers given. 3. Total given: mix up with a portion of the projectiles? 4. The number mentioned as 90 is obviously not correct: could it be 10 boxes to arrive at the total of 13? 5. Are there two rolls in the hideouts that the message decoder omitted? 6. This would indicate that a full roll has 1,075 metres. Source: CG7/126, Do Grupo Coordenador Norte para C/Zacarias [Pedro] (from the North Coordination Group to C/Zacarias [Pedro]), 22 September 1984.

We inform C/Zacarias that the 1st sector of the Búfalo region, which is in the Meloco district [south of Cabo Delgado], will move towards the Mueda district as instructed, although it has kept [only] 7 AK-47 ammunition boxes; however, this sector will limit its actions to burning communal villages and killing enemy agents … We will send 60 fighters and a RT to the Búfalo region, so that we establish a sector in the Pemba district … We will increase the ammunition by ten boxes for the Búfalo region, from 30 to 40 boxes, as we have information that the

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crossing of the Lúrio River is very difficult during the rainy season even if we use canoes.116

So, it should be assumed that there would not be many opportunities to provide supplies again later that year due to the overflows of the Lúrio River.117 In fact, the group left the Leão region (where the GCN was based) on 10 October towards the Búfalo region, via the Leopard region, taking with them 82 mortars (which was not much for an entire region!).118 Here we find one of the realities of the guerrilla war, that is: endless columns of soldiers to carry materiel – from Leão to Búfalo, for example, it took 15 days of marching. In the Búfalo region, the regional base was made responsible for the space left empty due to the change of sector 1, and for forming a 2nd sector in the Pemba area. As always, the attacks on the ACs, which were easy from the military point of view, had the aim of creating a base of social support and preparing future military actions. So, the regional base continued to act in the south of the province: ‘on 2/10/84, our forces in the Búfalo region destroyed the Nacaca communal village in the Mipeteria zone, locality of Chiure district capital, but they didn’t burn all the houses due to the enemy’s intervention’. They came back the following day: and ‘our forces in the Búfalo region had contact with the enemy in the Nacaca communal village, in Ocua, district of Chiure’.119 But the movement north continued none the less, as illustrated by the torching of ACs: on 3/10/84, our forces in the Búfalo region set fire to a communal village 5 km from the district of Meluco120 and there was no intervention from the enemy … On 5/10/84 our forces in the Búfalo region burned down two communal villages in the zones of Miuhauhachi [?] [and of] Chitima, in Muaguide, in the Meluco district and we had no casualties or injured soldiers … On 8/10/84, the enemy coming from Meluco district attempted a surprise attack on the headquarters of the 1st sector of the Búfalo region, but the enemy hastily retreated.121

This change of location of sector 1 caused the same problems we mentioned earlier on for the Tigre region (Niassa). On 8 October, the GCN warned the EMG (General Staff) that: on 2/10/84, in the Búfalo region, 257 individuals of the populations of the Metete zone, district of Montepuez, the zone where the base of the 1st sector was located, abandoned said zone and went to the Muico zone, in Meloco, which is currently controlled by the Búfalo regional base … This population abandoned the base because the enemy has been indiscriminately slaughtering the undefended popu-

  CG7/167, Do GCN para C/Z[acarias Pedro] (from GCN to C/Z[acarias Pedro]), 5 October 1984.   This also shows that the commander was not from the region, otherwise he would have been aware of this in advance. 118   CG7/182, Do GCN para C/Zacarias Pedro (from GCN to C/Zacarias Pedro), 10 October 1984. 119   CG7/173, Do GCN para C/Zacarias Pedro (from GCN to C/Zacarias Pedro), 9 October1984. 120   Do not confuse Meluco with Meloco, south of the province. 121   CG7/173, Do GCN para C/Zacarias Pedro (from GCN to C/Zacarias Pedro), 9 October 1984. 116

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lations [on the pretext] that they supported Renamo forces … The 1st sector abandoned this zone to settle its [provisional] base in the district of Meluco, north of Montepuez, and today it started its journey to the Mueda district.122

This highlights, once more, the priority of the military dynamic: Renamo’s command did not hesitate to order this sector to move to the north and reach Mueda, leaving the populations that had supported it in Metete defenceless against the FPLM’s thirst for revenge. The population had no other choice but to approach the Búfalo regional base, next to Muico, to protect itself from government troops. The soldiers of the sector proceeded with their march. On 14 October, a message announced that the ‘1st sector of the Búfalo region has already arrived at its destination [that is, the Mueda district], but is still looking for a good zone for the new base’.123 On the 20th of the same month, a message reports that ‘the base of the 1st sector of the Búfalo region is located in the Liubo zone, under coordinates 11°45,5S/39°37E, in the Mueda district’.124 If these coordinates are correct,125 it would indicate that the position is 13 km south-south-east of Mueda, 10 km northeast of Miteda, to southeast of the Mueda-Miteda road, i.e. very close to Mueda, already in deep Maconde land, although not on the plateau, but at the bottom of the famous cliff at the headwaters of the Uteco creek.126 This quick progression raises a question about the political work developed prior to the arrival of the guerrillas, or its inexistence. It seems obvious that, in this case (as opposed to what we saw in the north of the Nampula province), no political work was carried out beforehand and Renamo depended solely on its military actions as a means of both ‘armed propaganda’ and political work. At the beginning, this approach seems to have worked. On 18 October, the GCN concomitantly announced the destruction of the Naitotoma AC, in the Caldo zone, district of Montepuez, ‘where an unarmed militiaman was killed and we seized military equipment’ and the first military action in the Mueda district: ‘our forces of the Búfalo region set fire to the communal village in the Macota zone, district of Mueda, liberating people’.127 On the 22nd of the same month, the guerrillas destroyed one communal village of Picuva, in Ngapano, district of Mueda. a) We had no casualties or injured soldiers, b) there was no intervention from the enemy, c) we liberated the population that lived in that communal village … A 27-year-old enemy agent, who was a political commissar of the Mueda district, and a popular militiaman were killed.128   CG7/172, Do GCN para C/Z[acarias Pedro] (from GCN to C/Z[acarias Pedro]), 8 October 1984.   CG7/186, Do GCN para C/Zacarias [Pedro] (from GCN to C/Zacarias [Pedro]), 14 October 1984.   CG7/202, Do GCN para C/Zacarias [Pedro] (from GCN to C/Zacarias [Pedro]), 16 October 1984. 125   The coordinates of the locality of Liubo are 11°46’45S/39°37’11E. 126   Direcção Nacional de Geografia e Cadastro, Mozambique. SC 37/V. sheet no. 8. Mueda, map 1/250 000 (Maputo, 2001). 127   CG7/197, Do GCN para C/Zacarias [Pedro] (from GCN to C/Zacarias [Pedro]), 21 October 1984. 128   CG7/249, Do GCN para C/Zacarias Pedro (from GCN to C/Zacarias Pedro), 31 October 1984. 122 123 124

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What is important in these two cases is the reference made to the ‘liberation of the population’. Was it a liberation? Indeed, where did this ‘liberated’ population go? In the other regions of the country, there is no doubt that attacking the ACs was an extremely efficient tool for Renamo to establish itself and win popular support. When arriving on the Mueda plateau, Renamo used the same tactics. But in these former Frelimo liberated areas, the population, in 1984, had not lived in a traditional scattered habitat for 15 to 20 years. During the anticolonial war, they had either been in Frelimo military villages in the forest, or in the Portuguese aldeamentos (strategic hamlets) where they stayed, as ordered by Frelimo, after independence – the aldeamentos were henceforth considered communal villages. This population did not escape immediately, according to this message of the GCN – the mention of ‘liberation’ means, at the least then, that Renamo managed to talk to the population, but not necessarily that Renamo had been welcomed. One can assume that the execution of the political commissar could instigate an escape, but details of the event are not known. Was he executed at the end of the operation? Are Picuva or Ngapano in a Maconde zone settlement or the fringe area of this settlement?129 Anyway, the warning came rapidly, in fact even before the first attacks, as the group was getting closer: on 29 October, the General Staff (EMG) is informed that ‘most of the population in the Liubo zone, district of Mueda, where the base of the 1st sector currently lies, runs away to Tanzania’.130 One can also think that the 1st sector made a serious political mistake: in fact, on 23 October, ‘our forces in the Búfalo region destroyed the Maginguare high school, in the Nigula zone, in [Ngapano?], district of Mueda, and on the same day they burned down a tractor that was bringing water to the Mueda district, and seized 4 AK-47s’.131 To burn communal villages, even in a Maconde area, was one thing, but to penetrate the plateau and burn a school and a tractor whose purpose was to supply water – being aware of the constant water problems faced by the population in the plateau – was like shooting themselves in the foot. The situation soon got worse: Raul Dique, the general coordinating the GCN informed the EMG that On 1/11/84, the enemy attacked by surprise the base of the 1st sector of the Búfalo region in the zone of Luabo [Liubo], locality of the district capital of Moeda [Mueda]. We had three injured soldiers, out of which two are seriously wounded … the enemy withdrew taking the direction of Nairoto [on the Montepuez road]. [Because of the request made by the generals to have the RTs for themselves,] since 25/10/84 [we] don’t control the movements of the enemy in the Leopardo and Búfalo regions.’132

 I could not find the toponyms Picuva and Ngapano, even when using the map above mentioned. 130   CG7/243, Do GC Norte para C/Zacarias Pedro (from GCN to C/Zacarias Pedro), 29 October 1984. 131   CG7/249, Do GCN para C/Zacarias Pedro (from GCN to C/Zacarias Pedro), 31 October 1984. 132   CG7/265, Do Grupo C. Norte para EMG (from GCN to EMG), 6 November 84. 129

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General Raul Dique tried to justify the FPLM’s capacity to attack the base of the 1st sector by surprise with the lack of RT (for communication interceptions). It is true that in the huge north, the lack of RT was critical – the two new generals that recently arrived in the North had requested for RT devices and operators and the only solution found was to take them from the GCN: ‘The RT operator(s) of the SR that work [at the GCN base] with the Leopardo and Búfalo regions advanced to the Leão region [Zambezia]; here we were left with only 1 RT to control the Leão-Gato and Tigre regions’. The GCN (probably Raul Dique) complained that, with such reduction in the RT capacity, they would ‘not intercept communications of several enemy units and information on their movements, including the 1st sector, in Meluco and Mueda’.133 This seems to prove that the supplies ‘coming from abroad’ were not sufficient to ensure full radio operations in the guerrilla war. But perhaps there was a much more important reason for the surprise attack against the 1st sector base: the absence of a Renamo social basis in the district of Mueda. The population did not come to warn the guerrillas of the FPLM advance, as it did in other Renamo zones. One week later, General Dique could not hide his anxiety: ‘We haven’t been able to communicate with the C/S134 of the 1st sector of the Búfalo region since the base was attacked by surprise by the enemy on 1/11/84 in the Hine135 base, in the locality of the Moeda district.’136 Three days later, Dhlakama replied: We greatly regret the situation, but we here [in Gorongosa] are intercepting communications from the north zone, mainly from Cabo Delgado, and there is no indication of an offensive launched against our forces, but, the FPLM looked for our bases and actually attacked. This doesn’t mean that the offensive was a regular operation, but as you are not in contact with them, perhaps the radio communication has suffered because [sic] it is possible that the two RTs were captured, nothing more, nothing less. We are not going to keep our hands tied. We will try to get some information by intercepting their communication and will inform you if by any chance [there is an offensive].137

It is quite possible that the RTs had been captured or that the radios were broken. But another possibility is that this sector, in the Maconde land and lacking a real social basis, may have been annihilated by the Maconde people themselves, independently from the actions of the FPLMs (whose communications were being intercepted by the Renamo’s military headquarters).138   CG7/235, Do GCN para C/Zacarias Pedro (from GCN to C/Zacarias Pedro), 26 October 1984.   C/S: sectoral commander. 135   The place indicated, Hine, is different from the preceding one (Liubo), but they probably are local and similar names. 136   CG7/279, Do Grupo CCN [sic: GCN] para C/Zacarias [Pedro] (from CCN [sic: GCN] to C/Zacarias [Pedro]), 8 October 1984. 137   CG7/284, Do C/ em chefe Supremo das Forças Armadas da Renamo para E.M. Zona Norte Raul Dique Majojo [sobre] problemas em Cabo Delgado (from Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Renamo to E.M. North Zone Raul Dique Majojo [on] problems in Cabo Delgado), 12 November 1994. 138   At the time, around 1984, I heard information according to which the Maconde people 133

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Another possibility is that the sector may have been forced to abandon the Maconde land and go back to its prior zone of Meluco, populated by the Macua people. At the beginning of November, Dhlakama wrote to the provincial General António Pedro (one of the two newcomers) and told him: ‘you must try to find out what is happening in Cabo Delgado, because I haven’t had any news from there since I followed up on the offensive in the Moeda district’.139 In the documentation studied, no other reference was found regarding the 1st sector of the Búfalo region, which had received orders to reach the district of Mueda at any cost.140

The Political Battle Immediately after the Nkomati Accord In the academic literature favourable to Frelimo, Renamo’s political dimension has been denied for years. The war was ‘armed banditry’ and it was waged by a military or mercenary group, at the service of Apartheid, without somehow expressing the deep crisis of the Mozambican society resulting from the post-colonial government’s authoritarian modernization, that is: without expressing any political values. To oppose such a thesis, as I have done since the end of the 1980s,141 does not mean that one accepts that Renamo’s political culture was as sophisticated and grounded as Frelimo’s. But it means one accepts, at least, there was some degree of political culture, and one accepts to study its nature, degree and form. Speaking of which, the expression ‘the Renamo party’ systematically and spontaneously used by the Renamo base militants in the 1990s, and which I witnessed in 1994, was still not used at the time of the Cadernos. The movement called itself ‘RNM’ (abbreviation for ‘Resistência Nacional de Mozambique’, ‘Mozambican National Resistance’) or by the acronym Renamo, increasingly used as an indication of the ‘Mozambicanization’ of the organization.142 At that time, Renamo was not yet a party, but no longer a mere guerrilla group. It did not see its battle as solely military anymore and had political goals. In other words Renamo was in the middle of a process of transformation from pure guerrilla to politico-military armed group, a process which the Cadernos allow us to see. searched every inch of the territory they lived on to expel Renamo.   CG8/272, Do C/em CH Supremo das Forças Armadas da RNM para o C/General António Pedro em resposta da sua msg. n°1/11/84 (from Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of RNM to C/General António Pedro in reply to his message. no. 1/11/84) (no date, but it must be the beginning of November). 140   It seems that the fact that Renamo had an important Maconde commander, Vicente Ululu (who died 14 November 2014), did not help their establishment in this land. 141   See, for example, the dossier ‘Mozambique: guerre et nationalismes’, ed. M. Cahen, Politique africaine, 29 (March 1988), 2–85; and the publication in French of Renamo’s programme: ‘Manifeste et Programme de la Résistance Nationale Mozambicaine’, Politique africaine, 30 (June 1988), 106–11 (translation with an introduction by M. Cahen & C. Geffray). 142   The Portuguese abbreviation RNM was too similar to the English/South African abbreviation (MNR, Mozambique National Resistance), while the acronym Renamo allowed the name of the organization to be more in line with the tradition of Frelimo’s acronym. (contd) 139

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Mobilizing the population Firstly, there are signs in the documents, even if not many, that Renamo wanted to explain its struggle to the population in political terms. For example, on 10 May 1983, 15 soldiers of the 1st sector of the 8th Region (Gato Norte, western and northern Zambezia) made contact with the enemy in the Matepua zone.143 At the time the group was directed – please take note – by a ‘political commissar’ who came so as to ‘mobilize the population’.144 On 13 September, Renamo forces of the Leopardo Centro region attacked and destroyed the Chitengo communal village,145 and seized a large amount of military materiel from a FPLM column. The related radio message stated: ‘For the time being, our troops are giving political explanations to the populations liberated in the Chitendo communal village’.146 Similarly, on 4 January 1984, the sectoral commander Binha Quembo (4th sector of the Leopardo Centro region) confirmed to the Defence Department that he had understood the Department’s instruction ‘to explain to the people’ their fight.147 On 19 November, the commander of the Rinoceronte (Tete) region said that he had sent several groups on a ‘death mission’ (a ‘mission to kill the enemy’) in Zóbuè, Furancongo and Chizalomonde, ‘a group of twenty-six soldiers headed by the parachute group commander Luís Manuel to recruit in the Chipafre148 zone’, and ‘a group of 15 soldiers headed by the parachute group commander Ndai Pessanha Bizique with the mission of holding meetings’ in Manhango and Nhamacha.149 In December, Renamo’s President was then informed that political work was being carried out near Nova Sofala: the C/sectorial150 Patria was in the Tsiquir zone ‘where he was talking to the population of Beira’.151 Following the Nkomati  Accord and the attempted negotiations between Frelimo and Renamo in Pretoria a few month later, Binha Quembo, the aforementioned sectoral commander, received an order from Dhlakama to ‘speak to the entire population or hold rallies in his operation zone to explain that Renamo is winning the war and that it has been holding talks with Frelimo in South Africa’.152

  15°52’S/36°49’E, between Gurué and Namarroi.   CG5/98, Região n° 8 [ao DD] (Region no. 8 [of the DD]), 27 July 1983. 145   18°59’S/34°21’E, south-west of the Gorongosa National Park. 146   CG5/507, Região n° 6 [ao DD] (Region no. 6 [of the DD]), no date, September 1983. 147   CG6/100, Do C/Binha Quembo para DDRNM (from C/Binha Quembo to DDRNM), 4 January 1984. 148   Perhaps it is the Chipala village, 25 km west of Ulongué, coordinates 14°46’S/34°08’E. 149   CG8/322, [Do C/Reg. Região Rinoceronte para DD?] (from Regional C/of Rinoceronte Region to DD?), 19 November 1984. 150   Translator’s Note: C/sectorial or ‘C/S’ (abbreviation for comandante sectorial) means sectoral commander. 151   Here the toponym ‘Beira’ is certainly used in the regional sense. CG9/78, CG9/78, Do Amade [Viagem, chefe RT] para Presidente da Renamo (from Amade [Viagem, RT chief] to Renamo President). Information, no date, December 1984. 152   CG6/74, Do C/em Chefe Supremo das Forças Armadas da Renamo para C/sectorial Binha Quembo (from Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Renamo to C/sectorial Binha Quembo), 2 November 1984. 143

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The negotiations between Frelimo and Renamo were considered a strong opportunity for political propaganda. These negotiations expressed the legitimacy of Renamo not only internationally, but also with the populations of Mozambique. After the Nkomati Accord (16 March 1984), Renamo stated its legitimacy in a text of its information department in the following way: 1. The Mozambican National Resistance is currently present in all provinces … launching a final general offensive that seeks the total destruction of the Marxist government of Samora Machel based in Maputo, which so far has created and maintained disturbance, disorder and the repression of the Mozambican People, since 1975 […] 2. The National Independence ... only served to change the Portuguese flag to a Frelimo flag […] 3. The Frelimo Party … has been luring some people into becoming Marxist followers, with the purpose of deceiving the Mozambican People [repeating] that poverty in Mozambique is the responsibility of the former Portuguese colonial government, hiding the real cause, which is the imposition of a communist system in our country […] 4. For its part, the Frelimo Party … denies that there is any opposition to its government, but, in fact, the Mozambican National Resistance is the legitimate representative of the Mozambican People’s aspirations […] 5. The Mozambican National Resistance has and currently directs infrastructure in several liberated zones, such as agricultural production (machambas [farm plots]), schools, health centres (hospitals), and the traditional structure of the regulados153 … we have already introduced urban guerrilla tactics in the capital cities of the provinces to better project our political image in the midst of the working masses of all social levels’.154

This text could serve as a guide to Renamo political commissars. It did not mention South Africa at all and presented Renamo as an advocate for the working people whose poverty was not a colonial heritage (nor a result of the civil war), but rather the result of Frelimo’s policies. It is important to highlight here that Renamo talked about the construction of its own economic and social infrastructure in ‘liberated areas’. All in all, if one can argue that the text was weak politically-speaking, it was still written by a group whose goals were not solely military.

‘Renamo has already won the war’ When negotiations between Mozambican Government and Renamo started in 1984, Renamo’s argument was that it was winning the war or had already won it. As Dhlakama announced on 19 August 1984 to General Dique (GCN): that ‘a Renamo delegation comprising military troops and political members has already left Mozambique to go abroad, with the purpose of holding peace   Translator’s Note: regulados are small traditional territories ruled by regulos, traditional chiefs.   CG9/0, Resistência Nacional de Moçambique. Departamento da informação, 1 de Junho de 1984 (Mozambican National Resistance. Information Department, 1 June 1984) (typed notice found in CG9). 153

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talks in Mozambique, that is, talks between Renamo and Frelimo to reach a deal that will put an end to the war, which has already lasted 7 years’, he gave the following order: you must communicate with all the regional and sectoral commanders, zones, groups, chiefs and individuals in general, and inform them of what is going on. Frelimo itself has asked Renamo to negotiate the agreement as Machel cannot bear the war any longer … [You] must write or make leaflets to [sic: about] Frelimo, write that Frelimo has already lost the war, because we are talking to them when they used to say that they would never talk to the B/As,155 but now the B/As have won the war … Also, operational actions in the cities of Lichinga, Quelimane, Nampula, Mocuba and Nacala must be intensified, in order to the keep pace with the negotiations taking place abroad.156

On the same day, Dhlakama wrote to the commander of the Leão Centro region criticizing the weakness of its activities in the south of Manica, which could harm Renamo’s position in the negotiations: [Y]ou must instruct your soldiers and mudjibas to intensify the operational activities in the town of Chimoio in order to keep pace with the talks. … you may give pistols to some three mudjibas for them to go to Chimoio to work … You must intensify the operational activities in the districts of Sussundenga, Espungabeira [Espungabera] and Goigoi [Gogoi], Renamo doesn’t exist anymore there and the world must believe it because certainly the enemy is no longer attacked in the communal villages around Sussundenga and is opening collective machambas. This is bad for international diplomacy and you people in Muchanga are not aware of this problem. N.B.: I want to hear of actions being taken to burn the villages and kill all the militiamen in the districts of Sussundenga, Chibabava, Mossurize. The fight goes on.157

From then on, saying that Renamo had already won the war became a leitmotiv in Renamo correspondence. Such propaganda also had to do with Renamo’s urban work, i.e. slogans written in leaflets and on walls. On 29 October, for example, Dhlakama gave the following order to the regional security chief for the work being carried out in the town of Beira and surrounding villages: Our politicians in Beira must be pleased, because we are going to win this war and we are already talking directly to Frelimo in Pretoria, South Africa … People in the Dondo, Galinha, Derunde, Mafambisse, Chinamaconde, Nhangau zones and others must start saying that Frelimo has lost the war, Machel was ousted and Renamo is going to rule with its President Afonso Dhlakama … Our politicians must write

 ‘B/As’: bandidos armados, armed bandits. That is to say, Renamo in Frelimo’s discourse.   CG7/7, Do C/Zacarias Pedro para o C/General António Pedro [GCN] (from C/Zacarias Pedro to C/General António Pedro [GCN]), 19 August 1984. 157   CG7/8, Do C/Zacarias Pedro para o C/General Vareia [Manje Languane] [2a Zona Sul (from C/ Zacarias Pedro to C/General Vareia [Manje Languane] [2nd South Zone]), 19 August 1984. (This message was most probably mistakenly marked as being for General Vareia, since it refers to the Centre Zone, Manica. Besides, the base of Muchamba (Muxamba) mentioned at the end of the text is the regional base of Leão Centro). 155

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phrases on the walls of houses and buildings in the city to scare Frelimo, such as: Long live Renamo, Long live Renamo President Afonso Dhlakama and Down with Samora Mandevo,158 Down with the Kremlin’s communist Frelimo […] 7) Commander Fernando, you ought to proceed with your work by launching Renamo’s political offensive among the army, the people and our members. 8) Regional Commander John Cupenga [Kupenga, Gato Centro’s regional commander] must launch a military offensive in Dondo, Derunde, Mafambisse and Nhangau zones [and] take the leaflets that insult Machel and salute President Afonso Dhlakama.159

The expression ‘our politicians’ shows the clear distinction made between military activity and civil activity. The Notebooks never talk about organizing these civilian politicians, who probably solely maintained a personal and direct relationship with this regional security chief. Still these individuals existed and were given tasks. Of course the most effective propaganda was done at the barrel of a gun. But it was often necessary to mix operational activities with the handing out of leaflets. Thus, in October 1984, Dhlakama wrote to the commander of the 1st sector of the Leopardo Centro region and ordered him: C/sectorial Chuva, you must write letters and give them to the mujibas160 so that they take them to the positions of Catandica, Honde and Nhassacara [localities on the Chimoio-Tete road], and to other positions too. The letters must read as follows: a) Frelimo lost the war and Renamo won the war, b) Machel Mandevo lost the war and Afonso Dhlakama won it, c) Long live Renamo President Afonso M. Dhlakama, d) Down with communist President Samora Machel.’161

The content proposed for the leaflets was minimalist! The only political qualification mentioned was that S. Machel was a ‘communist’. But Dhlakama wanted the leaflets to be distributed during the military attacks all the same, regardless of their limited content. In fact, the news given by local groups sometimes highlighted this fact. On 26 August, for example, the Tigre region announced that its troops had executed a secretary of the grupo dinamizador 158   ‘Mandevo’, means ‘bearded’ in Cindau. Thus, instead of saying Samora ‘Machel’, it was said ‘Samora Mandevo’, ‘Samora the old man’, i.e. morally bankrupt. During the 1994 electoral campaign, Dhlakama frequently described Frelimo as an ‘old capulana’ (see M. Cahen, Os Outros, op. cit.). Along the same humorous vein, one can mention the existence of a commander whose code name was Barba do Machel (‘Machel’s Beard’) (CG6/146, Do C/S[egurança?] Rinoceronte para C/S Barba do Machel (from C/ S[ecurity?] Rinoceronte to C/S Barba do Machel), 8 November 1984). 159   CG6/19, Do C/em Chefe Supremo das Forças Armadas da Renamo para o Chefe [regional] da Segurança Fernando da Rocha. Mensagem n°4/10/84 (from Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Renamo to [Regional] Security Chief Fernando da Rocha. Message no. 4/10/84), 29 October 1984. 160   Translator’s Note: mujiba, also spelled mudjiba, means Renamo’s militia. 161   CG6/36, Do C/em Chefe Supremo das Forças Armadas da Renamo para C/sectorial Pedro Chuva, mensagem n°3/10/84 (from Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Renamo to C/sectorial Pedro Chuva, message no. 3/10/84) (no date), October 1984.

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[dynamizing group] and a ‘capricone’162 near Cuamba, ‘and leaflets had been launched’.163 The biggest problem was the shortage of leaflets, photographs and magazines. The Cadernos show that commanders repeatedly asked for leaflets. On 3 October, a sectoral commander of the 2nd Battalion requested leaflets to be put on enemy routes and in the villages.164 A commander of the Rinoceronte region asked Amade Viagem, the RT national chief: ‘Would you please take a box of documents from my hut?165 These documents must go to Tete. They are photographic [sic], several documents [in] a full box’.166 On the following day, Amade replied: ‘[W]e got the magazine A Luta Continua no. 1 and 2 from your hut, which went to Tete.’167 On 15 November, Dhlakama himself announced that new leaflets and photographs had been produced: you can deliver the photographs showing the delegations in the conflict in Mozambique [where] the declaration of 1 October 1984 is made.168 You should also deliver the different leaflets we made recently, they are with officer Vaz [Joaquim Vaz169]. The leaflets shall be left in public places where they can be easily picked up by the FPLM or individuals of the Frelimo party in Inhaminga.170

Other ways were also used to deliver propaganda materiel. For instance, a FPLM official gave himself up voluntarily to Renamo, so, Dhlakama gave the following instructions: [H]e has many friends in the FPLMs and knows lots of intellectuals in the population, he can write letters to invite them to politically join Renamo in the town of Beira … He will write some letters, invite his friends and sign the letters. He has to write by hand so that his friends recognize his handwriting and his name. [But this] combatant should not be aware of our plans and secrets since he is new and we don’t know [him]; he could run away knowing our plans.171   Double agent.   CG7/49, Do G.C. Norte para C/Zacarias Pedro (from GCN to C/Zacarias Pedro), 2 September 1984. 164   CG6/88, Do C/sectorial do 2° Batalhão Paulino M. Para C/Zacarias Pedro (from C/Sectorial of the 2nd Battalion Paulino M. to C/Zacarias Pedro), 3 October 1984. 165   It is probable that this regional commander, perhaps from RT, had a hut before, in the EMG in Gorongosa. 166  CG6/117, Do C/Albino para C/Amade Viagem (from C/Albino to C/Amade Viagem) [RT national chief], 4 November 1984. 167   The magazine A Luta Continua, the title of which was obviously copied from Frelimo’s own tradition, was a magazine published by Renamo representatives in Portugal. Do C/ Amade Viagem para C/Albino (CG6/135, from C/ Amade Viagem to C/Albino), 5 November 1984. 168   Advertisement of the negotiations between Frelimo and Renamo in Pretoria. 169   Joaquim Vaz was the personal secretary of Dhlakama for many years, including the first years after 1992. 170   CG8/79, Do C/ em chefe supremo das Forças Armadas da Renamo para C/ Mateus [Ngonhamo?] da Segurança (from Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Renamo to C/ Mateus [Ngonhamo?] of Security), 15 November 1984. 171   CG6/19, Do C/em Chefe Supremo das Forças Armadas da Renamo para o Chefe [regional] da Segurança em resposta da sua Msg. Mensagem n°1/11/84 (from Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Renamo to [regional] Security Chief in reply to his Message. Message no. 1/11/84), 2 November 1984. 162

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Asking him to write the letters by hand and sign them was a way of convincing his friends, but also a way of publicly and definitively enlisting him. For all the worth of such initiative, the political work in these messages was only at the level of individuals. At that time, indeed, the Notebooks do not refer to the organization of urban clandestine cells.

Political commissars Political work was weak, but one must note a position of ‘political commissar’ had been created in 1984 already – in imitation of what existed in Frelimo since the anticolonial struggle (later to be called ‘political delegates’ in Renamo). The place of the political commissars, within the overwhelmingly military hierarchy, does not seem to have been very clear at the time. Presumably this position appeared as a result of Renamo’s ‘political turn’ initiated by the Secretary-General Evo Fernandes in 1983. But political commissars had few means to do their work. On 4 November 1984, a political commissar wrote to the Defence Department, stating: ‘I’m honoured to request the DD MNR for our programmes and more leaflets’.172 Now, if a political commissar did not have any programmes or leaflets, it shows that the civilian/political component at Renamo was minimal indeed. But this seems to have been something in development: on 18 September 1984, the GCN complained that ‘here in the North we lack political commissars. In the Leão, Leopardo, Tigre and Búfalo regions, there isn’t a single commissar’173 – implicitely asking for such men, then. A political commissar arrived a few days later, but ‘the delegate [political commissar] of the Leão region taking part in the operations states that although he has been appointed for such responsibility he has never received any guidance for the task’.174 Two conclusions can be inferred from these two brief messages: firstly, the political commissars had a secondary and poorly defined position – as one can see here in the northern regions where expansion was a strategic priority – and secondly, and conversely, having them was interpreted by the regional commanders as a sign of legitimacy of their combat. They were asking for such political commissars. One can assume that, perhaps, Renamo’s leadership had difficulties in finding capable people for such a task. In fact, it seems that the political commissars, when they existed, were also used for disciplinary tasks, in contradiction with any idea of politicizing the troops and the population. Thus, when an attack on a train took place and, Bobe, the commander of the operation, did not manage to control the goods seized, Dhlakama asked officer Vaz to urgently go there with a group of mudjibas and take with them ‘all the political commissars’ to restore order.175

172   CG6/185, Do C/[Co]missário político Estevão Simão para a DDRNM (from C/political [Co] missar Estevão Simão to DDRNM [Defence Department of MNR]), 4 November 1984. 173   CG7/134, Do GCN para Zacarias [Pedro] (from GCN to Zacarias [Pedro]), 18 September 1984. 174   CG7/105, Do GCN para Z[acarias] Pedro (from GCN to Z[acarias] Pedro), 28 September 1984. 175   CG9/58, Do Presidente da Renamo para oficial [Joaquim] Vaz (from Renamo President to officer [Joaquim] Vaz), 22 December 1984.

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The failure of the Pretoria talks If the South African secret services’ support to Renamo continued after the signing of the Nkomati Accord at a reduced level, the fact that it continued was not evident at the time because the situation on the ground was that Renamo lacked arms and goods and Dhlakama was most anxious about military supplies. For instance, the case of regaining control over the goods seized in the train attacked was for him a priority to be resolved. As the negotiations were seen to have the potential to end the war, Renamo approached the talks in Pretoria as a form of bypassing the limitations imposed by the Nkomati Accord. Improving the international image of Renamo became therefore more important. For example, in January 1984 Renamo liberated on the Malawi border an ‘old Syrian man’, who had been kept hostage for two years.176 The liberation was done through the mediation of the International Red Cross and was used as a public relations operation. At the time Dhlakama asked General Dique to tell the following to the Syrian man: [M]y sincere congratulations … and wishes for a good trip home to your family. Don’t forget Renamo, which fights for the liberation of the people oppressed by the Marxist political regime. Renamo will win the war soon because we’ve already started peace negotiations with Frelimo. I, President of Renamo, on behalf of my organization, invite the old Syrian man to return to Mozambique to work with the Renamo government. Provisional capital of Renamo, Gorongosa, 01/11/84. A Luta Continua!177

All this – the use of talks as a tool for legitimacy, the projection of a favourable future for Renamo, etc. – gives the impression that Dhlakama was very hopeful about these negotiations, even if in the end, he opposed what was proposed by the South African civilian power and by Frelimo – which was a mere amnesty and integration. Not only did the talks fail and the war continue, but the Maputo government quickly started to benefit from the fruits of its reaching an agreement with South Africa and turning towards the West, by receiving new American, British and other support, including military support. Renamo tried to use this fact as another argument for legitimacy, as one can see in this message sent to the commander of the Rinoceronte region (Tete) and probably to other generals too: 1) … The USA will provide arms, equipment and instructors to Machel’s regime. 2) The USA will provide instructors to train Machel’s army, so that later it can better fight against Renamo, which opposes Machel’s Marxist regime in Mozambique. 3) Now Renamo will seize the United States’ weapons in addition to those that came from the Socialist countries.   CG7/237, Urgente e secreto. Do C. em chefe Supremo das Forças da Renamo para o chefe coordenador Raúl Dique Majojo, mensagem X/10/84 (29/10/84) (Urgent and secret. From Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Renamo to Coordination Chief Raúl Dique Majojo, message X/10/84) 29 October 1984). 177   CG7/248, Do C/ Do C. em chefe Supremo das Forças da Renamo para o chefe coordenador Raúl Dique Majojo, mensagem X/10/84 (1/11/84) (From Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Renamo to Coordination Chief Raúl Dique Majojo, message X/10/84) 1 November 1984. 176

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4) Renamo has won international recognition, given that the whole world knows that the USA, a major power, is sending instructors to train the army to fight against Renamo. 5) The USA has no power to silence the cry of the people who fight for freedom. The USA is not greater than the Russians that have been involved in this war from 1977 to this day. 6) The USA knows that it will [not] manage to reduce Renamo’s operational activities, but they want to benefit from Samora’s regime changing of sides from Moscow to the USA (the West). 7) Renamo is powerful, forcing Samora to form an alliance with the Pretoria regime and today, as the USA [supports] the Frelimo regime, we call them North American imperialists.178

It is interesting to note how Dhlakama interpreted the Nkomati Accord – as an alliance of Samora with at least the civilian sector of the regime of Pretoria – and how he put it at the same level as the rapprochement with the USA. From Renamo’s viewpoint, this dissociation from the Cold War scheme – Frelimo supported by the Eastern countries and Renamo supported by South Africa and the USA – showed that the rebellion was not (at least no longer) a movement originating abroad, but a truly Mozambican movement. Of course, though, this message also aimed at remobilizing Renamo for more years of war. In fact, the political tactics of disclosing the Pretoria talks to defend the idea that Renamo was winning the war had a secondary effect: to expect a prompt return to peace, something which was felt among Renamo’s rank and file. There is mention in at least one message of a soldier who operated RT being arrested for saying ‘we are tired of war’.179 The war would still last another eight years however.

‘We are not Bandits’ The Nkomati Accord of 16 March 1984 reinforced the effects that Zimbabwe’s independence on 18 April 1980 had had on Renamo. Without a rearguard, this ‘warrior social body’180 had to live even more off the relations it established with part of the Mozambican population. For this reason, one can say that   CG10/38, Do C/ em CH Supremo das Forças Armadas da Renamo para C/Languane Oliveira [C/Reg. Rinoceronte], Msg n° 10/1/85 (from Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Renamo to C/Languane Oliveira [Rinoceronte Reg. C/], Message 10/1/85), 18 January 1985. 179   CG1/27, Do CH/do Grupo Coordenador das OPs da Zona Sul ‘Raúl’ [Domingos] para C/Zacarias [Pedro] (from the Chief of the OPs Coordination Group of the South Zone ‘Raúl’ [Domingos] to C/Zacarias [Pedro]), 17 August 1984. 180   The Marxist notion of ‘social body’ (corps social in French) was conceived by Claude Meillassoux to define social strata that are neither class nor ‘fraction of class’ (C. Meillassoux, ‘Du bon usage des classes sociales’, Terrains et engagements de Claude Meillassoux, ed. B. Schlemmer (Paris: Karthala, 1998), pp. 9–58). Christian Geffray used it and applied it to the context of war by making it a ‘warrior social body’ (corps social guerrier), a term which I discuss in ‘De la guerre civile à la plèbe’, op. cit., pp. 73–88 and in my qualification thesis (French HDR), ‘Africando : Bilan 1988–2009 et projets 2011–2019. Vol.  I. Rapport pour l’habilitation à diriger des recherches. Vol. II. Annexes’ (Paris: EHESS, 2010), pp. 51–55. 178

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Renamo was not a constellation of groups of ‘armed bandits’; it was not a group of mercenaries; it was not a ‘warlords’ phenomenon. Not only was Renamo a guerrilla army, a semi conventional army, a greatly disciplined organization (even if it made ‘mistakes’), with a very centralized command, but it has a clear social base – it had to develop a social base as of 1980 and it clearly had a social base by 1984 – a reality which would become ever stronger and clear after the Nkomati agreement. After establishing these facts, there remain many things to debate. First what was the level of ‘politicization’ of Renamo around 1984? Clearly Renamo always had a political dimension, even when it began. When André Matsangaíssa, prisoner at the Sakuzi re-education camp from 15 September 1976, managed to run away, he defined himself in a very simple and clear manner: ‘Sou contra’ (I’m against) – maybe ‘I’m a counter-revolutionary’, if one considers that the single party regime was a ‘revolution’. Indeed, by declaring that he was ‘against/contra’ the regime (that of Frelimo), he expressed a political position, which is not just that of a bandit or a mercenary. It was not a well-developed political position, in particular in comparison to Frelimo’s at its birth in 1962. But it is still a political position. A weak political position then, which is not incompatible with the ‘fact’ that Renamo was primarily a military organization for many years – all the founders of the guerrilla group were indeed former low or middle-rank military personnel of FPLM, and Rhodesia’s support strengthened and emphasized this military identity. If Renamo had real political concerns in the period under consideration, we may note that these concerns were reinforced by the post-Nkomati Accord negotiations that took place in Pretoria towards the end of 1984. They probably were more contextual than directly the result of a deeper strategic orientation. In other words: the political sphere was not autonomous in comparison to the military one; politics existed only to the extent that it could strengthen the military aspect and not the reverse as happens in many military-political guerrilla movements. The importance given to the institution of political commissars was very weak compared to the high priority given to the military structure. Because the peasant population was under the responsibility of traditional chiefs, the process that took place in Frelimo’s zones during the anticolonial war, such as the construction of a civilian political structure (even though it was also subject to military command) took longer to develop in the Renamo zones. This happened only progressively – we have already seen some signs of it in the messages – particularly when Renamo started to occupy large areas, like in Zambezia after 1986. This means that Renamo’s ‘politicization’ process was still in its early days in 1984, and the same can be said about its ‘civilian-ization’ (literally speaking: becoming civilian). Renamo was not a mere army anymore, but it was not a fully political organization yet either. In the midst of the dialectics of the ‘not anymore/not yet’, there was Renamo’s obstinate desire for legitimacy. This desire was not just a battle for legitimacy regionally and internationally; in fact one could argue that the main reason for Renamo’s legitimacy statements was so that Renamo fighters and commanders could look at themselves in the mirror. We saw this in the

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messages which were not meant to be made public, hence not written for the sake of appearances. These messages were the internal narrative of the guerrilla war, and the choice of words used in these messages is therefore most important. It is not by chance that almost all the messages end with the phrase A Luta Continua (‘The fight goes on’),181 or more rarely by ‘Revolutionary greetings’. It is not by chance either that the war is defined as the ‘2nd struggle for national liberation’ or ‘the revolution until the final victory’.182 It is not by chance either that there were ‘political commissars’, that there was a Destacamento Feminino (Female Battalion), that there were ‘Continuadores’, and that there were ‘liberated zones’183. It is not by chance either that Russians and Cubans were called ‘imperialist lackeys’,184 a qualification that is extended to the United States – ‘the North American imperialists’185 when the North Americans stated their support to Frelimo more clearly. Last but not least, it is not by chance that the archetypical statement of Afonso Dhlakama made by the end of 1984 was: ‘we are not bandits’.186 Of course the ‘external’ battle existed and was important. As we have seen, the move up to the north of Mozambique was not only for military expansion, but also to conquer the former zones liberated by Frelimo, so as to be Frelimo’s successor in these areas. The negotiation attempt between Frelimo and Renamo in Pretoria increased the need for expansion, as we saw earlier on, but the battle for building their own internal legitimacy would have existed without it. During the Nkomati Accord period and immediately after the negotiation attempt between Frelimo and the rebel army, Renamo had already developed the traits which were to be found in the multiparty period after 1992, including a broader social basis paradoxically combined with the ultra-centralization of command power in the person of Afonso Dhlakama.187 These had nothing to do with armed banditry – not even any ‘social banditry’ as described by Eric 181   This has not usually been mentioned in the extracts cited simply because it is in 98 per cent of the messages. Note that A Luta Continua was also the name of Renamo’s newspaper. 182   For example, in CG3/144, Do E.M. 1a Zona R.T. Sul para EMG (from E.M. 1st South R.T. Zone to EMG), 1 January 1985. It is interesting to note that, nowadays, Renamo describes the civil war as a ‘War for Democracy’, in a vision of phases: it recognized the first phase commanded by Frelimo (‘the fight for national liberation’), which had to be extended in the second phase (‘the fight for democracy’). 183   CG8/152, Do DD para C/Secto[rial] Vasco Sendai (from DD to C/Secto[rial] Vasco Sendai), 17 November 1984. 184   CG9/161, De Amade [Viagem] para o S.R. Presidente da Renamo (from Amade [Viagem] to S.R. Renamo President), 27 December 1984. 185   CG10/38, Do C/ em CH Supremo das Forças Armadas da Renamo para C/Languane Oliveira [C/Reg. Rinoceronte], Msg n° 10/1/85 (from Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Renamo to C/Languane Oliveira [Rinoceronte Reg. C/], Message 10/1/85), 18/1/85. 186   CG2/320, Do C/ em Chefe Sup[remo] das Forças armadas da Renamo para C/Reg[ional] em resposta da mensagem n° 9/12/84 (from Su[preme] Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Renamo to Reg[ional] C/ in reply to message no. 9/12/84), 14/12/84. 187   In my book about Renamo at the time of the 1994 general elections (Les Bandits, op. cit.), I had remarked that, within Renamo, nobody could take any initiative and everybody was always ‘waiting for orders’ (estamos a espera de orientações), even for the smallest problem. In the Notebooks of 1983–85 studied for this chapter, it is highly visible that all of the orders come from Dhlakama himself.

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Hobsbawm188 or Allen Isaacman189 – but it expressed, at least indirectly, the aspirations of a coalition of social milieus marginalized by Frelimo’s exercise of power (sometimes marginalized since colonial times). In this regard, even if some of Renamo’s soldiers were recruited by kidnapping, one cannot say that Renamo was, as an organization, an ‘accidental guerrilla’ – a local or sectorial guerrilla phenomenon incited by a bigger war.190 Renamo’s guerrilla had social roots. Now, on a more general plane, what was this coalition of marginalities which Renamo represented?191 It included sections of ethnic and social groups whose relationship with the (colonial and/or post-colonial) modern State had never been good or stable, such as peasants, economically and culturally assaulted by the compulsory communal villages process (as we have seen many times), illiterate youths from the countryside or urban outskirts, traditional and religious leaders, etc., that is: categories who may have had ‘objectively’ opposite interests, but who were all negatively affected by Frelimo’s paradigm of authoritarian modernization and were united by the military dynamics of the guerrilla organization. Such descriptions contrast with the findings of earlier authors such as Vines who used some Renamo documents, but classified Renamo as a mere ‘terrorist’ organization. It also contrasts with authors who saw Renamo as mere bandits or warlords, and, generally speaking it does not fit either with the ‘greed versus grievance’ theory,192 including for its high-rank commanders – Renamo was not a capital accumulation enterprise.193 This chapter has thus followed in the footsteps of Christian Geffray in the understanding of the building of the social basis of Renamo, but unlike Geffray, it does not accept that Renamo stemmed from mercenaries or colonial special troops. To conclude and push the analysis yet further, one needs to connect phenomena such as Renamo with the tendency of the world’s peripheral societies, particularly in Africa, an ‘ultra-periphery’, to produce massive plebeian milieus, that is: unstable social formations that are not classes, but are the 188   There was actually no accumulation or redistribution within Renamo. This point will be studied in my book, still to be published, mentioned in note 17. On ‘social banditry’, see Eric Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels: Studies in Archaic Forms of Social Movement in the 19th and 20th Centuries (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1959). 189   Allen Isaacman, ‘Social Banditry in Zimbabwe (Rhodesia) and Mozambique, 1894–1907: An Expression of Early Peasant Protest’, Journal of Southern African Studies, IV/1 (1977), 1–30. 190   David Kilcullen, The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). 191   I have defended the idea that Renamo is the expression of a coalition of social marginalities since 1994 (after studying the first electoral campaign of Renamo). I have published about it in opinion articles in the weekly newspaper Savana (Maputo), for instance: ‘Renamo, o grande partido conservador-populista’, Savana, 4 (November 1994), p.  7; and later in English in ‘“Dhlakama é maningue nice!” An atypical former guerrilla in the Mozambican electoral campaign’, Transformation: Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa (Durban: University of Natal), 35 (June 1998), 1–48. I have summarized this idea in the introduction of my book Les bandits, op. cit. 192  Paul Collier & Anke Hoeffler, ‘Greed and grievance in civil war’, Oxford Economic Papers (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 56 (2004), 563–95. 193   This aspect will be discussed in details in my forthcoming book (in Portuguese): Não somos bandidos, op. cit.

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product of a ‘subalternization’ without industrialization, without proletarianization, within the structure of the international division of labour in the capitalist world-system.194 Outside the traditional Marxist classification of peasant parties, labour parties or bourgeois/capitalist parties, what can be the political expression of these plebeian milieus? A diversified, unstable and contextual political expression, obviously; and, sometimes, armed. In my view, Renamo should be classified into the category of ‘plebeian guerrilla movements’ within late capitalism.195   See Chapter 7 by Georgui Derluguian in this book.   For more details on this new category, see Michel Cahen, ‘De la guerre civile à la plèbe’, op. cit.

194 195

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Part II IN THE SOUTH: ANOTHER KIND OF WAR?

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5

War in Inhambane Re-shaping state, society & economy

Eric Morier-Genoud

The province of Inhambane is part of the south of Mozambique that many authors have argued saw a war different from the rest of the country. The armed conflict would have been uniquely violent there, because Renamo had no legitimacy in this part of the country and the guerrilla would have had to use extra violence to compensate and manage a footing.1 This argument has had much success, but it is questionable. First because it is too general. Could the nature of the war have been one and the same across time and space, in all areas of southern Mozambique, in all years? Second because we should not characterize the war on the basis of the actions of a single actor (Renamo) and on the basis of only one dimension of its action (military). Last, this characterization should be questioned because it builds on a political argument made by one actor of the conflict (Frelimo) and it was articulated as soon as Renamo arrived in southern Mozambique (before much evidence could be collected). For example, in April 1982 the magazine Tempo was writing that Renamo’s use of violence in Inhambane was not just the sub-human behaviour of deformed individuals, but also a tactic of terror defined and supported by those who arm these individuals. It is in the logic of the powers who, when they cannot impose themselves through the conquest of a large social base, try to do it through the means of terror.2

Anthropologist Otto Roesch tested and tried to substantiate this argument in the early 1990s through a case study of Gaza province. His argument, in general terms, was that Renamo lacked legitimacy because the guerrilla never managed to overcome its historical origins as an instrument of destabilization. Indeed, he explained, Renamo was merely a ‘product of external forces which has taken on local colour’ – a statement which is already problematic. From there, Roesch advanced three specific elements to explain Renamo’s lack of

1   Among others, see J.M. Weinstein & L. Francisco, ‘The Civil War in Mozambique: The Balance between Internal and External Influences’, in Understanding Civil War: Evidence and Analysis, Volume 1. ‘Africa’, eds P. Collier & N. Sambanis (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2005); Lisa Hultman, ‘The Power to Hurt in Civil War: The Strategic Aim of RENAMO Violence’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 35/4 (2009), 830–1. 2   Tempo (Maputo), Supplement ‘Visita do Presidente Samora Machel à província de Inhambane de 24 a 28 de Fevereiro de 1982’, 4 April 1982, p. 5 (translation by the author of the article).

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legitimacy in southern Mozambique. First, communal villages had been less of a problem in the south than in the north of Mozambique. Second, traditional chiefs were weaker in southern Mozambique, hence would have provided less of a social base for Renamo to build on. Finally, the guerrilla’s direction in southern Mozambique would have been dominated by Ndau individuals from central Mozambique, when Frelimo was ethnically from the south, hence the guerrilla was perceived as external.3 Margaret Hall made the same ethnic argument in 1990, arguing that Renamo leadership was dominated by Shona men and that Renamo followed strict ethnic lines.4 In the coming pages, I will investigate these propositions, not individually but collectively, while investigating the broader dynamics of the war in the province of Inhambane. Following lines opened up by Mark Chingono and Jean-Claude Legrand,5 this chapter will indeed not engage in a narrow investigation of Renamo, but look at the war as a ‘total social fact’. It will focus on Renamo, the state, and ‘civil society’, in all their dimensions (social, military and economic) over the whole period, from the inception of the armed conflict to its very end. It will look for variations over time and pay attention to intended as well as unintended consequences. Research for this text has been conducted over a twenty year period, since 1994, in Southern Inhambane (hence the particular focus on this area of the province) and it has involved fieldwork, archival research and oral interviews. Archives visited include the provincial state archive (organized and expurgated), the archive of the district of Jangamo (un-organized and un-expurgated), the archive of the Catholic diocese and the archive of the Catholic catechetic centre of Guiúa (organized and un-expurgated), all providing a rich source base which has never been used by any social scientist before. Drawing from this research, the chapter is organized in six sections. The first discusses the beginnings of the war while the second looks at the state response to the development of the armed conflict. The third section focuses on the Catholic Church in the face of war and the fourth looks at the conduct of the war after the Nkomati Accord. The fifth deals with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the development of a war economy, while the last section analyses the final years of the armed conflict. The argument advanced is that the war profoundly transformed the state, society and the economy – the chapter will try to find out exactly how. More specifically, what the text will show is that the war rapidly engulfed all actors of society and that it developed its own logic. While some elements advanced by Roesch will be confirmed, 3   Otto Roesch, ‘RENAMO and the peasantry in southern Mozambique: a view from Gaza Province’, Canadian Journal of African Studies, 26/3 (1992), 479. 4   Margaret Hall, ‘The Mozambican National Resistance Movement (Renamo): A Study in the Destruction of an African Country’, Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, 60/1 (1990), 39–68. See also Alcinda Manuel Honwana, Espíritos vivos, tradições modernas: possessão de espíritos e reintegração social pós-guerra no sul de Moçambique (Maputo: Promédia, 2002), pp. 199–202. 5   Mark F. Chingono, The State, Violence and Development: The Political Economy of War in Mozambique, 1975–1992 (Aldershot: Avebury, 1996) & Jean-Claude Legrand, ‘Logique de guerre et dynamique de la violence en Zambézia, 1976–1991’, Politique africaine, 50 (June 1993), 88–104.

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others will not; and new factors will be proposed to explain Renamo’s relative weakness and violence, namely ecology and the tight control of populations by the state through humanitarian aid.

The Beginning of War in Inhambane In 1980, five years after independence, Renamo’s war had not reached southern Mozambique, but the province had already undergone significant social change with the end of colonialism and the development of a new ‘Socialist’ society. Frelimo had nationalized much private and church property, it had ended private commerce, and engaged in the ‘socialization’ of the countryside. After white settlers had left in droves, leaving behind their plantations, commerce and factories, Frelimo tried to resolve the resulting leadership and skills crisis by developing collective and state leadership (state enterprises and cooperatives) and bringing in internationalist cooperantes (foreigners who came to help the Revolution in their personal capacity or as part of an agreement with a sister nation). In Inhambane, by 1982 there were five state companies in agriculture (three in production and two in commercialization), 57 cooperative or collective farms, and about ten communal villages.6 During the first years of independence, Frelimo had spent much energy in structuring the state, a party-state after 1977, particularly by setting up Dynamizing Groups and party cells in all sectors of society, at all levels, down to the quarteirão (a unit of 50 houses). To establish its hegemony, Frelimo had also spent much energy in mobilizing and raising the consciousness of the population in favour of its proclaimed Socialism, both in towns and in the countryside, and it had fought actively against its enemies (imperialism, the bourgeoisie, religion, tradition, regionalism, and ethnicity) which it denounced, mobilized, and acted against in a variety of forms. The Revolution unfolded against many odds. Regionally the white-led Rhodesian state launched a war of destabilization against its neighbour because of its declared Socialism, its support of international sanctions and because it had chosen to actively support the Zimbabwean liberation struggle. Economically the mines of South Africa had drastically reduced their recruitment of Mozambican labour, due mostly to economic reasons, with Inhambane being particularly affected.7 Numbers of mine workers from Inhambane province dropped from 24,003 in 1975 to 9,668 in 1980, going as low as 6,731 in 1979, leading to a huge loss in revenue for the state and in remittances for the miners’ families.8 Ecologically there was a drought in 1978/79 which affected agricultural outputs and led to famine in many districts – 70 6  Archive of the Government of the District of Jangamo (AGDJ): Província de Inhambane, Relatório, 1982, 22 pp.  7  Michel Cahen, La Révolution implosée: Études sur douze années d’indépendance (1975–1987) (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1987), ch. 2. 8   Archive of the Government of the Province of Inhambane (AGPI): Alguns aspectos do Programa do Governo de Inhambane para 1988, November 1987, p. 9.

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per cent of the province and 30 per cent of its population were affected, mostly in the interior.9 Last but not least, the national economy (which had suffered from the departure of many skilled settlers and their capital as well as from Socialists’ ‘mistakes’) came close to collapse. In consequence Frelimo began in 1980 to reverse some of its more radical measures, notably in relation to commerce (which had been wholly nationalized without any preparation) and in relation to religion (whose repression had generated much resistance and an international outcry).10 In 1980 President Samora Machel launched a politico-organizational campaign to tackle the growing corruption and excesses of the Revolutionary state, visiting some provincial capitals in 1981, but not Inhambane – Samora Machel’s first visit there would not be until 1982.11 Politically, Inhambane was not a ‘centre of reaction’ in the sense that it would have been a strongly anti-Frelimo area or would have hosted an organized opposition to the Socialist Revolution. The main opposition figure was Domingos Arouca, a prestigious African lawyer and anti-colonial figure who had problematic relations with Frelimo and who fled to a Portuguese exile after independence. In 1976, he created abroad a political party called Frente Unida de Moçambique (FUMO), but the latter had no social expression inside Mozambique and it did not (manage to) ally with other groups opposed to Frelimo, in particular Renamo, hence never developed into a threat.12 On the other hand, the province was a place where tradition was strong and private property was deeply rooted, particularly in relation to coconut and cashew trees. Discontent and some dissidence existed therefore, in particular in the countryside as we will see in relation to property and traditional authorities. In the cities, only very minor issues and opposition were seen. For example, in March 1976 ‘reactionary material’ was repeatedly posted on the walls of the toilets of the secondary school of Inhambane city.13 The same month the head of the provincial criminal police received FUMO pamphlets sent anonymously from Switzerland.14 To deal with real or potential ‘reactionaries’, as well as other social ‘deviants’, Frelimo set up re-education centres. In Inhambane a camp was opened on the Inhassune plains of Panda district where over a thousand men and women were forcibly interned under harsh conditions until 1980 – there were 1,345 individuals in 1976/77.15 9   AGPI: RPM, Direcção Provincial de Agricultura de Inhambane, ‘Situação agrária das zonas afectadas pela fome’, 5 May 1981, 3 pp.  10   The decision to return some commerce into private hands came after a discourse by the President on 1 March 1980. As to religion, reversal of the decision began later in that year. 11   Bertil Egerö, Mozambique: A dream undone – The political economy of democracy, 1975–1984 (Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 1990), pp. 102–5. 12   On FUMO, see Carolina Barros Tavares Peixoto & Maria Paula Meneses, ‘Domingos Arouca: um percurso de militância nacionalista em Moçambique’, Topoi: Revista de História, 14/26 (Rio de Janeiro, 2013), 86–104; Alex Vines, Renamo. Terrorism in Mozambique (London: James Currey, 1993), pp. 33–4. 13   AGPI: Polícia de Investigação Criminal, Subinspecção de Inhambane, ‘Relatório’, 15 March 1976, p. 1. 14   Ibid. 15   Omar Ribeiro Thomaz, ‘“Escravos sem dono”: a experiência social dos campos de trabalho em

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War moved into the province in 1981. Two factors explain the spread of the war to this province (as well as a Renamo push north into Tete and Zambezia provinces). First, the South African intelligence took over the support of Renamo from the Rhodesian army in 1980 and it pushed the guerrilla to expand south to facilitate arms supplies from South Africa.16 Second, Renamo expanded in response to the military pressure of a major government offensive in Manica and Sofala provinces in 1980. The operation, called ‘Operation Gorongosa’, led to the loss of Renamo’s central base of Sitatonga in June and Renamo expanded geographically to evade from the army as well as spread the government forces thin and thereby ease the pressure. Leading a battalion (300 men), General Languane Vareia Manje crossed the Save river from Sofala into Inhambane province in July 1981. At first Vareia and his men established themselves at lake Chichôlane in the Zinave National Park. Soon after, with technical advice and assistance from the South African army, they went to set up a provincial base near the town of Tomé, in the district of Funhalouro.17 The Renamo provincial headquarters for Inhambane remained there until August 1983 when the base was overrun by the government forces – Renamo then moved its provincial base further south near Panda, on the Inhassune plain.18 Fighting in Southern Inhambane began in early 1982 – six months after Renamo’s arrival in the north of the province, where it set up camps and organized small attacks to (forcefully) recruit men and capture food from the month of March onwards. Rapidly they went on to attack towns: for the first time they assaulted the small commercial outpost of Pembe (district of Homoine) on 19 March 1982; the district capital of Homoine on 7 May; the Bambela hamlet in Jangamo district on 10 August; the town of Inharrime on 16 August; the town of Quissico on 25 September, and the district capital of Jangamo on 6 November. Renamo also attacked road transport and the railway between Inhambane and Inharrime. During its first attack on Inharrime, the guerrilla seized large quantities of weapons from the Forças Populares de Libertação de Moçambique (FPLM)’s barracks; in Bambela, Renamo burned the government offices, destroyed six commercial houses, and kidnapped some of the population and members of Frelimo’s Dynamizing Group.19 In these early days, Renamo seems to have been particularly keen on attacking Frelimo officials and symbols of state authority Moçambique no período socialista’, Revista de Antropologia, 51/1 (2008), 177–214; David Martin, ‘Inside a Mozambique “terror” camp’, The Observer (London, 14 August 1977), p. 6; and Feliciano Simão, ‘Inhassune antes da guerra: De pántano e pastagem à projecto de Instituto de Algodão e Empresa Estatual, ca. 1935–1984’, Arquivo. Boletim do Arquivo Histórico de Moçambique, 22 (2013), 27–50, fn 53 for re-education. The camp was closed in 1980 and its prisoners sent to the Chicome camp in Gaza province. 16   Stephen A. Emerson, The Battle for Mozambique (Pinetown, South Africa: 30º South Publishers, 2014), p. 105. 17   For details of South African involvement in Inhambane, see Peter Stiff, The Silent War: South African Recce Operations, 1969–1984 (Alberton, South Africa: Galago, 1999), ch. 23. 18  João Cabrita, Mozambique. The Tortuous Road to Democracy (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2000), p. 197. 19  AGDJ: Frelimo, Departamento do Comité Distrital para a Organização do Partido, Sector da Informação Interna do Partido, ‘Relatório das actividades Desenvolvidas durante o Mês de Julho/82’, p. 4. (contd)

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such as barracks, administration, schools, and clinics. But there was variation in this approach: while in the district of Homoine, Renamo destroyed 23 schools in one single year (1982/83), it destroyed only two schools in five years (1982– 87) in the district of Mabote, further north.20 After the initial setting up of military bases, Renamo’s strategy was to tap into sources of discontentment. Like elsewhere in the country, it made contact with, gave money to, and made promises to traditional leaders and religious authorities who had been officially deposed and were opposed by the Revolution.21 As a result, Renamo went to settle in the district of Homoine in an area near the town of Pembe where a very strong clan conflict existed and had gained momentum after 1975 in relation to the regulado (kingdom). After the regulado was extinguished, conflict focused on where the state should install a new administrative post. Frelimo sided with one faction, expelled the Catholic missionary who stood with the other faction, and executed the deposed regulo (though some say he was killed later).22 The conflict embroiled Frelimo itself, with different party cells clashing, resulting in physical aggressions, rapes and assassinations, to the point that the Minister of State in the Presidency had to intervene personally in 1980.23 Needless to say, the losing faction in this conflict welcomed Renamo and helped it develop its activities. In Jangamo, the guerrilla moved into an area west of Cumbana town, where tensions existed in relation to ethnicity (Bitonga/ Chopi) and between lineages in relation to the regulado of Cumbana.24 Just like in Homoine, Renamo took advantage of the existing divisions and gained support from the faction which lost with the coming of Frelimo to power or did not see their colonial marginalization rectified. Closer to Inhambane, in Jangamo still, Renamo went to see the regulo as well before it moved closer to the coast to establish a small base by the sea.25 In contrast to what Otto Roesch argued, it seems then that traditional chiefs were a source of support in southern Mozambique. There are different accounts of how Renamo organized itself in Inhambane, and this organization also changed over time. What can be said for 1982–84 is that the guerrilla established their central provincial base in Tomé at first, 20   AGPI: RPM, Direcção Provincial da Educação e Cultura de Inhambane, ‘Resposta ao Guião sobre a componente educação do programa de emergência’, 11 May 1987, p. 2. 21   This was also noted by Otto Roesch in Gaza; he called it a ‘neo-traditional culture of insurgency’; see Roesch, ‘RENAMO and the peasantry’, op. cit., 473. 22   Anders Nilsson, Paz na nossa Época (Maputo/Göteborg: CEEI-ISRI/Padrigu, 2001), ch. 2; Mario Porcelli, Missão Católica de São João de Deus Homoíne, Moçambique. Apontamentos históricos, 1911– 2003 (Rome: Minoritica Provincia Romana dei Santi Apostoli Pietro e Paolo, 2008), p. 147; interview with the Regulo of Pembe, 4 August 1995, and AGPI: Minister of State in the Presidency to the Governor of Inhambane (ref. 129/GAB/A/3/1), 8 April 1980, confidential. My interviewee gave 1977 as the date of the execution of the regulo; Nilsson’s interviewee indicated late 1982 or early 1983 (p. 122). 23   AGPI: Minister of State in the Presidency to the Governor of Inhambane (ref. 129/GAB/A/3/1), 8 April 1980, confidential. 24   AGDJ: Francisco Fagene, ‘Acta da Reunião sobre o Puder Tradicional Regulado (Cumbana)’ [sic], Cumbana, 4 January 2001, 2 pp.; Regulo Fringe Samuel Moises, interview, Cumbana, 19 September 2006; and confidential interview, Cumbana, 22 September 2006. 25   Confidential interview – various interviews are too sensitive to give the name of their author, their location or date. They have thereafter all been lumped under the same heading ‘confidential interview’.

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in the district of Funhalouro, in the north of the province – the base covered Inhambane as well as the south of the province of Manica and the province of Gaza. From there, Inhambane was sub-divided into two areas: the north covering the districts of Massinga, Vilankulo, Govuro and Mabote, an area called in 1984 ‘Tigre Sul’ (Tiger South), and the south covering the districts of Morrumbene, Homoine, Panda, Jangamo and parts of Inharrime and Zavala, called ‘Gato Sul’ (Cat South).26 In each district, a military base was opened with a unit or battalion answerable to the provincial base in Tomé. In the district of Vilankulo, a base was established in Matsuletsule; in the district of Homoine in Inhamunge; in Inharrime at Nhangele; and in Jangamo at Marrumuana. Two bases were opened near the sea, in Jangamo and Vilankulos districts, for maritime re-supplying by the South African army. After the Tomé base was captured in 1983, Inhamunge in Homoine became the provincial base and remained so until the end of the war. Inhamunge was an ideal location at the fringe of the green coastal area of the province and the drier semi-desert and sparsely populated areas of the interior. It was next to a lake (Lagoa Nhavarre) and sufficiently remote from any urban and administrative centre to be under constant threat, yet close enough to get supplies from the coast and be able to attack the main national road and the string of cities along the coast. While the situation varied in subsequent years, this was, by and large, the overall structure of Renamo in Inhambane during the war. At its bases, Renamo organized the population in concentric circles around a military core, with re-empowered traditional chiefs administrating the civilian population under the command of the base chief. The commander for the whole region which included Inhambane was General Languane Vareia Manje, a Sena, who was one of the first recruits of Renamo and the man who opened the Inhambane front (noted above). From 1987, the commander for Gato Sul was Filipe Elias ‘Trovoada’, a Ndau, who stayed in place until the end of the war.27 Contrary to Otto Roesch’s argument then, not all of Renamo’s leadership was Ndau. In fact, Anders Nilsson’s research in Homoine shows that some 25 per cent of the commanders were locals and his interview indicated that ethnicity was not an issue in and for the guerrilla movement.28 In 1987 a journalistic report also recounted that Renamo organized the population at Inhamunge base along ethnic cells of 50 individuals (Bithonga, Chopi and Tswa),29 but Nilsson’s and other research does not confirm this either. Ethnic diversity existed at Inhamunge, but captives seem to have been rather attributed to local chiefs on the outskirts of the military base (after they had passed some time in captivity at the base).30 Now, if this organizational struc  See Renamo areas in Chapter 4, Map 4.1.  Nilsson, Paz na nossa Época, op. cit., p. 144. Nilsson attempted to identify the ethnicity of the Renamo commanders in Inhambane. His results indicated 72 per cent Ndau, 16 per cent Tswa, 8 per cent Sena, and 4 per cent from Tete province. The Renamo top leaders in the province however were not Ndau but Sena, Tswa and from Tete (Nyungwe?). 28  Nilsson, Paz na nossa Epoca, op. cit., p. 141–4. 29   Cited in Hall, ‘The Mozambican National Resistance Movement’, op. cit., p. 46. 30  Nilsson, Paz na nossa Época, op. cit., p. 138–9. 26 27

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ture provided great stability to Renamo’s provincial military base, the truth is that the guerrilla remained weakly implanted otherwise. It held a string of small military bases closer to the coast, but the guerrilla did not develop large administrated territories nor a productive economy. One obvious reason has to do with the ecology of the province: the coastal area is the agriculturally most productive and most populated zone of Inhambane, but it constitutes a narrow band of land (approximately 10 km wide and 20 km long) which was tightly controlled by the government (more in the section on NGOs below).31

The State & the Armed Conflict The state began to prepare for war long before Renamo arrived in Inhambane. In August 1980, the governor wrote a report on the military and paramilitary situation of the province (the ‘operational situation’) where he noted strong suspicions that Renamo had already established camps in the north of the province (where in fact they only arrived in 1981) and where he remarked on a lack of materiel (arms, transport, communication and military buildings). He added that there were tensions between the police and the army, but efforts were being made in this area, and he stated that a Provincial Command of Popular Militias had just been set up.32 In 1981 Frelimo proceeded to build military garrisons. Consultations were held with the population in Jangamo in June 1981 for a garrison in the district capital;33 the same happened in Cumbana, the second town of the district, where the garrison was concluded in September 1982.34 In those same years, the government sent troops to the area (Battalion 266 and special troops from the Border Guards for Jangamo district) and party-state officials underwent self-defence military training at the Malova centre in Massinga district. Frelimo sent many of its officials (from the Dynamizing Groups, the communal villages and the cooperatives) to these self-defence training courses. By August 1982, 170 party members from Inhambane city had undergone military training in Malova;35 in November the party-state was looking for another 400 volunteers to reach a total of 700 self-defence individuals for the city of Inhambane alone.36 31   For a complex analysis of the role of ecology in the war (which does not challenge the view that Renamo was a naturally baseless organization in the south of Mozambique), see Marlino Eugénio Mubai, ‘Making War on Village and Forest: Southern Mozambique during the SixteenYear Conflict, 1976–1992’, PhD Thesis (Iowa City: University of Iowa, 2015). 32   AGPI, Governor of Inhambane, ‘Relatório sobre a situação Militar e Paramilitar da Provincia de Inhambane’, 2 August 1980, p. 40. 33  AGDJ: Frelimo, Departamento Distrital da Organização do Partido, ‘Relatório sobre construção de um quartel no distrito de Inhambane na área da localidade de Jangamo’, 18 January 1981, 2 pp. 34   AGDJ: Ministério da Defesa, Comando Militar Distrital Operativo de Inhambane-Jangamo, ‘Relatório de actividades realizadas pelo quartel de Jangamo’, 14 December 1982, p. 1. 35   AGDJ: Frelimo, Departamento do Comité Distrital para a Organização do Partido, Sector da Informação Interna do Partido, ‘Relatório das actividades Desenvolvidas durante o Mês de Julho 82’, p. 3. 36   AGDJ: Gabinete do Administrador do Distrito de Inhambane, ‘Relatório dos trabalhos realizados no mês de Dezembro de 1982’, p. 1.

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Another decision anticipating the war was the acceleration of villagization, now with a strong defence dimension. Villagization in Inhambane had been progressing very slowly since independence. In 1981, there were 44 communal villages in the province, but only fifteen were considered ‘in development’ – while the others were at an ‘embryonic development stage’.37 Most of these villages were in the north of the province, particularly Vilankulo. The southern districts of Inharrime and Homoine had only one village each while Panda, Jangamo and Morrumbene had only two villages each.38 Under pressure from Frelimo’s Politburo, the governor accelerated villagization after 1981 by expanding existing villages, creating new ones and setting the target of moving all people planned to be moved into communal villages within a year in spite of a lack of skills and means to receive these people – villages needed wells, schools, cooperatives, etc.39 Some peasants resisted villagization (Frelimo argued they did not ‘understand’) and some technicians protested, but Frelimo insisted and resorted to duly authorized force. Communal villages were tightly organized, controlled and now defended, with many party cells, Dynamizing Groups, militias and vigilante groups. As there were not enough firearms, bows and arrows were used to do patrols and, later, ‘trampas’ would be set up to catch bandits – these were ‘traps to catch bandits, a fruit of the experience of the Cuban internationalists who worked in the province’.40 These defence developments brewed their own problems as they were done rapidly and all aspects were not considered. Aside from resistance to villagization, problems emerged in the army itself. Indeed, the logistics of the new military garrisons were not adequate and soldiers and their families struggled to get food. Soldiers consequently developed low morale and became undisciplined. In Cumbana in 1982, soldiers used their guns to threaten people and jump queues while the commander of the garrison sold the food he had collected for his troops on the black market.41 In Jangamo, the commanding officer faced similar, if not worse problems. He explained in a report in December 1982: Our soldiers have difficulties in relation to the acquisition of necessary goods for their family, a fact that leads to slouch and confusion at the time of queuing. The moral and political state of the soldiers is not recommended [sic] considering that one soldier killed another and hurt another three on the pretext that he was drunk and had been punished for leaving the garrison illegally. There are problems in

37   AGPI: Comissão Provincial das Aldeias Comunais de Inhambane, ‘Movimento actual das Aldeias Comunais da Província’, 9 March 1981, p. 1. 38   AGPI: map of communal villages, August 1981. For a panorama of communal villages in Inhambane, see Manuel Araújo, ‘Seis aldeias comunais da provincial de Inhambane’, Garcia de Orta - Série de Geografia, vol.11, n.1/2, 1986, pp. 69–81. 39   Joseph Hanlon, The Revolution under Fire, 2nd ed. (London: Zed Books, 1990), p. 130. 40   AGPI: ‘Informação sobre a Situação da Aldeia comunal de Mutamba, distrito de Jangamo’, n/d, p. 3. 41   AGDJ: Gabinete da Administração do Distrito de Inhambane, ‘Relatório dos trabalhos realizados durante o mês de Dezembro de 1982’, pp. 1, 5–6.

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the command of this unit, linked to the disorganization created by some people in charge who talk without respect when they address the maximum military authority of the district.42

In the previous paragraph, the officer had explained a possible consequence: ‘Patrolling in the zone of Malaiça is frequent but its results are null because of the weak participation of the population in the unmasking of the situation of the armed bandits’.43 On his first visit to the province since independence, in February 1982, President Samora Machel announced a significant military reorganization of the province – which went hand in hand with changes at the national level. The changes included the widespread distribution of arms, the nomination of a new provincial military chief, and the re-activation of the freedom fighters of the liberation struggle who lived in the province. The former combatants were to be re-mobilized, retrained and put in charge of militias. In the combatants’ village of Chindginguire, Machel said unequivocally that they would form the ‘nucleus of the defence of Homoine’ district.44 Regarding the army, the provincial command was made semi-autonomous in 1982 and its leadership was handed over to an ex-Frelimo guerrilla leader who was native to the province, Major-General Hama Thai, in a process reproduced all over the country – interestingly, Hama Thai is ethnically a Ndau.45 After his arrival, he worked at resolving the issues of food and discipline in the army. Food supplies were now to be distributed to the army separately from the civil population, while a listing of all special troops was introduced alongside a tight control of their men. On the incentive side, from December 1982, an allowance of 2,000 Meticais was attributed per month to each soldier belonging to Special Forces.46 Building on this social and military reorganization, the government went on to launch a large-scale counter-offensive against Renamo with new equipment, Soviet advisors and the help of the Zimbabwean army. Entitled ‘Operação Cabana’ (Operation Shack), the offensive began in late 1982 and took place in south and central Mozambique. It aimed at encircling Renamo north, south and east, pushing them into a killing zone near the Zimbabwean border, and defeating them at once.47 A year later, in October 1983, Frelimo launched another major offensive against Renamo under the name ‘50th Birthday of President Samora Machel’. Both offensives led to the short-term destruction 42   AGDJ: Comando Militar Distrital Operativo de Inhambane-Jangamo, ‘Relatório das actividades realizadas pelo Quartel de Jangamo’, 14 December 1982, p. 1. 43   Ibid. 44   Tempo, 4 April 1982, Supplement ‘Visita do Presidente Samora Machel à Província de Inhambane, de 24 a 28 de Fevereiro de 1982’, p. 8. 45   Jean-Pierre Langellier, ‘Face à la “Résistance Nationale”: Maputo recherche une aide occidentale plus efficace que le soutien soviétique’, Le Monde (17 May 1983, p. 5), as reported and translated into English in Sub-Saharan Africa Report, 2808 (Arlington, VA, 8 June 1983), p. 31. 46   AGDJ: Gabinete do Administrador do Distrito de Inhambane, ‘Relatório dos trabalhos realizados no mês de Dezembro de 1982’, p. 1. 47   João Cabrita, Mozambique: The Tortuous Road, op. cit., p. 205–10 and Emerson, The Battle for Mozambique, op. cit., pp. 91–3.

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of many guerrilla bases in Inhambane province, including the provincial base of Tomé, the base of Buchane in Vilankulos district, the base of Quilai in Morrumbene, the base of Maculuva in Zavala, the base of Nhangele in Inharrime, and the base of Nhavare (Inhamunge) in Homoine.48 However, using guerrilla tactics, Renamo avoided confrontation, moved behind enemy lines and spread to new areas, thus suffering some defeats but keeping most of its forces intact and continuing the war. In Inhambane, the army’s operations led to a reduction of Renamo activity, a momentary normalization of access to the districts, and the re-start of some halted economic activities, such as wood processing. But this was not to last and the price paid by the population was high, as this success was achieved at the cost of much ruthlessness, night curfews, violent propaganda (about ‘opening the skull of the armed bandits to re-establish order and security’ – see image 1.), and summary executions (which were referred to with expressions such as ‘s/he was taken to Tofo beach’ or ‘s/he took the night plane to Maputo’).49 Aside from the ruthlessness of the offensive, two issues undermined the government’s military success in Inhambane. First, the behaviour of the army

Figure 5.1  State propaganda leaflet, c. 1983/84. (Source: Archive of the District of Jangamo); ‘Flee the bandits and hand yourself to Frelimo because the bandits are the enemy of the people. If you do not hand yourself in, the people will judge you. Death to the armed bandits.’ 48   AGPI: PRM, ‘Relatório Balanço do Trabalho Partidário Realizado de Maio de 1983 a Março de 1984 no Cumprimento das Decisões do histórico IV Congresso do Partido Frelimo’, pp. 2–3. 49   Arquivo da Diocese de Inhambane (ADI): Secretário da Acção Pastoral de Inhambane, Relatório par Justitia e Pax/Cronicas de alguns acontecimentos, 20 August 1983.

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towards the population continued to be a problem. Violence against civilians was prevalent, with brutality, theft, rape and even assassination taking place regularly. In 1984, an anonymous inhabitant of Pembe town (district of Homoine) wrote a letter to the minister of defence complaining of the prohibition to visit his farm, of the army burning fields, and of the raiding of private property. He concluded his missive by saying: In this moment, we do not know the essence and objectives of our forces when they act in this way. They are forces that also create insecurity and lack of tranquillity; therefore [they are] a second enemy … Armed bandits and our forces of defence and security act in the same way in this area, therefore they are both enemies.50

The letter created a stir and the minister ordered a thorough investigation led by the governor himself and involving the secret services, the police and the army. While this case was dealt with energetically (though unfortunately the archives do not inform us of the outcome), needless to say many other cases were not looked into, let alone reported and documented. To tackle this issue, the party-state tried in 1984 to reform the army’s relations with the state and the civilian population. In June, it organized a first-of-its-kind course for the army’s political commissars and some provincial party-state leaders. Officially this came as a result of the implementation of the decision of the 4th Congress which had given priority to the Defence Department and the battle against ‘armed bandits’. Held at the party’s Central School in Maputo, the course lasted three months and had two components: learning to understand and fight the enemy, and improving relations between the population, the party and the state apparatus. The details of what was taught in this course were not reported in the press, but a newspaper indicated, interestingly, that the course was preceded by an exhaustive survey of certain parts of Inhambane province. The Frelimo Defence Department explained that the survey in Inhambane was ‘a means of gaging [sic] the degree of knowledge of the local situation among the political commissars, and hence preparing subject matter that comprised fundamental materials for the course’.51 The second broad dynamic working against the government was the weather. If Inhambane and southern Mozambique regularly suffered droughts and had just gone through one in 1978/79, such conditions were only manageable under conditions of peace; according to Joseph Hanlon, the relief effort in 1978/79 had been successful and had ‘largely prevented starvation’.52 When drought returned in 1983, the country was at war and mass starvation ensued. Estimations put the numbers of deaths from the 1983 drought at between tens of thousands and more than 100,000 lives for all of Mozambique;   APGI: anonymous letter to the Minister of Defence, no date, 4 pp.    ‘First mobilization course for FPLM political commissars’, Notícias (Maputo, 30 June 1984, p. 5) as reported and translated into English in Sub-Saharan Africa Report, 84 (Arlington, VA, 1 August 1984, p. 25). 52  Hanlon, The Revolution under Fire, p. 252. 50 51

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Inhambane was one of the six provinces affected.53 Three reasons explain the extent of the disaster. First, the war displaced many people, particularly with Operação Cabana in full swing, and these people lost access to their fields and crops. Second, there was miscommunication within the state administration, between provinces and the capital, and the central government was wary of discussing the famine too aggressively with donors as its military offensive had a role in it. Third, the international community was slow, if not unwilling, to send in and manage humanitarian relief in a war zone. It only came into action after October 1983 when media began to show the famine disaster with pictures of dying people – warnings and calls for help had begun as early as January 1983.54 The peak of famine came at the end of 1983 when 80 per cent of the population of Inhambane was said to be affected.55 With a war, a humanitarian situation, and an economy in crisis (Mozambique stopped being able to service its international debt in 1983), the government had little choice but to open negotiations on twin fronts. On the one hand it began discussions with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank to restructure its debt, something which would rapidly lead to an increase in external assistance.56 On the other hand, Frelimo also decided to negotiate with the power behind Renamo, namely South Africa. Talks began in December 1983 in Swaziland and a non-aggression pact was signed in Nkomati on 16 March 1984. In short, the agreement exchanged the end of Mozambique’s support for the African National Congress (ANC) for South Africa ending its support to Renamo. Unfortunately for Frelimo, South Africa did not fully honour this until 1985 – that is: until the overrunning of Renamo’s Casa Banana central base, which gave proof that South Africa was not abiding strictly by the agreement.57 Moreover, the perspective of the agreement led the South African military to send tons of materiel inside Mozambique before the signature of the Accord so that Renamo could continue without supplies for two years.58 The unexpected effect of the Nkomati agreement was, thereafter, that Renamo inserted itself deeper into Mozambican society and that the war not only continued but even grew and spread. In Inhambane province, the agreement brought a lull in fighting but this only lasted about a year.

 Tom Alberts & Krister Eduards, ‘Drought and Destabilisation: An evaluation of Swedish Disaster Relief in Mozambique, 1983 to 1985’ (Stockholm: SIDA Evaluation Report no.3, 1987), p. 15 and USAID, ‘Mozambique – Drought/Famine’, no date, online at: http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_ docs/PBAAB333.pdf (downloaded 26 November 2015). 54  Hanlon, The Revolution under Fire, ch. 24. 55   AGPI: Governo da Província de Inhambane, Informação sobre a Situação Actual da Fome nas Zonas Afectadas pela Seca e pelos Bandidos Armados na Província de Inhambane e Necessidades da Provincia para o Apoio às Populações Deslocadas, Inhambane, December 1984, p. 2. 56   Margaret Hall & Tom Young, Confronting Leviathan: Mozambique since Independence (London: Hurst, 1997), ch. 8. 57   About the over-running of Casa Banana, see Michel Cahen’s Chapter 4 in this volume. 58  Emerson, The Battle for Mozambique, op. cit., p. 114–21 and Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Final Report, 2, ch. 2, Subsection 21, p. 94, para. 196. For some details of the materiel sent, see Paulo Oliveira, Dossier Makwakwa: Renamo – Uma descida ao Coração das Trevas (Lisbon: Europress, 2006), pp. 112–13. 53

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The Catholic Church & the War The Catholic Church suffered greatly from independence and the Frelimo revolutionary policies which unfolded after 1975. For one, nationalization took away all of the Church’s schools and hospitals as well as many other properties, while many white missionaries left the country alongside settlers as they felt they could not stay in the country anymore. For another, the officially Socialist Frelimo entered in competition with the Church, and after 1977 in an open conflict with religion when the party-state deployed an anti-religious campaign. More properties were taken from the Church after 1977, some missionaries were expelled, many Churches were closed, and atheism campaigns were launched across the country. Five years after independence, the Catholic Church in Inhambane province had thereafter not only lost more than half of its religious personnel, all of its schools, and many of the houses used by its missionaries, but it also faced hostility, the prohibition of preaching outside churches, and the closure of many churches. In 1980, the Service for Associative and Religious Affairs (part of the Ministry of the Interior) complained that the Church still tried to illegally hold religious meetings outside religious buildings and visited hospitals without being invited. On a more ‘positive’ note, it also noted that Catholic religious practice had diminished in the province.59 From Table 5.1 we can gain an idea of the transformation of the Catholic Church since independence. The war affected the Catholic Church severely from early on. After its first attack on Pembe town (Homoine district) on 19 March 1982, Renamo planted landmines in the area, not least near the mission station of Pembe. Two days later, the missionaries drove on a mine and Brother Francisco Morais died within hours while Sister Isabel Jaime Pinto was seriously hurt and had to be flown out of the country.60 Then in July 1982, Renamo took an Italian missionary hostage at the mission of Maimelane (Inhassoro disctrict), while in September it took another four missionaries hostage at the mission of Muvamba (Massinga district); Renamo failed to take hostages at the mission of Mambone (Govuro district). All these missionaries were forced to walk in difficult conditions all the way to Zimbabwe where they were eventually released several months later, in November 1982, in a big publicity stunt for the guerrilla. One of the missionaries from Muvamba recalls that the Renamo group came to the mission of Muvamba and knocked at the gate; he let them in and they sat down inside the house. The missionaries declared that they were ready to come along, but asked Renamo to leave the religious sisters behind. The Comandante laughed and explained that his central base had already given radio instructions to bring them all back. The guerrilla ransacked the

  Archive of the National Direction of Religious Affairs, Ministry of Justice, Maputo: Serviço dos Assuntos Associativos e Religiosos (SAAR) de Inhambane, Relatório, 4 March 1980; SAARInhambane, Relatório, 6 October 1980. 60   ADI: Frei Marino Porcelli OFM, Breve Notas Históricas da Missão de S. João de Deus, Homoine 1911–1998, manuscript, p. 148–9. 59

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Table 5.1  Population change in the diocese of Inhambane, 1975, 1976 and 1980

1975

1976

1980

795,816

746,711

997,600

Catholics (percentage)

197,866 (24.9)

185,431 (24.8)

182,406 (18.3)

Priests & Missionaries

115

76

51

Catechists

573

152

254

Population

Source: Francisco Maria Pinheiro, Na Entrega do Testemunho 1975 (Torres Novas: Acção Missionária Portuguesa em Moçambique, 1992), p. 555 and Archive of the Diocese of Inhambane, Box ‘Diocese de 1963 à 1975: Diocese de Inhambane’ and ‘Dados Estatísticos de 1981’, p. 1. N.B.: Lost Catholics were mostly settlers leaving the country. The 34 per cent population increase between 1976 and 1980 is surprising and could be explained in part (but in part only) by the return of miners from South Africa.

mission, took clothes and drinks, and left a few hours later after setting fire to the mission – they explained they were ‘done with the mission’. At another mission the guerrilla explained they burned things to avoid the other side from benefiting from them. On the way out, the guerrilla in Muvamba lined up and fired shots in the air. Asked why, the commander explained that this was to inform Frelimo that they were finished and the government soldiers could now move in.61 In view of the developing war and hostage crisis, the Bishop of Inhambane rapidly decided to close the mission stations in the north of the province – Maimelane on 26 July, Mapinhane on 2 October 1982, Vilankulos on 6 October, Mavumba on 16 September, Massinga on 23 September and Mambone in December.62 Only the missions and parishes in the south of Inhambane (from Morrumbene, Mocodoene, Funhalouro and on down) remained open – this was to be the case until the end of the conflict. The loss of infrastructure through nationalization in 1976/77, the closure of many churches as a result of the state’s anti-religious campaign in 1978, the hostage taking, and the closure of mission stations all together affected the very functioning of the Catholic institution in Inhambane. With half its personnel gone and very little infrastructure left, the Church’s work became very limited, particularly in the north of the province and in rural areas. As a solution, it relied increasingly on catechists and on ‘base communities’. When missionaries had to leave an area or a mission station, they held a meeting with their catechists to give them instructions, make plans and delegate certain ministries. Thereafter they stayed in contact through written correspondence and through (irregular)

  Father Adelino Torres, interview, Lisbon, 18 December 2014 and ‘Terror, hopes, frustration and … faith’, Consolata Missions (London, April 1984), p.  20–2. More generally, ADI: Box 18: Resumo da Acta da Reunião do pessoal missionário (28 December 1982). 62   ADI: Box 18: Resumo da Acta da Reuniao do pessoal missionário (28 December 1982), p. 4. 61

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visits, whether by the missionary to the communities or by the leaders of the community to the parish/mission still open. Thus, for example, in Christmas 1982, the catechists in Morrumbene went to the mission to receive the Eucharist while in Vilankulo the missionaries left their parish to visit and celebrate with one of the outside communities.63 Communities and the model of a church of ‘base communities’ were still relatively new in 1982/83. It had been adopted officially, nationwide, at the National Pastoral Assembly of 1978 in Beira (whose decisions were approved by the Vatican). This new decentralized model for the Church had infuriated Frelimo who saw in it an anti-communist plot to resist Socialism, and it precipitated Frelimo’s anti-religious campaign and attacks from the second half of 1978.64 While it is true that some bishops, like the prelate of Inhambane, had wanted this model of a church to better resist a ‘Communist onslaught’,65 some other bishops wanted base communities to bring the Church closer to the Revolution (e.g. the Bishop of Nampula).66 Be this as it may, whether to resist or support ‘Communism’, base communities had begun to be established across the country in 1978 and they proved useful in dealing with the war. Such communities did not exist everywhere four years after their becoming official policy at the National Pastoral Assembly, and most of those that did function operated with deficiencies. In Inhambane where the development of base communities had started very early, before 1978,67 their growth was very unequal. In Homoine district, there were seventeen communities while in Quissico there were only four (some of them with deficiencies). A report for the area of the missions of Homoine, Panda and Pembe indicated, among other problems, that the catechists were without techno-pedagogic or doctrinal assistance and the majority of communities did not have a functioning council, if a council at all, as required by the Church.68 While the war spread and the Church relied evermore on communities, the Catholic bishops started to present their Church, nationally and locally, as being external to the war and they began to demand peace. In January 1983, the Episcopal Conference published a pastoral letter entitled ‘A Call for Peace’. In it, the bishops talked not only about human rights as they had done since independence, but also about peace and dialogue. Whereas the state and most Protestants talked about a ‘war of aggression’, ‘destabi63   ADI: Box ‘Missão de Massinga’: S.A.P. Inhambane, Circular 1/83, ‘Resumo da Acta da Reunião do pessoal missionário (28.12.1982)’, 4p. 64   Eric Morier-Genoud, ‘Of God and Caesar: The Relation between Christian Churches and the State in Post-Colonial Mozambique, 1974–1981’, Le Fait Missionnaire, 3 (1996). 65   Bishop Setele, interview, Inhambane, 16 February 1996. 66   Anselmo Borges (ed.), D. Manuel Vieira Pinto, Arcebispo de Nampula. Cristianismo: política e mística (Antologia, introdução e notas de Anselmo Borges) (Oporto: Edições ASA, 1992). 67   Diamantino Guapo Antunes, A Semente Caiu em Terra Boa: Os Missionários da Consolata em Moçambique. 75 anos de Evangelização ao Serviço da Igreja Local (1925–2000) (Rome: Edizioni Missioni Consolata, Studi e Testi 25, 2003), pp. 160–1. 68   ADI: Box without name or number: ‘Uma situação pastoral (Missões de Homoine, Panda e Pembe)’, 1 April 1985, 7 pp. 

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lization’ and ‘armed bandits’, the Episcopal Conference talked of an ‘armed conflict’ and it presented the way to resolve it as the ‘promotion of fundamental rights to life and well-being’ and the opening of a ‘dialogue’ between warring parties.69 Frelimo reacted very strongly to the letter, denouncing the bishops, but the latter did not give up and they repeated their call in September 1983 with a pastoral letter entitled ‘Conversion and Reconciliation’. This document went a step further and talked of the disorder of war, of summary executions, arbitrary imprisonment, the destruction of goods and houses, the unacceptable killing of innocents, and ‘legalized violence’, and it demanded no less than reconciliation.70 Still in 1983 the diocese of Nampula, soon to be followed by other dioceses, began to set up white books listing all the persons killed in the armed conflict, with a mention of the locale and date of their death, the name of their killers (government or guerrilla), and the arms used (guns, knife, bayonet, etc.). In Inhambane lists were started in 1985 only – see below. While base communities were adequate to deal with the war in 1982/83, the model soon showed limitations. Indeed, the war displaced people, dislocated communities, and thereby undermined this church model. At the end of the war, in 1992, the Catholic Church was to have only 259 base communities for the whole province of Inhambane, only 99 of which could be visited by a priest.71 Compensating in part, in those same years Catholic humanitarian aid was developed through the Mozambican branch of the Church’s Caritas aid organization – an arm of the Episcopal Conference. The government allowed Caritas Mozambique to be created in 1977 to support the refugee crisis resulting from the Rhodesian war of aggression, the drought in the south, and the floods in the north of the country. In Inhambane, Caritas was set up as a diocesan organization nine years later, in 1986, to support refugees from what had by then become a civil war. Caritas and its workers ran big emergency programmes, like other NGOs, with containers of food and clothes being delivered to them via new warehouses and with the organization distributing the aid to the needy. Part of the Church’s aid distribution and pastoral work, Caritas looked particularly after orphans, widows, the mutilated and the undernourished, in other words all those for whom the social doctrine of the Church asked the institution to care. The growth of Caritas (and likewise of the Justice and Peace Commission which dealt with refugees, among others) altered the make-up of the Church, whereby some Commissions and organs grew while others shrunk.72 It also altered the very nature of the Church, Father Filipe Couto arguing that the creation and   Conferência Episcopal de Moçambique (CEM), ‘Um Apelo à Paz’, in CEM, Cartas Pastorais, documentos (Oporto, Portugal: Humbertipo, 1984), pp. 115–25.   CEM, ‘Conversão e Reconciliação’, in CEM, Cartas Pastorais, documentos (Oporto, Portugal: Humbertipo, 1984), pp. 127–42. 71   ADI: Box ‘Provisões 13/0263 a 07/05/72. Conferência Episcopal 1976 a 1977’: Relatório da Diocese de Inhambane, 8 May 1992, p. 1. 72  ‘A Cáritas Moçambicana e seus objectivos’, Rumo Novo 20 (Beira, no.21, April 1998), pp. 51–567. 69

70

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Figure 5.2 Catholic list of war victims, Massinga district, 1983–1986 (Source: Archive of the Catechetic Centre of Guiúa, Inhambane: Dossier ‘Vítimas de Guerra’.)

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development of Caritas undermined the progressive faction in the institution and permitted the restoration of its hierarchical dimension with its propensity to merely engage in charity works.73

War After the Nkomati Accord The famine that ravaged Inhambane in 1983 receded in late 1984. By December of that year, ‘only’ half a million people were still suffering from drought in Inhambane, that is 41 per cent of the population as opposed to 80 per cent in 1983.74 After a visit to the province in July 1985, the official daily newspaper Notícias commented: ‘Now it is no longer easy to find signs of advanced malnutrition such as bloated bellies and emaciated bodies, as was widely revealed in 1983 in the country and in the outside world through photos and television pictures’.75 The Vilankulo district secretary for economic policy added: ‘If solidarity continues, there will be no more deaths due to hunger’.76 On the bright side, humanitarian aid indeed continued, though the agenda of the government and of donors shifted to what they called a second phase of the emergency programme, namely ‘agricultural rehabilitation’. The government mobilized and stimulated the population to return to their land and expand production; it engaged itself in redeveloping livestock, and it encouraged fishing as a mean of subsistence. The government hoped to thus empty some of the ‘rehabilitation camps’ that had cropped up all over the province. It expected for example to rapidly reduce the population of the camp of Pambarra (at the crossroads between the N1 road and that to Vilankulo on the coast) from 8,000 individuals to 450 families. To sustain agricultural development, the European Economic Community committed to establishing an agricultural training and experimental vegetable crop development centre in Pambarra.77 Brighter days were not to come soon however. Fighting in Inhambane diminished after the Nkomati Accord, but returned with a vengeance, on a grander scale and with even greater violence, in 1985. This came, on the one hand, because the government decided to try to eradicate Renamo at once and, to that end, it shifted its military approach away from conventional warfare. Instead of relying on tanks, helicopters and heavy artillery (sold by the USSR), the FPLM began to adopt a counter-guerrilla approach.78 Discussion on this new approach took place in 1983 and Frelimo adopted the option towards the   Filipe José Couto, ‘D. Manuel Vieira Pinto: um paradoxo’, in Manuel Vieira Pinto: O Visionário de Nampula, ed. José Luzia (Maputo: Paulinas, 2016), pp. 254–5. 74  AGPI: Governo da Provincia de Inhambane, Gabinete do Governador, Relatório Anual do Governo Provincial sobre o Cumprimento do Plano Estatal Central, Programa Terrritorial e Outras Realizações no Descurso do Ano de 1984, February 1985, p. 31. 75   Arlindo Lopes, ‘If Solidarity Continues There Will Be No More Deaths Due to Hunger’, Notícias (18 July 1985, p. 3), as reproduced and translated in Sub-Saharan Africa Report, 85, (Arlington, VA, 17 September 1985, p. 63). 76   Ibid. 77   Ibid. 78   Langellier, ‘Face à la ‘Résistance Nationale’, Le Monde, op. cit. 73

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end of the year. In the words of General Fondo, in charge of Inhambane province, cited in July 1984: The Armed Forces of Mozambique are dynamically fulfilling the directive of our Commander-in-Chief Samora Machel to transform the countryside into a theatre of operations. We are therefore occupying the countryside, and the bandits are conducting activities among the people under the cover of some of their collaborators. In view of this, we have begun our ‘house-to-house operation’, to generally clean out the province.79

The euphemism of ‘transforming the countryside into a theatre of operation’ encompassed more dimensions than just warfare in the rural areas. It also included the resettlement of populations, not least populations ‘recovered’ from Renamo, and a ‘water war’. General Fondo explained in 1985: ‘Gaining control of the sources of water has been a basic approach used by our forces in attacks on the bandits’ camps and bases. When they flee from one site to another, they always look for places with water sources. In fact, it is impossible to live without water’.80 Some sources advance that, to achieve this aim, the army removed handles from water pumps, and poisoned wells; this would be how Francisco Girmoio, a nephew of Afonso Dhlakama (Renamo’s Commander-in-Chief), and some of his men, had died in Inhambane in 1983.81 On the other hand, fighting returned in full in the province because Renamo changed its approach during this period as well. Under an offensive codenamed ‘Cacimbo Ardente’ (‘Burning Bush’), Renamo expanded across the country, moving further south (Maputo province) and further north (Nampula and Cabo Delgado provinces).82 It decentralized its operations and enlarged its objectives.83 First, whereas everything had been controlled centrally from its headquarters in central Mozambique, the movement created autonomous commands for the south, the centre and the north of the country.84 Second, Renamo then enlarged its focus to attack not just Frelimo representatives and symbols, but the whole ‘world of the modern state’ as Michel Cahen puts it, namely anything and anybody connected to the state   José Manuel, ‘Military commander describes offensive against bandits’, Diário de Moçambique (Beira, 6 July 1984), pp. 1 and 8–9, as reported and translated into English in Sub-Saharan Africa Report 97 (Arlington, VA, 5 September 1984, p. 79). 80   Abdul Carimo, ‘Commander Explains Strategy’, Nóticias (Maputo, 15 October 1985, p.  3), as reported and translated into English in Sub-Saharan Africa Report, 122 (Arlington, VA, 12 December 1985, p. 24). 81  Cabrita, Mozambique: The Tortuous Road, op. cit., p.  209; ‘Guerra Bacteriológica em Moçambique’, Canal de Moçambique (Maputo), 19 June 2006; ‘General Vareia da Renamo, 1953–2009’, Zambeze (Maputo, 5 March 2009). Frelimo made similar claims about Renamo poisoning water, though by throwing corpses into wells. 82   About this Renamo expansion, see Michel Cahen’s Chapter 4 in this book. 83   ‘Porta-voz da Resistência Moçambicana affirma em Lisboa: ‘RENAMO e FRELIMO tiveram conversações directas’, Notícias da Tarde (Oporto, 21 June 1984, p. 13); ‘MNR may negotiate with government if terms are right’, O Diabo (Lisbon, 26 June 1984, 22–23), as reported and translated into English in Sub-Saharan Africa Report, 84 (Arlington, VA, 1 June 1984, p. 26). 84  Cabrita, Mozambique: The Tortuous Road, op. cit., p. 218f. 79

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in any way.85 Third, Renamo relied ever more on bladed weapons (bayonets, machetes and knives) as arms supplies dried up after the Nkomati Accord. A report from the Catholic mission of Homoine in 1986 illustrates the point: Since 1982, the quietest year in this area has been 1985. Panic has returned to people’s minds [however]. It is correct to say that it is rare to hear the noise of light guns, but this silence is not the sign of a lack of war. It is the rather the sign of a war fought differently: wooden sticks, machetes, hoes. If in previous years, people feared the war between two armies, now the war seems to be directed to certain people or families, who are massacred by punches, by machetes or other instruments that the dark side of human kind has discovered could kill.86

Police reports for 1985 and 1986 described a similar dynamic. A report in 1986 reads for example: Occurrence: From the police post at the provincial hospital, we have learned that on 12 October 1986 at about 01h00 three persons belonging to the population were killed with machetes in their residence in the area of Ravene, district of Jangamo … the bandits were going from house to house with machetes, killing and abducting people. [We do not know] how many people were abducted … the victims’ names are … [a young man of 21, a woman of 72 and a woman of 53 years]. Action taken: the victims were transported to the provincial hospital in Inhambane and our forces pursued the bandits.87

The war took an increasing human and material toll after Nkomati. There are no numbers for fatal victims in Inhambane province. But the state did engage in 1986 in an exercise to determine the material cost of the war – presumably to better denounce the enemy and to ask for more international aid. At the request of the minister for state administration in the Presidency, the Governor of Inhambane tallied losses in a seven-page report that listed the destruction of infrastructure and advanced a total value – 1,701,733 Meticais for ten of the twelve districts covered in the report. Apart from a long list of 80 cars, lorries and tractors destroyed (with their registration numbers and records of owners’ names), the report gave the following account of destruction since the beginning of the war: 84 shops destroyed 246 schools destroyed 24 health centres destroyed 12 health posts destroyed 32 communal villages destroyed or abandoned.88 85   Michel Cahen, ‘Mozambique. Histoire géopolitique d’un pays sans nation’, Lusotopie 1994 (Paris: L’Harmattan), p. 263 n.46. 86   ADI: Frei Marino Porcelli OFM, Breve Notas Históricas da Missão de S. João de Deus, p. 108. 87  AGPI: Ministério do Interior, Estado Maior, Relatório Diário no.293/EMPPM/DIP/I/86, 13 October 1986, confidential, p. 1. 88   APGI: José Pascoal Zandamela [Governor], Relatório, 4 September 1986, p. 1.

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A preliminary version of the same report (twice as long) indicated an additional collapse in livestock between 1981 and 1983 (with a recovery in 1985, except for cattle); the destruction of most state enterprises; the disruption of regular postal services; and the disconnection of telephone lines between the provincial capital and many districts.89 What was not and could not be quantified was the disruption of transport and food distribution which, when drought returned in 1986/87, led to a new famine.90 At the end of 1987 Frelimo estimated that 845,000 persons were ‘affected by hunger and the BA [“Armed Bandits”]’, that is more than 70 per cent of the population of the province (twice the number of 1985) of which 259,863 were now considered to be internally displaced.91 International aid was needed, the party-state noted, because there were no food stocks in the province and the state could not provide for these people.92

Non-Governmental Organizations & the Development of a War Economy The literature has spoken much, and with good reasons, of the interventionist role of aid in the country – some authors accuse aid of having been a tool of ‘recolonization’.93 Much less has been said about the role of aid in ‘discharging’ the state of its social duties, such as education and health, so that the state could focus more, if not all of its energies and means to fight militarily. This is a classic of all wars since time immemorial.94 In Inhambane this ‘discharge’ became clear with the 1983 drought when NGOs and religious organizations were called and relied upon to fight the twin problems of ‘drought and armed bandits’ (to use the state expression of the period). As a part of it, Inhambane’s provincial government held a meeting with all the religious confessions in November 1983 to discuss their role in ‘Reconstruction and national unity’. The state requested their help in agriculture, education, health, transport and the construction of wells – all areas in which they had been forcefully removed and banned from getting involved in since independence. In exchange the governor announced that Frelimo would return ‘unduly’ nationalized property.95 By 1985 the government was factoring religious confessions and   Ibid.   AGPI: Governo Provincial de Inhambane, Alguns aspectos do Programa do Governo de Inhambane para 1988, November 1987, p. 2. 91   AGPI: Governo Provincial de Inhambane, Alguns aspectos do Programa do Governo de Inhambane para 1988, November 1987, Anexo ‘Informação sobre a população afectada na província de Inhambane pelos efeitos conjungados da guerra e da seca’, November 1987, p. 2. 92   AGPI: Governo Provincial de Inhambane, Alguns aspectos do Programa do Governo de Inhambane para 1988, November 1987, p. 9. 93   Among others, see Joseph Hanlon, Mozambique: Who calls the shots? (London: James Currey, 1991) and John S. Saul, Recolonization and Resistance: Southern Africa in the 1990s (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1993). 94   For recent work on the issue, see Marc-Antoine Pérouse de Montclos, Les humanitaires dans la guerre (Paris: La Documentation française, 2012), ch. 1. 95   AGPI: Serviços Provinciais de Actividades Associativas e Religiosas, ‘Relatório da Segunda Reunião Provincial com os representantes das confissões religiosas’, 12 December 1983, 4 pp.  89

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international donors in their plans as a normal element of their calculation. For its plans to foster small agricultural projects in 1985/86 for example, the government described its calculation and forthcoming activities and simply integrated donors’ work and finances into its own projections, as if they were part of the state and could be counted on without any problem.96 While this shows how aid inserted itself into the state, it also shows how the state counted on such aid to (not) fulfil its social duties and focus its resources on fighting the war. The nature and origin of aid to Mozambique after independence changed every year, but a major shift took place in 1983 when the country chose to turn towards the West, the IMF and the World Bank. This came after the USSR refused to integrate Mozambique into Comecon and the country lost its capacity to service its international debt. After the shift to the West, aid began to change origins and increase significantly; it doubled within two years and quadrupled within four, with most of it coming from UN organizations and Western countries by 1987.97 The shift was reflected in the NGOs at work on the ground: their numbers increased dramatically and their nature and origin diversified, with most organizations involved in emergency aid after 1983 and most of them coming from the West. By 1988 no less than 35 NGOS were directly engaged in the emergency situation across Mozambique.98 Looking at the Inhambane provincial government’s list of ‘partners’ in its small projects plan of 1985, one sees traditional ‘left wing’ and liberation struggle organizations such as the Dutch Eduardo Mondlane Foundation (a liberation struggle support organization), Australian AID Abroad (union based), the French Bioforce (university based), and the North American CUSO/SUCO (student based) alongside the traditional United Nations organizations such as UNDP, the World Food Programme and UNICEF. But one also sees new organizations which could not have been involved in state support before 1982, such as the Mozambican Christian Council (Protestant churches), the Lutheran World Federation, OXFAM-Canada, and even private companies.99 All worked in coordination with the government and exclusively in government areas.100 This involvement of new organizations not only mirrored the change of orientation of the Mozambican government but also responded to an increasing need to feed the Mozambican population under conditions of war, 96   AGPI: ‘Informação sobre o processo de Dinamização dos Pequenos Projectos na Província’, May 1985, 5 pp.  97   Yussuf Adam, Escapar aos Dentes do Crocodilo e Cair na Boca do Leopardo. Trajectória de Moçambique Pós-Colonial (1975–1990) (Maputo: Promédia, 2005), ch. 6. 98  Grete Brochmann & Arve Ofstad, Mozambique: Norwegian Assistance in a Context of Crisis (Fantoft, Norway: Chr. Michelsen Institute, 1990), p. 101. 99   AGPI: ‘Informação sobre o processo’, op. cit. 100   The first organization to work in Renamo areas was the International Red Cross in 1988. This happened in central Mozambique and faced many difficulties. See Sam Barnes, ‘Humanitarian assistance as a factor in the Mozambican peace negotiations: 1990–2’, in War and Peace in Mozambique, eds Stephen Chan & Moisés Venâncio (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1998), pp. 117–41; Marlino Eugenio Mubai, ‘A Seca e a Ajuda Humanitária como Factores para o Fim da Guerra em Moçambique: O caso do Distrito de Zavala, 1982–1992’, BA Thesis (Maputo: University Eduardo Mondlane, 2001), pp. 33–4.

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with many people having no more access to food production or the market, e.g. internally displaced people, living in camps. After a return to heavy fighting in the second half of 1987 in Northern Inhambane, state projections indicated that 65.4 per cent of the population in Inhambane province would live from emergency food hand-outs in 1988/89 – food distributed by aid agencies in coordination with the state’s Department for the Prevention and Combat of Natural Calamities (DPCCN). The projections of numbers for Inhambane province (compared to the national level) are shown in Table 5.2. Table 5.2 shows that free distribution of supplies was much higher in Inhambane (three times more) than the rest of the country, something that opens the question of why this was the case and whether it could be related to a new anti-guerrilla strategy of the army aimed at ‘drying the pond to kill the crocodile’ – Michel Cahen noted a tendency in 1989/90 for the army all over the country to capture the Renamo population and settle them in refugee camps rather than attack Renamo bases.101 Table 5.2  Estimated population to be provided for by commerce and the Department of Prevention and Combat against Natural Disasters (DPCCN) in 1988/89 Population

Population supplied by market

Emergency free distribution

Selfsufficiency

Problems of access & displaced in interior

Inhambane

1,324,000

349,500 (26.4%)

866,000 (65.4%)

-

108,000 (8.2%)

Mozambique

15,000,000

3,395,159 (22.6%)

3,788,847 (25.3%)

2,667,930 (17.8%)

5,148,064 (34.3%)

Source: DPCCN, 24 January 1989 (document in possession of the author)

While DPCCN and NGOs dealt with free distribution of food and other first necessity goods, the state and shopkeepers dealt with what was left of the agricultural economy. Here a barter economy became official policy after 1985 whereby salt, sugar, soap, cotton garments and cloth were used to buy cashews and copra. In 1985 the Copra Producers’ Association (set up in late 1984 with offices in Quelimane, Maputo and Inhambane) launched a ‘New Economic System for Copra’, which was about investing ‘in consumer goods to barter for copra and other oleaginous crops’.102 Along the same lines, the state secretariat for cashew nuts imported consumer goods to barter for nuts – in 1985 it imported some ‘100,000 contos worth of consumer goods to be used for the 1985–86 cashew nut marketing campaign’.103 At the local level,   Michel Cahen, Mozambique: Analyse politique de conjoncture (Paris: Indigo Publications, 1990), p. 30. 102   Ezequiel Mavota, ‘Zambezia Governor urges Government to Spur Copra Production’, Diário de Moçambique (Beira, 20 April 1985), p. 4 as reported and translated into English in Sub-Saharan Africa Report 46 (Arlington, VA, 6 June 1985, p. 70). 103  António Mafuiane, ‘Inhambane cashew nut marketing campaign underway’, Notícias (Maputo, 7 February 1985, p. 3), as reported and translated into English in Sub-Saharan Africa 101

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shopkeepers acquired these or other goods (sometimes donated goods, or goods bought on the black market) to barter for agricultural products. This was not a wholly new way of dealing with small producers as bartering was a classic in colonial times, especially in the countryside, but this system had largely stopped after independence. Its return resulted in a greater commercialization of agricultural outputs, as expected, but it also led to a greater capture of the margin of profit by state companies and small traders, in spite of the fact that the deregulation of prices imposed by the IMF and the World Bank had aimed at increasing prices for peasants so as to foster production.104 In Southern Inhambane this new system allowed a series of small and medium-size traders to accumulate capital again, something which helped their business and would eventually allow them expansion, if not fortune, once peace returned.105 Transport was crucial for the import of humanitarian aid and the circulation of goods. The transportation of leaders and international humanitarian workers to Inhambane was done by airplane. High value goods and humanitarian goods (food and clothing) were transported by sea to the ports of Inhambane, Vilankulos and Inhassouro (see Map 5.1) – the port of Inhambane reopened in October 1980 and grew with the humanitarian crisis of 1983/84.106 After 1984 coastal shipping was expanded with the help of several countries and run in effect by the Norwegians who doubled capacity up to 1989.107 For the rest of the people and goods, road transport was the norm, with military protection, in armed convoys. While the army ran the operations at the start, some form of privatization occurred after 1987 as the conflict hardened and more convoys were needed. Protected convoys were run by ‘owners’, whether public companies or private businessmen. There were two ‘public’ convoys, one pertaining to the Hidrocarbonete Company (gasoline transportation) and the other to the Agricom state company (agricultural products), both of which dated from before 1987. A third convoy was that of Tendai, a former district military commander, which dated from before 1987 too, but operated only between Inhambane city and Inharrime town.108 New convoys after 1987 included that of Adula Mohamed Mussagy, a former provincial director of Report 29 (Arlington, VA, 11 April 1985, 66–67); ‘Inhambane receiving consumer goods to aid cashew marketing’, Notícias (Maputo, 8 August 1985, p. 8), as reported and translated into English in Sub-Saharan Africa Report 89, 20 September 1985, p. 98); ‘Preparation for 1985–1986 cashew campaign outlined’, Notícias (Maputo, 8 October 1985, p. 3), as reported and translated into English in Sub-Saharan Africa Report 125 (Arlington, VA, 19 December 1985, p. 85). 104   On structural adjustment and the countryside, see Vincent Tickner, ‘Structural Adjustment and Agricultural Pricing in Mozambique’, Review of African Political Economy, 53 (1992), 25–42. On barter during the same period in central Mozambique, see Mark Chingono, ‘War and economic change, and development in Manica Province, 1982–1992’, in War and Underdevelopment. vol. 2 Country Experiences, eds Frances Stewart & Valpy Fitzgerald (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 89–118. 105   Confidential interview. 106   ‘Cargo-Handling figures for Inhambane port reported’, Notícias (Maputo, 2 July 1985, p. 2), as reported and translated into English in Sub-Saharan Africa Report, 76, 28 August 1985, p. 76). 107   Brochmann & Ofstad, Mozambique: Norwegian Assistance, op. cit., pp. 71–80. 108   Confidential interview. (contd)

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Map 5.1  Inhambane province: Rural population self-sufficiency, supplies arrangements and access (Source: Hermann Gebauer, The subsidized food distribution system in Mozambique and its socio-economic impact [Maputo: mimeo, 1991])

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Agricom, who was rumoured to have the support of the Head of Parliament; and that of Salema Mufundisse Chibique, a former director of Mambone’s state salt mines and a trader based in Inhassoro who expanded south with the war and was rumoured to be allied with the head of the secret services. While convoys transported emergency aid and goods from Maputo to Inhambane, they carried people, fish and wood on their way back – people paid to be transported, or have goods transported, except with the local convoy of Tendai.109

Last Phase of the War After the failure of the Nkomati Accord to end the war, the death of President Machel in an air crash in 1986, and the failure of a major military offensive ordered by the new President Joaquim Chissano in 1987, Catholic and Protestant leaders decided to join forces and launch a peace initiative to try to end the war. With the eventual blessing of President Chissano, they made contact with Renamo representatives in the United States and Kenya in 1988, which were followed by some indirect preliminary negotiations in Nairobi in 1989. After talks failed to start properly in Kenya, negotiations moved to Rome under the aegis of the Roman Catholic Community of Sant’Egidio, and the Italian government. Direct talks began in July 1990 and lasted until October 1992 when a peace agreement was finally signed and the war came to a formal end. Between 1990 and 1992, news of the negotiations trickled down to the provinces through the official newspaper Notícias and, in the case of the Catholic Church, through direct reports from their mediator to the talks, Dom Jaime Gonçalves, the Archbishop of Beira – his hand-written reports for the Episcopal Conference were faxed to the Bishop of Inhambane.110 Expectations were high at first, so that by early 1992 frustration developed at the slow pace of the negotiations between the government and Renamo. In April 1992, Catholic children and youth of Inhambane therefore wrote a two-page petition to the chief negotiators in Rome. They informed them that the situation on the ground was grim, with famine, violence and daily deaths and, having let their impatience become clear, they asked that ‘this round of negotiation becomes the birth of a morning of peace and freedom for you and for the nation’.111 Negotiations were one aspect of moving towards the ending of the war; a second aspect was politics. In 1989 Frelimo decided at its 5th Congress to abandon Marxism-Leninism and adopt a liberal political model and multiparty elections. To that end, Frelimo began a revision of the country’s constitution in 1990. Thus, with peace would come democracy and elections in a model that Frelimo designed itself.112 A third aspect where the government 109   Ibid.; Savana (Maputo, 17 January 1997); AGPI: Salema Mufunfisse Chibique, ‘Memória descritiva sobre investimentos da firma na província’, s/d (1988?), 2 pp. 110   ADI: Box ‘Conferencia Episcopal, Box 3. 1992–1996’. 111   ADI: Box ‘Diocese Expedida/Recebida’: Petition addressed to Armando Guebuza and Raul Domingos, chief negotiators at the Rome peace talks, 19 April 1992, 9 pp.  112  Eric Morier-Genoud, ‘Mozambique since 1989: Shaping democracy after Socialism’, in

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started to look beyond the war was the economy. The government planned the shift to neoliberal economics and it began to plan the privatization of state enterprises as well as the revival of old colonial projects.113 In Inhambane, the rich gas field of Pande (north of the province), which had been discovered in 1957 but suffered a serious explosion in 1961 (left unresolved thereafter), saw its exploration restarted in 1989 thanks to Norwegian and Russian help. Soon after, negotiations were started in relation to this oil field with the American company Enron, with whom the government signed a memorandum of understanding in 1995.114 In 1989, plans were designed to re-launch the colonial project of building a barrage and developing a massive irrigation scheme north of the province on the Save river – a project known today as the Irrigation Project of the Save Valley (PIVASA).115 Another case was the agricultural land of the Inhassune plains. Run after 1980 as a state farm (on 70,000 ha of land, including installations of the former re-education camp) to produce cotton (ginned in Inharrime) and raise cattle, the farm was considered for privatization. With the help of the African Development Bank (which had assisted the state farm since 1980), a plan was devised and eventually formally agreed upon in 1995 for the privatization of the installation and the handing over of the use of the land to private entities.116 With such plans, and many smaller ones, the premises of a post-war liberal social and economic order were laid down. For all the expectations and plans, war and violence continued after 1989. After a so-called 1988 Nkomati Accord II (an agreement reached between the South African and Mozambican governments to improve relations and start military cooperation), the war intensified, particularly in the south of the country, in what seems to have been a strategy by Renamo to push the Mozambican government to negotiate with Renamo itself rather than its backers.117 By and large, the pattern of fighting in Inhambane remained the same, with Renamo attacking the ‘world of the state’, cutting Frelimo’s lines of communication, and attacking convoys, towns and villages while the government army overran Renamo camps only to see the latter re-emerge somewhere else or in the same place later on – some months saw the army overrun more than ten Renamo camps without Turning Points in African Democracy, eds A.R.Mustapha & L.Whitfield (Oxford: James Currey, 2008), pp. 153–66.   Anne Pitcher, Transforming Mozambique: The politics of Privatization, 1975–2000 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 109–18. 114  Issufo Abdula and Guelvetsi Salman, ‘Exploration Geology, potential of Pande gas field, Mozambique basin’, Oil & Gas Journal, 93/43 (1995); John Kachamila, Do Vale do Rift ao Sonho da Liberdade: Memórias de Lisungo (Maputo: Naschingwea Editores, 2016), pp.  142–54; James McKinley Jr., ‘Enron Goes to Africa Seeking Gas and Customers’, New York Times (27 December 1995). 115   See the Ministry of Agriculture description of the project online at: www.fda.gov.mz/index. php?option=com_content&view=article&id=76:projecto-de-irrigacao-do-vale-do-save&catid=45:destaques&Itemid=73 (accessed 7 February 2016). 116   Mr Fallet, interview, Maputo 5 April 1996. About the history of the State farm, see Simão, ‘Inhassune antes da Guerra’, op. cit. 117   Indian Ocean Newsletter, 331 (Paris, 7 May 1988), 348 (17 September 1988), and 359 (3 December 1988). (contd)

113

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many consequences on the general dynamics of the conflict in the province. The drought became predominant in those years too and both armies were facing increasing logistical problems as well as war fatigue. There were shortages of weapons, ammunition and food on Renamo’s side alongside a breakdown in communication as the guerrilla’s radio system aged; on the government side there were arms, ammunition, clothing and food shortages, and this led to much desertion as well as an increase in the press-ganging of young men.118 Stephen Emerson refers in this period to the development of a ‘degree of anarchy on the battlefield’, with a breakdown in discipline, the rise of marauding armed men, and the emergence of a series of newly armed actors.119 A key feature of this last phase of the war was, precisely, the emergence of independent militia. While popular militia emerged in the centre and north of Mozambique, such as the Naparama in Zambezia and Nampula provinces (see Chapters 1, 2 and 3), one saw in southern Mozambique the arrival of private security firms and the rise of private militia. Lomaco is one example. A joint venture between Frelimo and Lonhro, the company developed farms and projects in Gaza and Cabo Delgado after 1985 and had these protected by a private militia trained and helped by foreign mercenaries. For its cotton farm in Gaza, this represented 1,400 men for an area of 2,000 ha in 1989.120 In Inhambane province, the cotton and cattle state farm of Inhassune (35 times bigger than Lonhro’s farm in Gaza) was protected in 1989 by a single FPLM battalion with wires, security towers and intensive mining around 1,000 ha of the total area.121 After the Homoine massacre in July 1987 (when Renamo overran the town and the government responded by pounding, leading to 400+ dead),122 the Italian state’s Fondo Aiuti Italiano (FAI) agricultural project was allowed to set up its own private militia. The latter constituted some 150 Mozambicans drawn from the regular military and former colonial Special Forces. Similarly to what happened at Lomaco, the men were all retrained by foreign military specialists so that they could adequately protect FAI projects, prevent Renamo from taking over Maxixe town (the economic capital of the province), and … engage in counter-guerrilla activities.123 A last feature of the final phase of the war was the transformation (collapse of parts) of the state administration. Like other institutions, not least the  Emerson, The Battle for Mozambique, op. cit., p. 185. For the press-ganging of young men, see ‘Chipande replies to army’s critics’, Mozambiquefile 186 (Maputo, January 1992), 13–14. 119  Emerson, The Battle for Mozambique, op. cit., p. 185. 120   Alex Vines, ‘The business of peace, “Tiny” Rowland, Financial Incentives and the Mozambican Settlement’, Accord: An International Review of Peace Initiatives 3 (June 1998), 66–74; Jake Harper-Ronald, Sunday Bloody Sunday: A soldier’s war in Northern Ireland, Rhodesia, Mozambique and Iraq (as told to Greg Budd), (Alberton, South Africa: Galago, 2009), ch. 38. 121   AGPI: Hunting Technical Services Ltd to Governor of Inhambane, 27 July 1989, 3 pp. and Peter Thompson, Austin Hutcheon, and Brian Kerr, Fifty Years in International Development. The Work of HTS 1953–2003 (Taupo, New Zealand: Austin Hutcheon), pp. 93–4. 122   A serious and impartial study of the massacre is still needed, especially as it has been extensively used for propaganda purposes by the government to stop the American government (and others) from supporting Renamo. 123   ADJ: Administração de Jangamo, ‘Síntese das Principais orientações saídas do seminario provincial sobre mobilização, recenseamento e recrutamento P/S.M.O. e sobre o sistema de defesa territorial nos dias 6 e 7 de Outubro de 1989’, October 1989, 2 pp.  118

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Table 5.3  Internally displaced persons by district, October 1992

District

Displaced

Estimated Population

Homoine

53,000

170,500

31

Morrumbene

46,000

111,000

42

Jangamo

114,000

102,000

102 [sic]

Massinga

38,000

224,000

17

Inharrime

38,000

85,000

45

Panda

33,000

77,000

43

Zavala

26,000

135,000

19

Vilankulos

53,000

105,000

50

Funhalouro

25,000

55,000

46

Mabote

32,000

41,000

78

Inhassoro

25,000

104,000

24

Govuro TOTAL Inhambane Total Mozambique

Percentage of Displaced

24,500

77,000

32

508,000

1,286,500

39

3,750,000

16,000,000

23

Source: calculated from United Nations Office for Humanitarian Assistance Co, Série de Mapas do UNOHAC, September 1994, pp. 2, 5.

Catholic Church, some functions of the state administration were reduced to their minimum while others became atrophied. At the district level, the state was often reduced to its barest form, leaving in place the police, the army and the coordination of humanitarian aid for the population. Alongside the armed forces and police, the government’s relief agency had developed into a very powerful institution since it coordinated food and aid distribution for an ever-increasing number of people (see above). In contrast, education, social and other services were much reduced and almost absent outside the main cities. In an unusually frank report, the administrator of Jangamo admitted in 1991 the following: Functioning of the sovereign organs of the state: in this area, the only structure in the district which operates is the police, through the district command and a police station in the administrative post of Cumbana.124

In many ways, it is the whole Mozambican society that had been re-shaped along these lines. Armed forces and aid institutions dominated society at large while social, pastoral, educational, and cultural institutions and organs declined outside the main towns, if they did not disappear altogether. Fighting 124   APGI: Distrito de Jangamo, Relatório das Actividades Desenvolvidas no Distrito por Organismo do Estado no 1º Semestre de 1991, July 1991, p. 10.

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and population displacement drove this transformation. Towards the end of the war, a majority of people had had to leave their homes. In Inhambane province, the number of displaced people reached 508,000 (half a million) in 1992, which was double the number of 1985 and almost 40 per cent of the whole population of the province! The breakdown by district is shown in Table 5.3: note that the total for Inhambane is significantly higher than the national average.

Conclusion This chapter has looked at the war in Inhambane in an encompassing way, by studying not just Renamo, but also the state, society and the economy. What the investigation has uncovered is, first, that the war arrived in Inhambane in July 1981, reaching southern Mozambique in early 1982. There were at least three phases to the war: a first initial phase until the 1984 Nkomati Accord; a period of renewed conflict after 1984 when Renamo used more ‘silent’ weapons and the state engaged in counter-guerrilla warfare; and a final period where a war economy dominated and private militia joined the conflict. Second, we saw the dynamics of the state were one cause of the war, because the postcolonial authoritarian modernization created marginalized social sectors who welcomed Renamo and because the state’s anticipation of, and response to, the coming of Renamo led to more marginalization (villagization) and the army alienating itself from the people. We also saw that the state and the army were very proactive in the war, adapting and changing their approach over time, from classic warfare to guerrilla warfare to using private militia. Third, we saw that Renamo articulated itself to traditional authorities, local grievances and existing local conflicts. This said, Renamo did not manage thereafter to control large populated areas, hence it remained a guerrilla movement with little social base in this region. Finally, we saw that the whole of society was affected by the war. Among others, the economy was radically transformed, becoming militarized and heavily dependent on external aid from the mid-1980s. Moreover, the Catholic Church was limited in its action, but it managed to reinvent itself through informal grassroots arrangements, the establishment of a humanitarian arm (Caritas), and the development of a pro-peace official voice. What do these findings mean? At a general level, that the war was not a simple phenomenon, be it a sole aggression or an exclusively military affair. It was a complex and dynamic phenomenon that engulfed the whole of society, changed over time, and altered everything and everyone in complex and often unintended ways. We saw this, with the re-shaping of the Catholic Church, the reorganization of the state administration, and the development of a war economy. At a more specific level, these findings demand that we revisit the argument advanced by Otto Roesch (and others) about the specificities of the war in southern Mozambique. Contrary to what Roesch advanced, we saw

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that Renamo did articulate itself to traditional authorities and villagization (though more research needs to be done on this latter point). As to ethnicity, it is far from clear that the Renamo leadership’s origins were an issue with the population and we saw that Renamo indigenized its local leadership over time. Research has also not indicated in any significant way that Renamo used more violence in the south of Mozambique than in the north – and the case of the Homoine massacre still needs to be analysed properly. Besides putting into question Roesch’s argument, the present chapter offers three new elements to explain why the guerrilla did not manage to establish itself widely in the province and to control large populations or develop its own society and economy as it did in the centre and north of Mozambique (see Chapter 4). First, the ecology of the province did not favour Renamo. Most of the population lived in the fertile coastal strip which was small and tightly controlled by Frelimo – the rest of the province was sparsely populated and semi-arid. Second, the droughts which affected the area thrice in the 1980s and once in the 1990s made these ecological conditions ever harder, and Frelimo used these to good effect to discharge the state from its social responsibilities and to control the population ever more tightly through refugee camps and the distribution of humanitarian aid. Lastly, the government relied on private militia to contain Renamo towards the end of the war.

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6

War Accounts from Ilha Josina Machel, Maputo Province

Lily Bunker

Ilha Josina Machel is situated in a rural region, north of the capital Maputo in an area of strong Frelimo influence. Following independence, the village was known for its agricultural cooperatives, and during the civil war, while central areas of Ilha Josina Machel were protected by fences, land mines, and a government supported local militia, other areas, such as the more isolated bairros,1 became increasingly vulnerable to attacks and brutality as the conflict dragged on. This resulted in widespread suffering, and the abduction of adults and children alike. As a result of the war, peasants hold in their memory compelling narratives of violence and survival, stemming from their orientation within the theatre of war, the perceived collective vulnerability of their community, the interest belligerents found in the region, and the proximity to military bases where varying levels of violence were executed, from relatively benign2 to unspeakable.3 The recollections in this text from abductees of all ages, as well as observers living in a region dominated by the ruling party, reveal the cultural and social nuances of Ilha Josina Machel in light of historical, regional and local dynamics. Drawing on secondary literature and a series of in-depth structured and semi-structured interviews, focus groups, informal discussions, and participant observation with over eighty informants including government officials, non-governmental employees, university professors in Maputo City, Renamo supporters, and villagers who lived in Ilha Josina Machel and surrounding regions during the war,4 this chapter synthesizes data collected during a total of seven months of fieldwork, including a four-month stay and three visits to Ilha Josina Machel between 2010 and 2014, as well as additional interviews between 2010 and 2016.  A bairro is an administrative subdivision within a larger government administrative area.   Felicidade Mimbir, interview by author, Ilha Josina Machel, 27 April 2014. 3   For one example, see Florinha’s narrative of violence and mutilation, presented later in the chapter. 4   The majority of my informants were from the research site; however, a number of interviews were conducted with those who have studied the war, those who worked in post-war recovery, or were/are from the opposition of the ruling party. I conducted the majority of my fieldwork in Ilha Josina Machel. I also made several visits to neighbouring areas including Manhiça, Palmeira, Macia and Xinavane, and conducted several dozen interviews in Maputo City. No visits to former Renamo bases were made. Informants cited in footnotes by first name only are informants to whom I have allocated pseudonyms to protect their privacy. 1 2

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This chapter shows evidence of the violence of war in Ilha Josina Machel, albeit relatively short-lived compared to many other regions of the country. It aims at revealing the local dynamics of the war and collective memory through narratives, with a particular focus on women, whose voices are less inclined to appear in official documents, and who arguably suffered more often, and more intensely during war. In this text, I argue that Ilha Josina Machel is a unique research site with a distinctive wartime narrative. The community was a historically agricultural area with cooperatives and strong ruling party influence and support, which attracted relatively strong defence as well as, arguably, wartime aggression by Renamo. Variations of the war in this research site were directly correlated with its close proximity to several Renamo bases, which resulted in frequent attacks and abductions; regional dynamics that allowed Renamo to carry out varied levels of violence; an extensive local history of Frelimo support; its notoriety as a site of agricultural abundance; and Renamo’s inability to garner support locally and enlist recruits. Arguing the intersection between historic, regional and local nuances, and the sociocultural realities of the war in Ilha Josina Machel, this study presents the narratives of residents of the region, who willingly or unwillingly, actively or tacitly became involved in the armed conflict. The first section provides background to the research site; the second discusses the conflict as a cultural reality in Ilha Josina Machel; the third section analyses the dynamics of the war; the fourth highlights rebel bases and war tactics; and the fifth focuses on memory. While a limited number of publications on the history, and the civil war in Ilha Josina Machel exist, they are not recent.5 Further, there is a lack of studies on the local dynamics and the long-term effects of the war in this specific community. This chapter seeks to address these gaps, and provides a brief overview of the local dynamics of the conflict through narrative.

An Introduction to Ilha Josina Machel A quaint cluster of sprawling villages situated in the Incomáti River valley, boasting fertile soil and a lush landscape, Ilha Josina Machel is located approximately 130 km north of Maputo City within Maputo Province, and has an estimated population of 9,349.6 Ilha Josina Machel is organized   See Merle Bowen, The State Against the Peasantry: Rural Struggles in Colonial and Postcolonial Mozambique (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2000), Boia Efraime Júnior & Antoinette Errante, ‘Rebuilding Hope on Josina Machel Island: Towards a Culturally Mediated Model of Psychotherapeutic Intervention’, International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, 9/3 (2012), 187–211; Boia Efraime Júnior, ‘Trauma e Migração: Os Traumas Psíquicos das Crianças Soldados’, Diversitas (São Paulo) 1 (2013), 113; Alcinda Honwana, Child Soldiers in Africa (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006); Peter Steudtner, The Social Integration of Child Soldiers: Concepts and Experiences from Mozambique, Berghof Report no. 6 (Berlin: Berghof Research Center, 2000). 6   República de Moçambique, Informe das Actividades Desenvolvidas pelo Posto Administrativo da Ilha 5

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into two localities, and subdivided into a total of nine bairros. Maguiguana locality is home to the more central regions of Ilha Josina Machel: Primeiro de Maio, Bairro 1, Bairro 2, Bairro 3 (the centre of the community) and Bairro 4/ Madjedje. Dzonguene locality comprises the more isolated regions: Bairro 5, Bairro 6 and Bairro 7. Despite its fertile soil, and its promise as a productive agricultural area, recurrent drought and flooding in the region still to this day result in hungry bellies, ramshackle homes, dislocated families, and desperation. Due to a severe lack of employment opportunities, community members primarily depend on subsistence agriculture for survival. Other small-scale economic activities exist, which include selling produce on the main road in the centre of the village, crafting and repairing fishing nets, raising cattle and ploughing fields, selling used clothing, cutting and selling reeds, producing local alcohol, and fishing. Ilha Josina Machel has historically existed as a Frelimo stronghold, and remains so to this day, with staunch support of the liberation movement turned ruling party. Overwhelming support for the ruling party is evident in the way the majority of villagers speak and act. To provide one example, Adelaide, a resident of Ilha Josina Machel for the past four decades, proudly announced her support for the current ruling party: ‘The government is our father, our brother, and our grandfather’.7 In this context, support for other parties tends to be weak and discreet. According to oral records,8 the Kutana was the first family to set foot on the fertile land now known as Ilha Josina Machel. In 1897, when formal Portuguese colonialism began, several members of the Timana family reigned as régulos.9 Adriano Chimbutana Timana, who held power between 1957 and 1975,10 followed the letter of the law, and thus enjoyed Portuguese favour given his strict approach with local villagers.11 His legitimacy within the community was pervasive however; he was recognized locally for his ability to communicate between the living and the dead. This skill brought him significant power in addition to an alternative source of income.12 Timana passed away of heart failure in 1975. Given the post-colonial government’s abolishment of the régulo Josina Machel, Durante os 10 Meses do Ano 2013, Província de Maputo (Maputo: Governo do Distrito da Manhiça, 2013), p. 1. This information was taken from data from the 2007 national census. 7   Adelaide Antonio Mbir, interview by author, Ilha Josina Machel, 10 April 2014. 8   This refers to narratives that have been passed down through generations, and were shared with me during interviews. 9   The term régulo refers to local leaders who were influential under Portuguese rule and given authority over local populations. Although their power fell under Portuguese authority, the Portuguese understood that their legitimacy depended on their ability to exercise authority and relative independence, and they were not required to rely entirely on collaborating with the colonial authority. Often, however, enforcement of administrative practices such as forced labour undermined their authority. See Bowen, The State Against the Peasantry, op. cit., pp. 69–72. 10   Adriano Vicente Chaúque, ‘Segurança da Posse da Terra e Conservação de Solos: O Caso da Ilha Josina Machel, 1975–1999’, BA Thesis (Maputo: Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, 1999), p. 35. 11   David Alberto Dzimba, Chefe do Posto (1990–95), interview by author, Maputo, 16 April 2014. 12   Chaúque, ‘Segurança da Posse’, op. cit. (contd)

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Map 6.1  Maputo province and Ilha Josina Machel (Source: Républica de Moçambique, Perfil do distrito de Manhiça, 2005; Cartography: V. Alfaurt, CNRS 2016)

system at independence, and their establishment of new structures to replace them via Grupos Dinamizadores,13 Ilha Josina Machel has not had a régulo since that time. The community was officially named Timana until the early 1940s when, oral records tell us, a group of elders met to discuss the nomenclature of their village. Noting that the region was surrounded by rivers, and due to annual flooding during the rainy season which separated the community from the mainland, the elders decided to officially call the area an island. During what 13   Grupos Dinamizadores were political groups organized by the government and created in response to the economic, income and unemployment crisis following independence. See Bowen, The State Against the Peasantry, op. cit., pp. 41–2, 69 and 109–11.

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seemed an arbitrary decision-making process, the elders approached the local Portuguese teacher, whose wife was named Mariana. The elders asked, ‘Where is your wife?’ The teacher responded, ‘She went to harvest maize’. In that way, in the absence of Mariana herself, and combining the Portuguese word for island – ilha – with the name of the local Portuguese teacher’s wife, the elders deemed Ilha Mariana a befitting title.14 In 1976, the name changed once again to honour Samora Machel’s wife during the liberation struggle, Josina Simbine Machel.15 The area has sustained considerable changes over the years. At one time, buffalo, hippopotami, bush pigs and gazelles enjoyed the rich land alongside local villagers. In 1948, under colonialism, Portuguese soldiers entered villages and surrounding areas to hunt,16 subsequently taking the carcasses to their barracks, but leaving at least one male and female of each species to allow further breeding. In the villager’s minds, however, while this improved their situation, they remained in danger of attacks from wild animals. Buffalo, in particular, show aggressive behaviour and rapidly consume valuable crops. Popular memory holds that, during this time, a group of peasants in stiff spirits one day united and drove the last buffalo into the river where the animals were unable to swim, and where the group finished them off, tools in hand. Residents state that, since then, no buffalo have been seen in the region.17 Following World War II, rice production was introduced to Ilha Josina Machel, and in the 1950s wheat and cotton cultivation developed by way of cooperatives.18 Agricultural prosperity encouraged the advent of small businesses. Portuguese entrepreneurs arrived from nearby Macia in Gaza Province and surrounding regions to engage in commerce, encouraging peasants to sell or trade their maize.19 While rice and cotton production was later suspended due to low yields, the region was seen as fertile land for wheat,20 and viability for other crops was explored, including maize and manioc,21 green beans, squash and peanuts.22 During this time, subsistence agriculture and agribusiness became co-existent, and colonial marketing cooperatives were considered exemplary. Residents, however, were exploited as a direct result of colonial capitalism.23 Settlers and locals mixed in social circles. Fernando Maguane, the oldest native in the region recalled:   Fernando Milalil Maguane, interview by author, Ilha Josina Machel, 14 April 2014.   República de Moçambique, Historial do Dia 7 de Abril, Posto Administrativo da Ilha Josina Machel (Ilha Josina Machel: Posto Administrativo da Ilha Josina Machel, 2014), pp. 1–2; Bowen, The State Against the Peasantry, op. cit. 96. 16   Fernando Milalil Maguane, interview by author, Ilha Josina Machel, 14 April 2014; David Alberto Dzimba, Chefe do Posto (1990–95), interview by author, Maputo, 16 April 2014. 17   Fernando Milalil Maguane, interview by author, Ilha Josina Machel, 14 April 2014. 18  Bowen, The State Against the Peasantry, op. cit., pp. 21, 79. 19   Fernando Milalil Maguane, interview by author, Ilha Josina Machel, 14 April 2014. 20  Bowen, The State Against the Peasantry, op. cit., pp. 21, 79. 21   Manioc is also known as cassava in English. 22   Chaúque, ‘Segurança da Posse ’, op. cit., p. 16. 23   Ibid., p. 22. 14

15

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Those [the Portuguese colonialists] who had children with them, they sent them to school. Those are the ones who began to fight for us [in the liberation war] … They knew that this was the land of the Mozambicans. It wasn’t the land of the Portuguese.24

The war of independence never reached Ilha Josina Machel. In fact, it never came close. Although the majority of villagers had not participated directly in the liberation of their country, they proudly embraced this emancipation when Frelimo arrived in power. Merle Bowen, who conducted extensive research in Ilha Josina Machel in the 1980s, documented peasant views as a basis to evaluate government plans and respective implementation. She argues that colonial policies were restrictive, which led to peasant support of the liberation movement; middle peasants particularly supported Frelimo with the assumption that an independent government would allow favourable conditions for business prosperity and economic growth.25 During the transition to independence, the majority of Portuguese colonizers packed up and left. Some sold their land and their belongings for a profit; others simply abandoned their properties. Bowen also argues that peasant surplus production under colonialism was effective due to its carefully controlled processes. With the abrupt changes that independence brought, however, and after rural traders and shopkeepers left Ilha Josina Machel without warning, residents who had been trained to respond to specific regulations and incentives were left in a state of confusion. With the end of colonialism, agricultural production, transport, supply and service systems slowed and eventually collapsed.26 Land tenure norms after 1975 did not allow peasants to claim plots of land for their own use. Instead, the properties abandoned by settlers were nationalized, like all land, and used to organize peasants on agricultural communes.27 In February 1977, Frelimo adopted an intended socialist strategy regarding land tenure, organizing state-controlled machambas,28 cooperatives and communal villages,29 of which Ilha Josina Machel was a prime example. The majority of cooperatives in Ilha Josina Machel were founded between 1976 and 1979.30 By the mid-1980s, Frelimo had shifted from ostensibly socialist to capitalist agricultural policies, leading to extensive change in Ilha Josina Machel, which included the distribution of land to private investors and liberalization of commercial ventures. Agricultural cooperative efforts in Ilha Josina Machel were given an official stamp of approval: the government praised members of cooperatives for their   Fernando Milalil Maguane, interview by author, Ilha Josina Machel, 14 April 2014; the people Fernando are referencing here were most likely mixed-race children of Portuguese colonialists. 25  Bowen, The State Against the Peasantry, op. cit., p. 6. 26   Ibid, pp. 92–3. 27   Fernando Milalil Maguane, interview by author, Ilha Josina Machel, 14 April 2014. 28  A machamba is a plot of land used for individual agricultural production. In this case, it is the popular designation for state farms. 29   Chaúque, ‘Segurança da Posse ’, op. cit., p. 23. 30   Roberto Uaene, ‘Ilha Josina Machel: Excedentes Agrícolas Sem Comercialização,’ Tempo, 890 (11 January 1987), p. 20. 24

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efforts, and made regular visits, including with foreign dignitaries.31 One resident – the leader of a pilot project cooperative who may have not experienced the poverty that many other villagers had – stated that during this period of time no one went hungry and food always existed in abundance.32 In truth, Merle Bowen’s research showed that essential food requirements were met during this period of time, but not in excess; and illnesses directly related to malnutrition were common.33 While some peasants were often able to produce more than what was needed for their own consumption, selling their crops at a competitive price presented a challenge, and a lack of motivation to produce surplus became commonplace.34 Paradoxically, the investment and development of agriculture, which began as an opportunity for Ilha Josina Machel, later resulted in misfortune. The abundance of food from machambas, plantations and cooperatives, and arguably the fact that Ilha Josina Machel had enjoyed long-standing Frelimo support, were factors that attracted wartime aggression. In 1987, and in anticipation of future events, the government and the local community jointly erected a fence with land mines to protect the perimeter of some central areas of Ilha Josina Machel – a fence that would soon be partly electrified as a result of installation of a generator. As a small agrarian community, Ilha Josina Machel would not have, in normal circumstances, had the means to install a fence and generator; the government and small business owners who were motivated to protect their possessions and property facilitated these efforts.

War-Torn Ilha Josina Machel The height of the war arrived in Ilha Josina Machel in mid-1987 with the first major attack, in an isolated area of Ilha Josina Machel. While various attacks had occurred prior to this,35 the majority of informants referred to major attacks from 1987 onwards. Incursions continued in all areas, including within the most central areas. In one testimony among others, a community member who suffered directly from the first major attack in 1987 remembered: ‘when they [Renamo] entered, I lost my husband, and I lost my son on the same day. They were killed on the same day’.36 Areas surrounding Ilha Josina Machel also experienced intense violence. Of note is the notorious corridor between Manhiça and Gaza Province along the N1 highway, the only main transport route north. Along this, it was not always clear who was responsible for attacks.37   Ibid., p. 18.   Fernando Milalil Maguane, interview by author, Ilha Josina Machel, 14 April 2014. Note: this was a period of abundance prior to the arrival of the war. 33  Bowen, The State Against the Peasantry, op. cit., p. 102. 34   Uaene, ‘Ilha Josina’, op. cit., 22–3. 35  Bowen, The State Against the Peasantry, op. cit., p. 22 36   Salmina Ndove, interview by author, Ilha Josina Machel, 25 April 2014. 37   Tulio Rungo, interview by author, Maputo, 21 August 2016. 31

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From incursion and attacks at the start, it appeared Renamo had a broader ambition. In August 1991, Renamo notified the local government administrative post in an official letter that they intended to occupy Ilha Josina Machel. The government responded swiftly. Commanders and government troops with bazookas arrived to bolster the local militia for a period of thirty days.38 While attacks occurred often, and some with marked intensity, Renamo never fully occupied Ilha Josina Machel.39 Renamo’s attacks were often planned and of a military nature, but they were also predatory, and aimed at stealing goods the guerrilla could not access otherwise. Albino Bila, a successful shopkeeper, shared his narrative with me. His story is an illustrative example of one resident whose livelihood was adversely affected as a direct result of this predatory behaviour. At independence, he took over management of the general store where he worked as a clerk. With the income he earned, he was able to buy his own vehicle, which he used to transport residents of Ilha Josina Machel to Xinavane, a nearby town, to escape night-time dangers. During the first major attack on Bairro 3, Renamo looted his shop; they looted it again in a subsequent incursion. When Renamo carried out the third major assault in 1989 in Bairro 3, they burned his store completely. Further, with no large shops in operation anymore as a result of this attack, it became increasingly more difficult for locals to sell their crops.40 From the time of the first major Renamo attack in 1987 to the end of the war in 1992, the lives of all residents in Ilha Josina Machel were severely disrupted. Many migrated to safer locations such as nearby Xinavane, approximately 15 km from Ilha Josina Machel. Xinavane was a larger town with enough business to merit better protection. This protection included an electric fence, built in 1989 by the local sugar cane agro-industrial complex. During part of the war, trained defence forces were also present in Xinavane to support local militia. Indeed, militia manpower and resources alone were not always enough to protect the region.41 By 1989, the majority of the residents of Ilha Josina Machel commuted to Xinavane in the late afternoon to sleep safely in temporary make-shift housing, leaving their community behind with the resemblance of a ghost town.42 Those who were not able to commute to safer locations slept outside their homes in isolated areas of the bush, regardless of the weather, to avoid abductions, which were much more common at night than during the day.43 One resident confirmed this situation: ‘It [the civil war] was not a war of the

  David Alberto Dzimba, Chefe do Posto (1990–95), interview by author, Maputo, 16 April 2014.   Here it is not clear if Renamo actually intended to occupy Ilha Josina Machel, and was demonstrating fair fighting and sought to avoid civilian casualty, or if Renamo sent this letter as propaganda or distraction. 40   Albino José Bila, interview by author, Ilha Josina Machel, 14 April 2014; Bowen, The State Against the Peasantry, op. cit., pp. 90–1, 103, 193. 41   Tulio Rungo, interview by author, Maputo, 21 August 2016. 42  Bowen, The State Against the Peasantry, op. cit., p. 132. 43   Maria Chivambo, interview by author, Ilha Josina Machel, 8 October 2010. 38 39

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daytime, it was a war of the night-time.’44 In spite of these precautions, many residents were still captured, both during the day and at night.45 Militia were present in Ilha Josina Machel. In 1979, as if to pre-empt the arrival of war, a vigilante group in Ilha Josina Machel was formed, from which the local militia subsequently developed.46 Each bairro organized its own group of recruits, with one commander per group and two shifts of duty per day.47 Some groups had more resources than others, including firearms and ammunition and, while some men, women and youth – some as young as fifteen years48 – were volunteers, others were compulsorily recruited to train for six months, and then defend their village. The central militia command centre was based at the secondary school offices behind the government administrative post in Bairro 3. The local militia in Ilha Josina Machel was 130 strong, with some individuals formally trained at a military centre in Catembe.49 While men typically served in combat and defence roles, women often served the role of cooking for the militia, though some also received military training, and patrolled and defended against attacks, particularly when men were off site.50 I received at least one testimony from a woman who was compulsorily conscripted into the militia and received several months of training.51 Militia members were not paid, but the local population were compelled to show their support with regular gifts of food such as maize to make xima.52 This form of provision sought to prevent predatory behaviour of armed personnel, particularly when hunger was most salient. Business owners supported militia to ensure the protection of their families, goods and property.53 Because of Renamo’s attacks, militias were compelled to adapt their tactics. Militia groups were sometimes alerted on Renamo’s entrance to a community. However, the militia did not always have the capacity and firearms and/or ammunition to adequately defend their community. Hence, their primary role in these cases was to pick up the pieces – to follow in Renamo’s path, inform families of casualties, return children abandoned along the way,54 locate abductees who had collapsed from exhaustion, carry bodies back to their homes, and return stolen cattle and goods. Although having a loaded gun in   David Alberto Dzimba, Chefe do Posto (1990–95), interview by author, Maputo, 16 April 2014.   Interview with anonymous local resident, Ilha Josina Machel, 1 December 2010.   Ibid.; Bowen, The State Against the Peasantry, op. cit., p. 22. 47   Antonio Valente Chirinze, interview by author, Ilha Josina Machel, 28 April 2014. 48   Efraime & Errante, ‘Rebuilding Hope’, op. cit., 187–211; Antonio Tembane Machava, former militia commander of Bairro 3, interview by author, Ilha Josina Machel, 4 December 2010. 49  David Alberto Dzimba, Chefe do Posto (1990–95), interview by author, Maputo, 16 April 2014. 50   Antonio Tembane Machava, former militia commander of Bairro 3, interview by author, Ilha Josina Machel, 4 December 2010. 51   Elisa Cossa, interview by author, Ilha Josina Machel, 10 November 2010. 52   Ibid.; Xima is a maize/corn-based staple food, widely consumed throughout Africa. 53   For a more detailed assessment of local forces and their behaviour in the region, see William Finnegan, A Complicated War: The Harrowing of Mozambique (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), ch. 21. 54   Sandra Armando Mucasse, interview by author, Ilha Josina Machel, 9 December 2010. 44 45

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hand may have provided added protection during a rebel attack, the status of militia member also meant active targeting by Renamo. It is said that some militia wore bracelets or anklets as a form of spirit protection, which allegedly avoided weakness, and offered strength to their joints if they were wounded in a confrontation.55 Rebel forces were known for targeting local militia, government officials, educators and other leaders, as well as any individual associated directly or indirectly with the government, including militia, as mentioned above. Oral evidence shows that some individuals with ties to Frelimo, if apprehended, were killed immediately.56 This singling out of prominent community members instilled fear, and served as a constant reminder of the consequences of being associated with the government. The general population became both targets and collateral casualties; women, young children and the elderly were no exception. Due to the intensity of these major attacks, the government installed a fence for protection around several main villages in 1987.57 This allowed the militia58 and some villagers to sleep inside a protected area at night. However, it also left other Bairros (5, 6 and 7) without equal protection, and more prone to frequent attacks and abductions.59 Further, many residents from these outlying regions who were able to escape returned home only to be abducted again, sometimes repeatedly.60 When Renamo entered the region, they did so from several directions, making their attacks highly unpredictable, and the scope of their assault wider and more lethal.61 As villagers fled, local militia fought back when able.62 When supplies were depleted, militia were powerless. When caught, some were killed alongside their families. One community member recalled: They treated me badly. One day they beat me. They treated me badly here [points to a large scar on his head] … They took my wife and they took my cattle. When they hit me on my head, I fainted. They slit the throat [of my friend]. He had a gun but it didn’t work, so they killed him.63

Residents knew the sign of attacks – often a single shot by the militia, meant to warn the population.64 As mentioned above, militia were not always adequately equipped to carry out their role. Antonio, a former militia commander in one of the most remote villages of Ilha Josina Machel stated:   Tulio Rungo, interview by author, Maputo, 21 August 2016.   José Feliciano Kókandze, author in joint interview, Mandlakazi district, 23 November 2010.  David Alberto Dzimba, Chefe do Posto (1990–95), interview by author, Maputo, 16 April 2014. 58   Tulio Rungo, interview by author, Maputo, 21 August 2016. 59   David Alberto Dzimba, Chefe do Posto (1990–95), interview by author, Maputo, 16 April 2014. 60   Lina Sumbane Mbir and Felicidade Ruben Mimbir, interview by author, Ilha Josina Machel, 9 December 2010. 61   Fernando Milalil Maguane, interview by author, Ilha Josina Machel, 14 April 2014. 62   Antonio Valente Chirinze, interview by author, Ilha Josina Machel, 28 April 2014. 63   Luis A. Timane, interview by author, Ilha Josina Machel, 9 April 2014. 64   Antonio Valente Chirinze, interview by author, Ilha Josina Machel, 28 April 2014. 55

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[The government] didn’t always manage to give us enough ammunition. A lot of times we didn’t have proper materials … So I would take a big pig, and I would go and sell it in Palmeira [a nearby town] … I was well known and I had friends, so they would give me weapons and ammunition [in exchange for goods or money] to be able to defend the population.65

The militia’s access to firearms and ammunition for survival were dependent on the location of the village, social capital, incentive and creativity of militia commanders, and the proactive attitude of the government officials in the region.

Dynamics of the War Empirical evidence collected from informants sympathetic to Frelimo in Ilha Josina Machel indicates that little collaboration took place between villagers and Renamo. If collaboration occurred, informants did not openly admit it, of themselves, or of others. Renamo thus acted without open popular support, and became known for predatory behaviour. Villagers knew Renamo targeted rural development projects such as Ilha Josina Machel for destruction.66 Both warring parties adhered to their respective recruitment strategies,67 and both Frelimo and Renamo used children during the war.68 Renamo’s recruitment was more aggressive than that of Frelimo. Bowen argues that in some rural areas such as Ilha Josina Machel, overall satisfaction with Frelimo’s policies existed, and in these areas Renamo was unable to use agricultural policy as an issue around which to mobilize support.69 My research supports this claim, and it is evident that this general sentiment meant that recruitment to Frelimo forces and militia was a near certainty, while voluntary recruitment to Renamo was not. According to Cahen, Renamo was 12,000 strong in 1985,70 and grew to 20,000 by the early 1990s, Alex Vines maintained;71 but because they still did not have sufficient recruits, children were abducted to join their ranks. Recruitment of children shows the exhaustion of society to support a war; male adults were either already in Frelimo forces, in safe havens, or dead. By the end of the conflict, 7.94 per cent of government soldiers were under the age of 16 years, and 26.78 per cent of Renamo soldiers.72 Abducting youth   Ibid.  Bowen, The State Against the Peasantry, op. cit., pp. 99–100. 67  Steudtner, The Social Integration of Child Soldiers, op. cit., 11. 68   Efraime & Errante, ‘Rebuilding Hope’, op. cit. 3; João M. Cabrita, Mozambique: The Tortuous Road to Democracy (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2000), p. 257. 69  Bowen, The State Against the Peasantry, op. cit., p. 13. 70   See Cahen’s Chapter 4 in this book. 71   Benedito, former Renamo commander, author in joint interview, Maputo, 25 July 2014; Alex Vines writes that Renamo had 20,000 Mozambican combatants in its ranks near the time of the book’s publication. See Alex Vines, RENAMO: Terrorism in Mozambique (London: James Currey, 1991), p. 1. 72   See Cahen’s Chapter 4 in this book; Ton Pardoel, Socio-Economic Profile of Demobilized Soldiers in Mozambique, Maputo, UNDP, 1994, quoted by Jeremy M. Weinstein, Inside Rebellion: The Politics 65

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was also a tactic to demoralize and limit resistance from the population.73 Indeed, the rebel movement had very little in terms of historical currency or incentives to offer villagers in Ilha Josina Machel. A Renamo general explained: ‘We didn’t have money, we didn’t have jewels, we didn’t have a good life to give these people.’74 Alcinda Honwana, who performed several weeks of on-site research in Ilha Josina Machel found that wartime dynamics varied with the use of children: Recruits were forced to attack and loot their own towns and villages precisely to impress on them the impossibility of going back. More symbolic means of transforming the identity of the boy soldier were also deployed. Children were sometimes given new names and forbidden to use their birth name, traditional names, or nicknames that related to their past experiences at home with family, relatives and friends.75

Some believed Renamo fighters possessed supernatural qualities. Some were known to be bulletproof, and Ndau-speaking fighters76 particularly, were said to have powerful magic and spirits. A female curandeira77 named Nwamadjosi, sympathetic to Renamo, lived in the town of Manhiça, approximately 30 km from Ilha Josina Machel. The widow of a former régulo, she reportedly granted local guerrillas power through magic, and assisted in the recruitment of soldiers.78 Despite the frequent disruption and complexities associated with wartime violence, daily life continued in Ilha Josina Machel. Marriages took place, families built homes, women gave birth, the local court continued to operate, and residents cultivated their land to feed themselves and their families. Some schools still held lessons, but few students attended because travel on certain roads was perilous.

Renamo Bases & War Tactics Each Renamo base maintained changing dynamics, a unique structure and daily norms, which varied based on location, function and leadership. Likeof Insurgent Violence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 2007, p. 114–5; based on this data, Michel Cahen estimated the numbers of soldiers under 16 years in 1984. In Mozambique, Decree no. 3/1986 prohibited recruitment of children under the age of 16 years. 73  Steudtner, The Social Integration of Child Soldiers, op. cit. p. 11. 74   Benedito, former Renamo commander, author in joint interview, Maputo, 25 July 2014. 75  Honwana, Child Soldiers in Africa, op. cit., p. 61. 76   Ndau is an ethnic group and language originating from central Mozambique. 77   Curandeiro means traditional healer. 78  Finnegan, A Complicated War, op. cit., pp. 228–9; available documentation does not make it clear how Nwamadjosi was able to remain pro-Renamo in a central location such as Manhiça; for further research on the role of spirits and superstition during the war, see Alcinda Honwana, Espíritos Vivos, Tradições modernas: possessão de espíritos e reintegração social pos guerra no sul de Moçambique (Maputo: Promedia, 2002); also see Chapters 1, 2 and 3 by Chichava, do Rosário and Jentzsch in this book. (contd)

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wise, the level of Renamo’s violence depended on the general dynamics of the base and its leadership.79 Informants from Ilha Josina Machel with whom I spoke were taken to several bases, namely: Xinhanguanine, Gomorah, Mirone, Calanga, Majoze, Chichocosa and Ngungwe. Xinhanguanine and Nhanale, known as the central bases of Maputo Province and Gaza Province respectively, were set in fixed locations for extended periods of time.80 Xinhanguanine maintained infrastructure including a church and medical facilities with a maternity ward, as well as a steady stock of medicine, taken from nearby villages. Curandeiros, bishops and nurses from surrounding communities worked at this base. One informant, who was taken to Nhanale base, was given on-site training in nursing: ‘I worked in the medical section. Because there, it was the war itself, every day we would hear gunfire. Serious accidents would happen … [and] we treated wounded people.’81 At Xinhanguanine, the sleeping quarters were gender divided, which, according to informants, was consistent with many Renamo bases. Men on base would call women and girls to their areas of the base at night: ‘They [girls] do not make a home. The man calls a girl, with a weapon [in his hand], to ‘unite’ with the obligatory husband that she was given.’82 Relationships and rape during the war varied from forced relationships (with one stable partner, or various partners), to forced sex. The commander of Xinhanguanine, commonly referred to by the nickname ‘Baioneta’, had access to as many girls as he wished, calling them one by one as he pleased.83 Villagers believed that he was given his name due to his practice of chopping off people’s heads with one blow of a machete.84 Chichocosa, a base in Inhambane province, was a larger, more structured base that maintained a consistent source of food from a machamba located just outside its perimeter.85 The commander lived in a structure at the middle of the base surrounded by 410 huts where approximately 500 residents lived.86 Ngungwe was another of the larger bases in the region, located in Magude District; it had a reputation for high levels of violence and its name became synonymous with brutality.87 The location and organization of small bases (Gomorah, Mirone and Calanga in Manhiça district) were contingent on Frelimo activity, and on regional dynamics of the conflict at the time. These bases had very basic living conditions, and underwent frequent relocations, so those of lower rank, including women and girls who stayed on these bases, were given very limited means   Felicidade Mimbir, interview by author, Ilha Josina Machel, 27 April 2014.   Josefina Euzebio Moiane, interview by author, Mandlakazi district, 22 November 2010. 81   Ibid. 82   Anisia, interview by author, Ilha Josina Machel, 8 December 2010. 83   Cacilda Vicente Mazive, interview by author, Ilha Josina Machel, 8 December 2010. 84   Fernando Milalil Maguane, interview by author, Ilha Josina Machel, 14 April 2014. 85   Sonia João Cossa, interview by author, Mandlakazi district, 14 December 2010. 86   Alex Vines, RENAMO: Terrorism, op. cit., p. 86. This description is based on the structure of the base in 1985; it is possible that it changed both in size and composition prior to and following that specific year. 87   Fernando Milalil Maguane, interview by author, Ilha Josina Machel, 14 April 2014. 79

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to survive. Cacilda Vicente Mazive recalled: ‘When I was sick, I only asked someone to give me water and something to eat. That’s all’.88 These smaller, mobile Renamo bases could be fully assembled within a few days. Nicholas della Casa, a British reporter who was abducted by Renamo and lived in captivity for a period of eighteen months in central Mozambique, experienced this when the base where he was held relocated. A house was put together first for him (an abductee with international status), then for the commanders of the base and for women of the Destacamento Feminino (female battalion), and lastly for rank-and-file soldiers.89 Several informants stated that Frelimo repeatedly attacked and bombed the bases where they were held. Both Renamo members and abductees suffered and were killed on such occasions. Anisia remembered that these incursions were one of the most difficult parts of the war: What I saw there [at the base] were the planes. Frelimo planes came, those planes … killed, because they didn’t choose the population, and they didn’t choose soldiers. Any person who was found at the base, when they were taken to the base, they killed them.90

Rosa Wendzana was abducted twice during the war, once when she was thirteen years old, and again, when she was pregnant with her first child: When we went [to the base] the second time … We encountered Frelimo armed forces, they started to fight and attack … Then we were saved because we went into the water [of a river], and whoever was able to swim swam across to go back [towards home]. Whoever was not able, unfortunately … died in the water. Those who saved themselves went back and those who didn’t carried on with the Renamo soldiers. Then when I returned home here, I didn’t have anything. They [Renamo] had carried away all my clothes and everything, everything.91

Many informants were either brave enough to attempt an escape, or fortunate enough to have an opportunity to flee. The feasibility of making an escape depended on the abductee’s age and familiarity with the surrounding areas. Those who were young were less likely to escape, or attempt escape, particularly if alone. Regardless of age, the majority of informants stated that they decided to escape in the company of others. Three, however, recalled that they had managed to escape on their own. New abductees, once brought to the base, were typically held in a designated area for several days or weeks until they were conditioned to their new life, and were given a specific role. Data from interviews reveals that girls and women were not kept under as close supervision as newly abducted boys and men.92   Cacilda Vicente Mazive, interview by author, Ilha Josina Machel, 8 December 2010.   Alex Vines, RENAMO: Terrorism, op. cit., p. 86. 90   Anisia, interview by author, Ilha Josina Machel, 8 December 2010. 91   Rosa Wendzana, interview by author, Ilha Josina Machel, 7 December 2010. 92   Alex Vines writes about the way in which young men were psychologically broken before starting Renamo military training. In some instances, they were buried in holes up to their necks 88 89

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It appears that this was due to the perceived naivety of female abductees; they were not viewed as a threat, they were unlikely to incite violence, and they were not informed or independent enough to escape. Renamo’s impact on Ilha Josina Machel during the war was irregular.93 In contrast to some areas in the northern and central regions of Mozambique where expansive areas and large populations remained under Renamo control (referred to as liberated zones), in Maputo Province, generally speaking, Renamo was predominantly a military operation which generated varying levels of violence – in particular in Ilha Josina Machel where defence was relatively organized and strong. Further, not all attacks were what they appeared. From 1985, the Armed Forces of Mozambique (FAM) deployed counterinsurgency groups who, Renamo has claimed, committed massacres in their opponent’s name to sully their reputation.94 While I do not have evidence of such attacks in Ilha Josina Machel, FAM abuses in Mozambique were witnessed, and have been documented, with child soldiers, attacks on food relief convoys, and with killing, rape and other violent acts.95 João M. Cabrita refers to government and rebel collaboration during the war, and alludes to the fact that in wartime, situations are not always easy to define: Vareia Manja, who was at the head of Renamo’s provincial base in Maputo from 1986 until the end of the war, says he often was warned in advance by FAM elements of air force or artillery attacks on his Ngungue base. Ngungue could be reached by air from the Maputo Air Force Base in a matter of minutes, and it was on several occasions evacuated prior to air or major ground strikes. And even during air attacks, Vareia points out, it was obvious that the visible targets were deliberately missed. ‘The pilots simply did not wish to bomb their brothers’, he claimed. Or feared being hit by Renamo’s anti-aircraft weapons, one could argue.96

An informant summed up the varying dynamics of the war in Ilha Josina Machel with the following statement: ‘War is war. When they say that it was those [Renamo] who killed … it was also the others [Frelimo] who injured with weapons: they killed people. War is war.’97 or put into cages until they were obedient enough to give staunch allegiance to their captors (Vines, RENAMO: Terrorism, op. cit., p. 95). Similar imprisonment of girls and women was not apparent during my fieldwork in southern Mozambique. 93   To give a few examples of the dynamics of Renamo-occupied villages, see Carolyn Nordstrom, Girls and Warzones: Troubling Questions (Uppsala, Sweden: Life and Peace Institute, 2004), and Carolyn Nordstrom, A Different Kind of War Story (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997). 94   Benedito, former Renamo commander, author in joint interview, Maputo, 25 July 2014; Raul Domingos, author in joint interview, Maputo, 29 July 2014. 95  Benedito, former Renamo commander, author in joint interview, Maputo, 25 July 2014; Joana, author in joint interview, Mandlakazi district, 22 November 2010; Efraime & Errante, ‘Rebuilding Hope’, op. cit., 4; Cabrita, Mozambique: The Tortuous Road, op. cit. 260; Efraime, ‘Trauma e Migração’, op. cit., 113. 96  Cabrita, Mozambique: The Tortuous Road, op. cit., p. 260. 97   Joana, author in joint interview, Mandlakazi district, 22 November 2010. (contd)

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The Banality of Memory Memories of the conflict remain alive in Ilha Josina Machel until today. When asked, every resident who was present during the war maintains some memories of the occurrences of war. Some make reference to very tangible aspects, such as trees that mark the locations of where loved ones were killed, where abductions took place, and where specific attacks occurred; others recall other stories of tragedy and survival in vivid detail. Florinha recalled her abduction in 1990: ‘I suffered greatly during the war. I was abducted by Renamo in 1990 [at the age of eight years] … with my mother and was taken to the base. There at the base, my mother fled and I stayed.’98 When she arrived at the Renamo base, she began working for a woman who one day told her to go harvest crops. Not yet accustomed to the base norms and surrounding dynamics, she went out and picked crops from another machamba. She carried the vegetables she had collected back to base, but the owner of the machamba pursued her. The others with her ran away, anticipating the danger. She was accused of stealing, and as punishment, her ear and two fingers from her right hand were cut off.99 Besides memories, Florinha retains physical scars of the cruelty of war. Her narrative shows an intense violence that existed, the effects of which continued to follow her even after she had returned home, and when peace had returned to her community. Her testimony also evidences punishment for wrongdoing that existed in Renamo zones, although in Florinha’s case, she was very young, and reported being unaware of the existing norms. However, extreme experiences such as hers were not as commonly voiced among my informants. Many instead spoke of the overall dysfunctionality of daily routines during wartime – a lack of food and water, sleeping outside their homes at night, separation from family, the journey to Renamo bases, which often involved carrying very heavy objects, and the general undoing of social structures. For those who survived, the most painful aspects of the war may have been those that existed in the absence of the security, continuity and support that daily life in peacetime offers. Arguably, the daily realities of life during war are easier for the mind to sustain over time, and hence, were the most readily available in informants’ minds. Despite being an area of relative agricultural prosperity, provisions during the war were scarce, and the lack of food was most often remembered as some of the most difficult moments of the conflict. Hunger, of which rural peasants often suffer in Ilha Josina Machel even to this day, particularly during the tempo de fome,100 was exacerbated by the armed conflict, and famine was particularly salient as the years of war persisted. Hunger fomented desperation, and left

  Florinha, interview by author, Ilha Josina Machel, 5 October 2010.   Ibid. 100   Tempo de fome is translated as ‘the time of hunger’. This is a term that is frequently used in Ilha Josina Machel and refers to the time before the first rain and harvest time, a period where little food is available to subsistence farmers. 98

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those affected by it in a situation bereft of hope, and with an intense desire to fulfil the immediate and basic requirements for survival. Those with food, and those in control of food found power in this valuable resource. Abductees who went out to steal food ate well,101 but those who did not, particularly young girls, suffered from hunger.102 Maria Julio Cossa remembers that girls who did not go out to rob supplies were left with nothing to eat: ‘To be able to eat, we just had to go rob things from the population … Because we were children, we had to go to the machambas … to take cassava from the population to be able to eat.’103 Hunger also became a matter of life and death; many did not survive during the war as a direct result of malnutrition and starvation.104 Others showed their creativity and resourcefulness to survive, particularly during periods of famine (1983–84, 1988, and the early 1990s) by consuming wild fruit, insects and the roots of trees and shrubs. An individual in possession of food was either in a position of power, a collaborator with warring parties, or a target of violence. Armed individuals were attracted to sources of food, and had the power to take it at will. Food, or the lack of it, altered moods and decreased morale. Food was inconsistent and inadequate during the war. A lack of food was also used as punishment. To give just one example, Felicidade remembered a time when her wartime husband locked her inside a house: ‘There wasn’t any food. I went at least eight days without any food. Without salt, without sugar. Eight days without eating anything.’105 Soon after, she was released from solitary confinement, and survived, later caring for dislocated children in the aftermath of the war before she returned home to Ilha Josina Machel, where she continues to live today.106 Other informants also referred to the lack of salt.107 Salt became so scarce that in some regions, possession of salt was seen as a sign of collaboration with Renamo,108 or Frelimo (depending on the individual’s side), or indicated an ability to steal from the opposition. Christian Geffray also found that the lack of salt was referred to by informants who lived under the control of Renamo as one of the manifestations of the misery in which they lived during the war.109 The quality and quantity of food available to an individual often indicated the hierarchical order within a base. Those who ate the head, blood or skin of an animal were of lower rank. This had repercussions even after the war had ended. Maria Chivambo, a traditional healer who performed purification   Luis A. Timane, interview by author, Ilha Josina Machel, 9 April 2014.   Maria Julio Cossa, interview by author, Ilha Josina Machel, 14 September 2010. 103  Ibid. 104   Angelina Alberto Macomo, interview by author, Mandlakazi district, 14 December 2010. 105   Felicidade Mimbir, interview by author, Ilha Josina Machel, 27 April 2014. 106   The informant did not disclose why she was locked inside the house or who released her. 107   Felicidade Mimbir, interview by author, Ilha Josina Machel, 27 April 2014. 108  Nordstrom, A Different Kind of War Story, op. cit., p. 82. 109   Christian Geffray, A Causa das Armas: Antropologia da Guerra Contemporânea em Moçambique (Oporto: Edições Afrontamento, 1991), pp. 120–1. 101

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ceremonies for those returning from war in Ilha Josina Machel recalled the long-term effects of hunger during the war: During the war, there were some who returned from the base who had stomach problems because they ate food that sometimes the stomach could not handle … They ate meat without the skin removed from it. They ate the hide of cattle … When they returned, sometimes they came with inflamed bellies, sometimes they came back with pain, so I gave medicine to perform cleansing from all kinds of contamination.110

For women, who were by default of lower status than men, an alternative existed. Securing a place within the male hierarchy by entering into a relationship with someone of status improved access to food and the availability of the spoils of war.111 Although it was not necessarily voluntary, compliance with the demands of a high-ranking official could work in a woman’s favour. Not unexpectedly, in addition to food, water was in short supply. Several interviewees mentioned that they consumed the same water that cattle and goats drank, and the water in which people bathed.112 Ofelia Lazarus Tavele recalled that at one point she mixed urine with her drinking water to survive.113 After a lack of food and water, experiences that spanned extended amounts of time and occurred repeatedly were most frequently recalled. These included separation from family, sleeping in hiding places outside their homes, and being forced to travel carrying back-breaking loads. Abuse against women was also remembered as a painful aspect of the war: If we lived well or we didn’t, I cannot say because, it wasn’t a marriage in that a person married of her own free will. Women were abducted, so they arrived there at the base [and] every man came to choose saying, ‘I want you to live with me’. So everything that happened to you there, you had to tolerate with him. If it’s a good life, if it’s a bad life … You can’t say yes or no.114

Anisia also spoke about wartime abuse. She was required to have a husband during the war, and she was the only woman her husband had.115 Many others, however, became one of several wives. Other informants spoke about wartime abuse of women with indirect references: ‘The bad thing [about girls being abducted during the war], child or not, she had to have a “husband”’.116 When I asked if it was compulsory to be with a man, the answer was always affirmative: ‘It was obligatory, of course.   Maria Chivambo, interview by author, Ilha Josina Machel, 8 October 2010.   Deroteia Jaime Sondo, interview by author, Mandlakazi district, 14 December 2010. 112   Angelina Alberto Macomo, interview by author, Mandlakazi district, 14 December 2010. 113   Ofelia Lazarus Tavele, focus group by author, Mandlakazi district, 15 December 2010. 114   Florinha, interview by author, Ilha Josina Machel, 5 October 2010; Narciso Castanheira, Ex-criança Soldado: Não Queremos Voltar Para o Inferno (Maputo: Reconstruindo a Esperança, 1999), p. 24. 115   Anisia, interview by author, Ilha Josina Machel, 8 December 2010. 116   Lina Sumbane Mbir and Felicidade Ruben Mimbir, interview by author, Ilha Josina Machel, 8 December 2010. 110

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They [women and girls] had to accept because if they did not accept, they were killed.’117 Memory of historical events was not only limited by a restricted amount of credible and nuanced research on the civil war, but also by the depths of individual and collective memories of war survivors, and the amount of time that has passed since the war ended. The summoning of memories of war, voiced through the narratives of informants, shows how disrupted their lives had become. The loss, pain and resourcefulness of individuals who endured every-day wartime realities are evidenced through these accounts. Das and Kleinman note: ‘One of the most difficult tasks before survivors is to remember not only the objective events but also one’s own place within those events’.118 Indeed, many informants with whom I spoke referred to violent events with a disassociated voice and contradictory body language. The specific details of some information were a particular challenge, including fissures in narrative and a lack of nuance. These limitations were mitigated accordingly; cross checking data across several sources sought to ensure a high quality of data. Further, I found that women were less likely than men to remember specific dates (due in part to a lack of formal education), whereas many of the men with whom I spoke recalled precise dates, numbers of causalities, and even the time of day when significant events occurred. Thus, wherever possible, specific dates were verified with several informants, both men and women, in order to corroborate their accuracy. Speaking about certain dates in reference to the war, one of my key informants, Felicidade Ruben Mimbir, summarized the war in the following words: ‘There is no time anymore to remember the day, because it was just to run from one place to the next’.119 The majority of informants with whom I spoke showed the ability to heal.120 Many I asked mentioned the ability to forgive, and stated that they already forgave many years ago. Those who were not able to forgive had suffered from severe tragedy such as the death of several close family members on the same day. Empirical evidence also shows that those who underwent traditional ceremonies to cleanse the body of the evil spirits of war were able to recover more quickly and more sustainably.

Conclusion The narratives introduced in this chapter – the bold hindsight of the village elder, the determination of local militia forces, the wartime pain of an abducted   Julieta, interview by author, Ilha Josina Machel, 9 December 2010.   Veena Das & Arthur Kleinman, ‘Introduction’, Remaking a World: Violence, Social Suffering and Recovery, eds Das Veena, Arthur Kleinman, Margaret Lock, Mamphela Ramphele & Pamela Reynolds (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2001), p. 14. 119   Felicidade Ruben Mimbir speaking during personal interview with Rosa Wendzana, interview by author, Ilha Josina Machel, 7 December 2010. 120   For further research on healing resources, memory and trauma in Ilha Josina Machel see Steudtner, The Social Integration of Child Soldiers, op. cit.; Efraime & Errante, ‘Rebuilding Hope’, op. cit.; Efraime, ‘Trauma e Migração’, op. cit.; Honwana, Child Soldiers in Africa, op. cit. 117

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woman, and the bare truth of a bystander – show the memory, albeit fractured, of local community members, and the dynamics of a war-torn rural village in southern Mozambique. Ilha Josina Machel showed unique dynamics and nuanced realities during the war. Proximity to various important Renamo bases and strategic transport routes, its location in an agriculturally rich region, a prolonged political history with support and in support of Frelimo, and the traditional abundance of food, supplies and potential manpower were all factors that caused the villagers to suffer from profound wartime disorder. Brutal acts of terror escalated over the years, and abductions of adults and children became a commonplace occurrence. The height of the war arrived late to Ilha Josina Machel, and it was relatively brief (1987–92). A fence, part of which was electrified and powered by a generator, protected central areas of Ilha Josina Machel during the war, and all bairros had some form of militia protection. At the same time, however, wartime occurrences mirrored those of many throughout the country, particularly in the areas at the outskirts of the community that were not protected by the fence. Varying levels of violence, terror, abduction and methods of survival became characteristic of the conflict in Ilha Josina Machel, as well as throughout the entire country. The narratives presented in this chapter remain as relevant to the present as to the past. They confirm the historical complexities of the country, and the confluence of healing and forgiveness that persists today. The accomplishments that have been achieved in times of peace point to strength and lasting resilience. All this makes Mozambicans – most notably those who experienced the war first hand, and most severely – adamant in their aversion to return to war.

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Part III INSIDE OUT: NEW PERSPECTIVES & THE WORLD-SYSTEM

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Mozambique in the 1980s Periphery goes postmodern

Georgi M. Derluguian

The proclaimed goal of my colleagues in this volume is to provide a finer-grain picture of the 1977–1992 civil war in Mozambique. Operating mostly at the level of provinces and localities, their chapters go quite far towards this goal. Moreover, their chapters shift the focus of analysis from the Renamo insurgents and their regional sponsors in Rhodesia and the apartheid South Africa to the internecine war itself in its many facets. Shifting analysis to the domestic and localist perspectives arguably has its valid intellectual and political rationale. Yet such analytical shift is fraught with new limitations in terms of space and time. Let me try to push our research agenda still further in a dialectical movement. While the Mozambique tragedy in the 1980s had surely acquired local dynamics, it was also a specific instance in the worldwide collapse of communism and, more generally, the extinction of ‘Old Left’ parties. This chapter therefore assumes a different perspective tending towards the macrohistorical level. Unlike the rest of the authors, I must admit that my knowledge of this war remains limited to an isolated series of personal observations from the mid-1980s. Yet, in the words of Russian revolutionary poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, the ‘land you hungered with | you can never … forget’.1 Back in 1984 in the province of Tete where I worked as an interpreter with a team of Soviet geologists, I ‘hungered’ and I also had to carry a gun and a couple hand grenades: in self-defence and, in the last instance, to avoid falling into enemy hands alive. Almost daily somewhere on the roads and in the villages of Tete province, the Matsanga (popular expression for the Renamo rebels) perpetrated spectacularly cruel acts as grim proof of their intent. Luckily for me, Mozambique did not have the jihadist and tribal traditions of Afghanistan where several of my classmates died during the Soviet intervention in the 1980s. In direct confrontation, the Matsanga, as well as many government soldiers proved poor shots, usually fleeing after the first bursts of fire. The majority of ordinary fighters on both sides were the illiterate young conscripts from villages pressed into the fighting with very little training or motivation. Once in the hot, desolate streets of the city of Tete I was stopped by the Cuban advisor to the local security service who had merrily demanded:   Vladimir Mayakovsky, Good! An October Poem, 1927, www.marxists.org/subject/art/literature/ mayakovsky/1927/good.htm.

1

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Hey, malandro [trickster], last week did you go without authorization outside the defended perimeter? Come on, I have two prisoners who describe precisely you. For the whole day the Matsanga reconnaissance squad had been following you and your Soviet comrades there.

I was forced to admit that together with two Soviet geologists and our Mozambican driver (himself a rather competent former soldier in the Portuguese colonial army) we drove to a village on the left bank of the Zambezi river to barter a cow for several pairs of shoes, blankets, a can of gasoline, and a bottle of vodka on top of that, because very few farmers had preserved any food stocks and surely nobody was willing to accept the worthless paper currency, the Mozambican Metical. But why did the Matsangas, who had evidently outnumbered us three to one, in the end of the day let us safely return to the city with the load of fresh meat? With a sly grin, the Cuban officer gave an explanation perhaps tinged with racism: ‘They just say there were Magweru com muita arma’ (whites with lots of weapons). True enough, sticking outside our car window was an antique Degtyarev machinegun with the production date ‘1942’ struck on its barrel, the Stalingrad vintage weapon. This near-death episode made me think and notice the mundane social skills and behaviours around me, although at the time I was yet to discover Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological terms such as ‘reflexivity’ and ‘habitus’.2 Growing up in the Soviet Union, we all, boys and girls, played war games. The heroic films about the Great Patriotic War were all around us. At school starting in the 7th grade we competed with merry fervour in disassembling the Kalashnikov rifles in less than the normative 14 seconds while blindfolded. In the prescient observation of the great historian Moshe Lewin, himself a veteran of the Red Army and later the Israeli commandos, the Soviet culture was thoroughly ‘militarized though never militaristic’.3 By contrast, I have never seen Mozambican children play war games. Instead, they sang and danced in circles, hunted small birds with glue spread on tree branches, or played with the improvised toy cars made from bent wires. But, frankly, how much in this war could explain such micro-observations in the anthropological tradition of Margaret Mead (about which I would learn only much later) except, perhaps, the pleasant fact of my own survival? Like many peasants around the world, Mozambican soldiers lacked the internalized skills to operate the heavier war machinery such as the tanks and howitzers as a team; they awkwardly carried their guns as if they were traditional peasant hoes. All sides – government, rebels, non-combatants – feared and believed in traditional magic. The locals rumoured that Mozambique’s President Samora Machel had only once visited Tete during the war, and then very briefly, because he was too afraid of Tete’s powerful witch-doctors. Waganga, feitiçeiros, and adivinheiros (traditional spirit mediums and fortune

2   Pierre Bourdieu & Loïc J. D. Wacquant, An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992). 3   Moshe Lewin, The Soviet Century (London: Verso, 2005).

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tellers) seemed a common presence in the Renamo units. Long before the collective mobilization of magical practices among the Naparama vigilantes as described in Chapter 3 by Corinna Jentzsch, a veritable black market of bullet-proofing magic potions had existed in Tete. By way of gathering ethnographic data, I underwent the whole process myself, short of the traditional facial scarification. (One handsomely rewarded mganga, after consulting in the native Nyungwe tongue with my friend, mercifully agreed that the white skin would be better served with the periodical applications of magic ointment rather than the permanent scars inflicted by razor blade and blackened with the ash from ritual bonfire.) Mozambique’s civil war of the 1980s at the micro-level arguably had many characteristics of preindustrial warfare. But, again, how much does this say about the causes of this war? A major motivation behind its particular brutality against civilians seemed to be the elemental chronic hunger. Both sides plundered and raped. The rebel detachments spread out in smaller bands across the countryside evidently because otherwise they rapidly exhausted the food stocks of local villagers. But Renamo was scarcely the only culprit. Once in the morning I happened to pass through the village very near Tete that on the previous night had been pillaged by a group of armed marauders who also raped young women at gunpoint. To this troubling news the same Cuban security advisor only stared at the toes of his boots and replied curtly: ‘According to my information, these were our troops’. After my return to Moscow in 1989, these personal observations grew into my first doctoral dissertation. In an odd kind of distinction, the text provoked criticism from the top positions in the Central Committee apparat of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), the mother of all political estruturas.4 The senior comrades found my dissertation ‘grossly if not maliciously exaggerating the obstacles to socialist orientation in the conditions of newly liberated countries’. Admittedly, at the time I had failed to fully appreciate the political and career stakes in this seemingly abstruse doctrinal matter. But, once again, I escaped unscathed without knowing it because by spring 1989 Gorbachev’s perestroika reformation was already in full swing. It was no longer clear what constituted ‘revisionism’ or even what could become of the Soviet foreign policy the next day. Truly, 1989 was anno mirabilis. Overnight, I became a celebrity graduate student at the USSR Academy of Sciences where being blacklisted by the highest organ of the Soviet party-state was considered almost an honour, a dissident rite of passage. Though my dissertation was never published in its Russian original, representative excerpts would later appear in other languages.5 But then, as Pierre Bourdieu warns us, the genre 4   In Mozambican political discourse, Estruturas (‘structures’ in English) is used to designate government or party officials. 5   G. Derluguian, ‘Les têtes du monstre: du climat social de la violence armée au Mozambique’, Année Africaine 1989 (Bordeaux: CEAN – Paris: Pedone, 1990), 89–127; G. Derluguian, ‘The Social Origins of Good and Bad Governance: Re-interpreting the 1968 Schism in Frelimo’, in Sure Road? Nationalisms in Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique, ed. Eric Morier-Genoud (Leiden: Brill, 2012), pp. 79–102.

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of autobiography must be prohibited to sociologists.6 Let me therefore turn to the macro level of analysis. In Mozambique I saw my first war but far from the last. Soon the Soviet Union itself faced a series of rebellions and ethnic conflicts along its southern perimeter, from Moldavia to the Caucasus and Central Asia.7 In certain respects these conflicts bore striking resemblance to what I had first witnessed in Mozambique. The post-Soviet insurgents oftentimes appeared politically and organizationally fragmented, ideologically lacking and militarily weak. At the same time they could be exceedingly brutal in their tactics, soon summarily branded as ‘ethnic cleansing’. On the other side, virtually all holders of central political and military positions vehemently denied that they were engaged in civil wars or facing any opposition internally. The Ukrainian politicians in Kiev today dismiss the insurgency in the eastern Donbass region as pro-Russian ‘terrorists’, while Moscow claims that all Islamist violence in Russia and elsewhere has its sources solely in foreign sponsorship. The propagandistic and self-serving nature of all such claims seems quite evident. War has always been an exercise in brutality and organized crime. Yet at least in the early modern West, and still during the twentieth century in many non-Western regions, the escalating costs of warfare led to increasingly effective taxation, mass mobilization, and therefore to the emergence of stronger states.8 The same logic of warfare and mass mobilization applied also to the ‘classical’ civil wars, from Vendée in the French revolution to Russia and China.9 These civil wars were part of the revolutionary sequence culminating in the creation of stronger states and the emergence of ‘revolutionary emperors’, from Napoleon to Stalin, Mao, and many lesser dictatorships of modernity. We can debate whether the list extends all the way to include Samora Machel; I believe that it does. Yet, starting with the collapse of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, the wars assumed an overtly state-destroying dynamic that soon engulfed much of Africa and the Middle East. Instead of new emperors and the great state builders all over the world, we see rather the spread of venal warlords in broken states.10 From the vantage point of the early twenty-first century, the Mozambique civil war of the 1980s appears an episode in the global transition to postmodernity. This fashionable term could be defined without excessive philosophizing as the period when capitalism was reaching its saturation points across the globe and the Enlightenment projects of progressive transformation were rapidly losing their political appeal and emotional energy. Postmodernity is   Pierre Bourdieu, Esquisse pour une auto-analyse (Paris: Raisons d’Agir Éditions, 2004).  An analytical summary of ethnic wars accompanying the collapse of Soviet Union was presented in the monograph Georgi Derluguian, Bourdieu’s Secret Admirer in the Caucasus: A World-Systems Biography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005). 8   The classic theoretical statement is found in Charles Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and the European States, A.D. 990–1990 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992). 9   Theda Skocˇpol, States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979). 10   Kimberly Marten, Warlords: Strong-arm Brokers in Weak States (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012). 6 7

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therefore the current historical period that arrived, quite literally, after modernity. Modernity marked the peak period, a historical triumph in the worldwide expansion of capitalism along with its key institutions: markets and states, nations and social classes.11 Postmodernity then marks the arrival of the phase of decadence in the historical trajectory of the capitalist world-system. Philosophical commentators are generally right in pointing to the unstable characteristics of this newest epoch such as the fluidity of boundaries, multiplication of identities, the sense of risk and uncertainty, etc. But are these not the indicators that the modern institutions of capitalism are losing their coherence? Ironically (is postmodernity not infused with ironies?) a central process in the decline of capitalism is the sudden wholesale extinction of organized alternatives from the Left, the various progressive parties and movements whose programmatic goals were equality, enlightenment and development. The anti-capitalist Left in the past was widely accused of acting as an unwitting saviour and vigorous promoter of capitalism, especially in its most ‘modern’, complex forms embodied in the state and corporate bureaucracies. Such criticisms seem to have even more merit in retrospect. It remains to be seen whether capitalism could last without the social democratic, communist and national liberation movements, which had once so effectively organized and channelled the socio-economic consequences of capitalism. Both Frelimo and its ‘shadow’ of Renamo should be located somewhere in this big historical picture. Revolutions were commonly hailed as the harbingers of new historical epochs. But perhaps revolutions no less marked culminations in the past epochs, the cresting of historical waves in the development of capitalism. Each time, the successful revolutionary vanguards sought to take up the achievements of the ancien régime and vigorously advance them beyond the political and ideological limitations of old. The American ‘Founding Fathers’ in the 1770s and the French revolutionaries after 1789 in fact extended their transformative vision directly from the ambitious state-building projects of the enlightened absolutist monarchies in early modern Europe. The White émigrés in Paris in the early 1930s rightly called Stalin ‘Count Witte today’. Sergei Witte, the ambitious Finance Minister of the last two Tsars at the turn of the twentieth century, in his lifetime had promoted industrialization, technical education and the railroad construction across Siberia, ultimately aiming to prepare the Russian empire for the fateful geopolitical confrontations with Germany and Japan, the new imperialist predators emerging on the western and eastern flanks of Russia after the 1870s.12 Witte’s efforts stumbled in the political and social obstacles of tsarist autocracy, which would be eliminated only in the sweeping revolution of 1917. The twentieth century revolutionaries capitalized on the enormous advances in industrial production, mass mechanical warfare and global colonialism that had propelled the Western imperialism of the nineteenth century. If the Maxim machine gun had once served 11   Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World-System IV: Centrist Liberalism Triumphant, 1789– 1914 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011). 12   Stephen Kotkin, Stalin, vol. I. The Paradoxes of Power (New York: Penguin, 2014).

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the highest symbol of modern colonialism, the automatic rifle invented by the son of Russian peasants Mikhail Kalashnikov became the symbol of decolonization featured on the flag of independent Mozambique.13 The incredibly rapid reversal of global fortunes during the ‘short twentieth century’ was, of course, the result of August 1914 when imperialist Europe had in effect committed collective suicide.14 A platoon of European soldiers with Maxim guns could conquer whole new colonies. But the Western strategists and statesmen, dizzy with success, had failed to appreciate the effect of sending millions of soldiers with Maxim guns against each other.15 If one needs an empirically grounded argument to doubt the prospects of capitalism, then here it is: this historical system is on record as having badly mishandled its own unprecedented technical capacities. In 1917, three years into the apocalyptic World War of Western civilization, not one but three great revolutionary projects promised to radically transform the world from the Left.16 The first was communism pioneered by Lenin on the ruins of the Russian empire. The second was the anti-colonial nationalism simultaneously emerging from China and India, with Sun Yat-sen and Mahatma Gandhi as its prophets, soon to be joined by Turkey, Mexico and many others. The third was liberal democracy and democratic peace among the nations annunciated by Woodrow Wilson, president of the United States. After 1945 this would become the creed of European unification. Fascism emerged as the fourth grand project overtly calling to order humanity along racial lines. Fascism marked a revanchist escalation and militarization in nineteenth-century European racism, which captured mainly the ruined imperialist powers in the interwar period. However, fascist regimes in the major states were removed through military surgery performed by the allied forces of communism, liberal democracy and national liberation in a remarkable, if only temporary, show of unity and historical optimism. The rising and falling fortunes of Frelimo, from its founding five decades ago to the present, cannot be explained outside this world-historical context. In the 1960s the exiled Mozambican revolutionaries found themselves in a uniquely advantageous position. Their enemy was the Portuguese colonial state, the poorest among Western imperialisms and a forgettable political relic of interwar fascism. After the post-1945 waves of decolonization in Asia and Africa, the victory in Mozambique seemed certain to almost everyone. The list of foreign donors willing to invest in the future independent governments of Portuguese colonies was long and improbably diverse. Since the early stages, the fledgling diplomacy of Frelimo concerned itself with the pleasant puzzle 13   Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Extremes: A History of the World, 1914–1991 (New York: Vintage, 1996). 14  Geoffrey Barraclough, An Introduction to Contemporary History (London: Penguin, 1964), p. 178. 15   Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power. Vol 2: The Rise of Classes and Nation-States, 1760– 1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). 16   Adam Tooze, ‘1917: 365 days that shook the world’, Prospect (January 2017), www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/1917-year-shook-the-world-russian-revolution-united-states.

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of balancing the aid flows coming from the states that otherwise could be enemies among themselves, like Israel and the Arab nationalist regimes, or the Soviet Union going precisely at that time into the loud ideological polemic with Maoist China. Even the key Western governments starting with the Kennedy administration in Washington tried to put pressure on Portugal, nominally their NATO ally. Running into Salazar’s senile intransigence, even the American CIA began covertly cultivating connections in the future progressive leadership of independent Mozambique. Africa in the epoch of decolonization was in the world’s focus of attention, if only for a few years as it turned out. The glorious memories of anti-fascist struggles were still strong among the liberal and social democratic, communist and national liberation currents of the world-systemic Left. Meanwhile, the contemporary Cold War in the 1960s began assuming a more benign character, especially after the life-threatening Cuban missile crisis of 1962.17 An unprecedented window of opportunity opened to the anti-colonial liberation movements everywhere.18 The global opportunities, however, were yet to be seized through building corresponding political organizations. The commonly emulated pattern, however, was before anyone’s eyes: it was the Bolshevik party emerging from the 1917 Russian revolution. In the apt words of American political scientist Stephen Hanson, Lenin and his many followers invented the power hybrid that Max Weber himself could not have imagined: a charismatic-rational bureaucracy.19 The charismatic elements of Leninist innovation surely came from the vision of Karl Marx, yet in the practical matters of state building and industrialization the Leninists openly proclaimed their readiness to learn from very different kinds of Germans such as Otto von Bismarck and General Erich Ludendorff, the genius of industrial planning Walther Rathenau, and also that most Germanic of American industrialists, Henry Ford.20 The Bolsheviks offered a highly inspiring and at the same time convincing combination of liberation ideology with national development. The Soviet nationality policy, more precisely, ethno-cultural federalism disciplined by the overarching party and its secret police, was another crucial innovation. It was the Bolsheviks’ own invention, initially emerging from a series of improvised alliances with various ethnic armies and movements during the multi-faceted civil war of 1918–20. In December 1922, this unprecedented state form was institutionalized in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.21 In the following decades the Leninist model was widely borrowed and modified to serve different insurgent groups for their own purposes, with or without 17   Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of our Times (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). 18   Vijay Prasad, The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World (New York: New Press, 2007). 19   Stephen Hanson, Time and Revolution: Marxism and the Design of Soviet Institutions (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1997). 20   James Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1999). 21   Terry Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923– 1939 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001).

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Marxism.22 Whenever the revolutionary parties captured state power and, in order to finance their modernizing reforms, used state coercion to wrestle the control of big economic assets from both foreign and local hostile proprietors (for this reason branded ‘comprador’, ‘oligarchic’ or ‘obscurantist’), the end result was typically called anti-imperialism and national liberation. Whenever the revolutionary parties captured all economic assets in the country, down to peasant households, this was typically proclaimed socialism. The difference, however, was only in the degree of state expropriations and the accompanying political-ideological rhetoric. In both instances the revolutionaries pursued the same strategy of mobilizing state power in order to upgrade the positions of their countries in military geopolitics and in the world division of labour. During the twentieth century this strategy of transformation was generically called national development. The revolutionary vanguards everywhere, for all their national and historical flavours, looked remarkably similar in their social composition. They mainly consisted of what, in nineteenth-century Poland and Russia, first came to be called intelligentsia: originally a slightly derogatory term for the highly educated young people with ambitious aspirations and subversive ideas but little else. The Bolsheviks themselves started as a tightly knit group of radical intelligentsia with few workers and virtually no peasants among them. Following in their footsteps were the insurgent groups largely consisting of whatever the local equivalents of intelligentsia were: the modern educated specialists, civilian or military, who felt humiliated by and indignant at foreign domination, the lack of professional opportunities, the local ‘traditional’ intransigence, and the poverty and backwardness of their putative nations. Their road to success was in forging revolutionary parties that could give a common purpose and direction to the disparate sources of discontent brewing among the ‘masses’. The political opportunities for these high modernist projects emerged, then, from the crises of old regimes. The first half of the twentieth century was essentially one such global crisis, and hence the proliferation of successful movements on the Left. The founding leaders of Frelimo emerged from one such globally peripheral intelligentsia stymied by the intransigence and racism of Portuguese colonialism. Yet within Mozambique itself they were not at all peripheral. As Michel Cahen never tires of reminding us, the Frelimo leadership were in fact a network of exiles from the capital city of Lourenço Marques.23 Located in the extreme south of the colonial territory, it grew in importance in connection to South Africa only from the 1890s. This historically recent urbanity could have little shared history with the rest of Mozambique. But such distortions are observed in a great many revolutions. There were virtually no ethnic Anatolian Turks among the Ottoman ‘Young Turks’. The Barristers Club of Bombay 22   Immanuel Wallerstein, ‘Marx, Marxism-Leninism, and socialist experiences in the modern world-system’, in Geopolitics and Geoculture: Essays on the changing world-system, ed. Immanuel Wallerstein (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 84–97. 23   Michel Cahen, ‘Mozambique: histoire géopolitique d’un pays sans nation’, Lusotopie, I/1–2 (1994), 213–66.

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at the turn of twentieth century, merely a hundred highly educated elite males, contained the future leaders of Indian independence – and of Pakistan, too. Colonial capitals, precisely due to their resources and centrality, gather both the ruling elites and those aspiring to displace them as new ruling elites. And then there are the provincial capitals where the pre-structured positions available to local elites relegate them to nativism and provincialism – forgive the tautology. In fact, the hugely complex civil war that the Bolsheviks had waged in 1918–20 across the ruins of the Russian empire was not only against the multiple counter-revolutionary White armies. The Reds, or Leninists, at least as much struggled with the alternative projects of various ethnic separatists in the former imperial provinces. There, the blocs of local intelligentsia and their co-ethnic peasantries were seeking to build their own national states. After the precedents of independent Finland and Poland becoming hostile neighbours, the Bolsheviks regarded all such projects as danger to be domesticated under the rubric of Soviet federalism. Nationalism, at all levels, has always been an intractable problem to the Left. The national-federalist architecture of the Soviet Union was the single biggest compromise from the formative period of the civil war. Stalin only tried to somewhat optimize it during the campaigns of mass repressions in the 1930s but never dared to undo the ethno-federalism wholesale. The result was a peculiar revolutionary empire practising affirmative action among its many ethnic minorities. In the 1960s and still in the 1970s the Soviet example (should we be reminded today?) appeared very attractive to many insurgent elites resolutely intent on upgrading their positions in spite of their peripheral locations in the capitalist world-system. Yet the same ethno-federalism is what had pre-structured the amazingly rapid dismemberment of the Soviet Union by its own ruling elites.24 In the 1980s Frelimo fell victim to its own ‘dizziness from success’, in Stalin’s famous expression. The Mozambican revolutionary elite acquired a lot of self-confidence and optimism during the two preceding decades of victories and, frankly, unique historical luck. In the 1960s the émigré founders of Frelimo managed to form the political and military structures that convincingly looked like a national state-in-the-making to a wide variety of foreign governments, aid donors and solidarity campaigners. The generous flow of foreign aid channelled through Frelimo to the relatively small populations in the refugee camps in Tanzania, and the guerrilla ‘liberated zones’ across the border in northern Mozambique for a short period, created a highly unusual situation. We might call it war communism in reverse. Thanks to ample foreign aid, Frelimo could enjoy the luxury of waging its guerrilla campaigns without demanding any serious taxes from the civilian population. (Except, perhaps, supplying porters to the guerrilla caravans.) To the contrary, the political vanguard showed itself willing and capable of providing public services and consumer goods virtually at no cost. To the African rural popula Georgi Derluguian, Bourdieu’s Secret Admirer in the Caucasus: A World-Systems Biography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005).

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tions influenced and mobilized by Frelimo this situation must have looked like true social justice exactly in terms of what James Scott had famously called the moral economy of the peasant.25 A very peculiar kind of unequal exchange temporarily boosted the legitimacy of Frelimo among its initial popular base of the 1960s. The initial success of the fund-raising campaign also created the double illusion that international aid would last and that it could eventually sustain the development of the whole of Mozambique. The historical sociologists joke that, in a mysteriously robust regularity, the most capable and visionary leaders cluster in the structurally expansive epochs.26 Frelimo or, more precisely, the cosmopolitan southern intelligentsia prevalent in its leadership, was very lucky to find common expression in the energetic and likable Eduardo Mondlane, the American-educated native of southern Mozambique who had received his PhD in sociology from the very same department at Northwestern University where I would later serve as professor. The Mondlane group in the mid-1960s gained such self-confidence that they dared to provoke open splits in their own organization in order to purge their more provincial and parochial rivals. Analytically, this meant that Frelimo was moving away from the corrupt clientelism and other forms of ‘neopatrimonialism’ so commonly found in the newly independent African states and striving towards a more rational-bureaucratic organization. This closely followed the logic of modern state formation famously expressed in the aphorism of Charles Tilly: States made war, and war made the states.27 The revolutionary organization proved sufficiently robust to survive a period of internal strife despite the probably insider-assisted assassination of Eduardo Mondlane. In the early 1970s, Frelimo renewed and extended its guerrilla war to the areas ever deeper inside Mozambique. Perhaps in retrospect this might look like a dangerous overextension of supply lines and resources, but at the time Frelimo’s military gamble paid off splendidly. By 1974 the Portuguese army and settlers were clearly losing hope in the face of escalating warfare (or was it also the global economic crisis of 1973?). The revolutionary organization, by default, became a sovereign state even before the formal declaration of independence. Yet Frelimo encountered the full cost of overextension right after gaining its nominal political power over a country nearly a third bigger than France. Even though at the time of independence the population of Mozambique stood at only eight million people or so, it had been very rapidly growing and, despite the intervening war and famine, in another two decades had surpassed twenty million. In the late 1970s the response of Frelimo to its governing challenges was extremely bold: from political revolution, it went directly for the industrial revolution. 25   James C. Scott, The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977). 26   Richard Lachmann, What Is Historical Sociology? (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2013). 27   Charles Tilly, ‘War Making and State Making as Organized Crime’, in Bringing the State Back In, eds Peter Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer & Theda Skocpol (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 169–86.

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This did not seem, however, pure fantasy. In fact, Frelimo took over right where the Portuguese colonialism had dropped the cause of industrial development. If the battlefield victories of the French revolution owed to their success to both the élan of masses and the scientifically engineered cannons of the Ancien Régime of General de Gribeauval, if Stalin could advance the revolutionary cause of Lenin by the industrial strategy of Count Witte, it looked perfectly logical that the newly independent Mozambique must push forward the developmentalist achievements of the Portuguese Estado Novo. Let me compress the discussion by using a few historical anecdotes. One of the first Soviet advisors in economic planning, who arrived in Mozambique shortly after independence having looked into the archival files containing the Portuguese Fourth Plan of Development (Quatro Plano de Fomento) could not help exclaiming in folksy Russian: ‘I’d be damned! Those fascist sons-ofbitches have already drafted for us pretty much the whole First Five-Year Plan!’ Indeed, the unrealized last colonial plan had it all: from the giant hydro-power plant at Cabora Bassa gorge on the Zambezi river to the tractor factories and metal foundries, down to the enormous agro-industrial farms where the peasants were to be resettled from their obsolete traditional villages. To this, another Soviet economic advisor grimly observed: ‘What we are not telling our Mozambican comrades is that collectivization in the countryside is not just a matter of economic planning; it does not go without the extraordinary cavalry squadrons [the infamous Bolshevik ChONs] to suppress peasant revolts.’ But the leaders of Frelimo were not entirely naïve regarding the violence involved in their audacious plans for overcoming underdevelopment in one giant leap forward. The Soviet diplomats stationed in Maputo complained in private how much they were annoyed by Samora Machel’s repeated demands to see Stalin’s secret memorandum allegedly titled ‘How to Destroy Our Enemies’. Of course, no such communist version of Machiavelli had ever existed. To the chagrin of historians, Stalin was not prone to sharing his tactics in writing.28 Perhaps, this was Samora’s way of teasing his Soviet advisors whom he had never much trusted anyway. Nonetheless, there could be a grain of truth in this anecdote. By many indicators, during the 1970s Frelimo was self-consciously transforming itself into a Stalinist party. Once in power, this newly purged and hugely expanded Partido Frelimo launched the agrarian and industrial transformation of truly Stalinist proportions. The revolutionary vanguard, however, failed to turn Mozambique into a Stalinist state. The Mozambique civil war of the 1980s therefore grew as a direct consequence of an abortive attempt to replicate the communist model of a developmental state. The twentieth-century successes in waging the non-capitalist modernizations on the periphery of the world-system were not predicated on ideology alone. They could be communist or anti-communist as in South Korea. What really mattered was the utmost concentration of state capacity reaching total  Oleg Khlevniuk, Master of the House: Stalin and His Inner Circle. Translated from Russian by Nora Seligman Favorov (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009).

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itarian proportions.29 The projected People’s Republic of Mozambique during 1977–92 glaringly failed on this count. The specific reasons for this failure are yet to be studied and debated. Hypothetically, one might suggest that the available cadres of Frelimo were too skewed to the southern and northern extremes of Mozambique and simply too few to effectively cover the whole country. But this hypothesis, however, does not stand in light of original Soviet experience. In the 1920s the Bolsheviks were themselves a small isolated minority of revolutionaries of disproportionately Jewish, Baltic, Armenian and Georgian origin facing the vast Russian countryside, let alone the Ukrainian or Central Asian countryside.30 The Chinese communists at a comparable stage in the late 1940s and the 1950s were an even smaller minority in the vast sea of rural China, especially in the densely populated southern and central provinces. And yet the Chinese communists could build the industrial bases and state infrastructure, which a few decades later would so splendidly serve their great leap forward to export-oriented capitalism.31 Only recently, historians began to appreciate the extraordinary amounts of aid and professional assistance coming from the USSR to China in the formative decade of the 1950s.32 In fact, this could be a major clue to the origins of Mozambique’s civil war. In the late 1970s Moscow was certainly not prepared to offer anything anywhere on the scale of its erstwhile assistance to China. The Soviets remembered with lasting bitterness the escapades of Chairman Mao imagining himself the world’s latter-day Stalin, and the rest of lesser Stalins such as Enver Hoxha, Kim Il Sung, or Nicolae Ceauçescu; or the inept schemes of Nkrumah and Nasser and the charming but very costly bravado of Fidel Castro. In this perspective the Soviets’ unforeseen commitments in Angola already seemed too much. Let us not forget that weighing heavily on the Soviet Politburo’s minds were the war in Afghanistan and the irrepressible popular nationalism in Poland.33 The political decision makers in Moscow repeatedly demanded from their diplomats and advisors in Maputo to place the cooperation between the two countries on a ‘realistic and mutually advantageous basis’, meaning that the aid would be limited and not entirely free. The USSR foreign policy circles surely had their differences of opinion broadly reflecting the positional differentiation of various Soviet bureaucracies. There still existed a few ideological revolutionaries based mainly in the International Department of the CPSU Central Committee. But this was the dwindling faction of antiquated romantics. The last word often belonged to the hard-nosed economizers from Gosplan, diplomatic realists in the Foreign Ministry and, of course, the global Cold War calculus of the KGB and military command. Generally, the Soviet advisors 29   Atul Kohli, State-Directed Development: Political Power and Industrialization in the Global Periphery (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004). 30   Stephen Kotkin, Stalin, vol. I. (New York: Penguin, 2014). 31   Ho-fung Hung, The China Boom: Why China Will Not Rule the World (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015). 32   Odd Arne Westad, Restless Empire: China and the World Since 1750 (New York: Basic Books, 2015). 33   Vladislav M. Zubok, A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009).

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based in Mozambique favoured increased involvement, either out of personal commitments to their African colleagues or because this was directly related to their own prestige and careers. Occasionally they came up with rather quixotic justifications for their own importance. One such scheme argued for the strategic importance of Maputo as the naval and aerial forward base deep in the Southern Hemisphere in view of the allegedly imminent imperialist attempts to partition the Antarctic continent. (The suggestion was dismissed with a laugh: Did Russia need still more permafrost?) In a telling episode as late as mid-1988, the Soviet ambassador to Mozambique Nikolai Dybenko (not a career diplomat but rather a long-serving member of the CPSU Central Committee in effect exiled to Maputo), returning from a trip to Moscow, gathered his top personnel at the embassy to reveal the simple truth: ‘Over there nobody has time for us here…’ Arguably there are important political and historical reasons to focus on the internal dynamics of Mozambique’s civil war. Nevertheless, the purely internalist explanations of what happened in Mozambique during the 1980s would remain critically incomplete in the absence of a world-system context. In the 1960s, Frelimo was successfully riding the global tide; by the early 1980s it was going against the tide. Mozambique’s industrialization was launched at the historical moment when the earlier developmentalist projects in Latin America, Asia and Eastern Europe were already drowning in debt. Soon a majority of the erstwhile developmentalist states would be opening their doors to the structural adjustments of the International Monetary Fund and the sponsored programmes of liberal democratization. China and Vietnam proved exceptional in their preservation of the old communist bureaucracies almost intact while also achieving sustained capitalist growth. The reasons for such success must be sought in world geopolitics and the changing geography of capital flows no less than in the fabled cultural peculiarities of East Asia. In the spectrum of the contemporary ‘Leninist extinctions’, Mozambique, an African country, evidently should be located closer to China and Vietnam than the former Yugoslavia and the USSR. The latest round of capitalist globalization taking off in the 1990s seemed to favour the underdeveloped Stalinist regimes in the periphery instead of the overdeveloped, mature industrial economies found across the former Soviet bloc.34 The global investors were not much interested in the Rust Belts of Eastern Europe.35 In a consequential irony, the newest capitalist attractions were found in the untapped natural and human resources of countries like China, Vietnam and, for that matter, Mozambique and Ethiopia, organized by the relatively more effective party-state bureaucracies forged in revolutionary struggles. In this larger picture, the wartime trajectory of Renamo should not be too difficult to explain. In fact, Renamo faced the political opportunities and organ34   Georgi Derluguian, ‘What Communism Was’, in Does Capitalism Have a Future? eds Immanuel Wallerstein, Randall Collins, Michael Mann, Georgi Derluguian & Craig Calhoun (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 99–132. 35  Stephen Kotkin, Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse, 1970–2000, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008).

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izational challenges surprisingly similar to the challenges with which Frelimo had to grapple earlier in its own guerrilla war. In the beginning, the launching of both movements was made possible by the governments of neighbouring countries, respectively Rhodesia and Tanganyika, providing the fledgling insurgencies with safe havens, the seed grants of weapons and finance, and logistical supply lines. Both movements were intended by their original sponsors to put pressure on the neighbouring hostile regimes, whether Portuguese colonialism or the proto-communist regime of Mozambique after independence. Inescapably, such regional sponsorship was embedded in the broader logic of the Cold War. Both Frelimo and Renamo became militarized almost from the outset. But this was not merely to meet the demands of their foreign sponsors: it was just as well the way of asserting their own political autonomy and prestige. Again, in the formative years both Frelimo and Renamo experienced severe factional infighting, resulting in the mysterious deaths of their founding leaders who were prominent exiles with higher intellectual credentials. (I am in no position to speculate about the assassinations of Orlando Cristina or Evo Fernandes who had once claimed the trademark communist title of Secretary-General in Renamo.) The new leaders emerging from the infighting, Frelimo’s Samora Machel and Renamo’s Alfonso Dhlakama, appeared in both cases more native, charismatic and militarist. Their reputations were soon consolidated in the aggressive resumption of guerrilla warfare spreading across the whole country. The unconventional military strategy in both instances compensated for the grave limitations in personnel, weaponry and tactical training. Neither Frelimo nor Renamo dared to wage open battles and seize cities. Nothing like the 1954 Dien Bien Phu siege or the 1975 fall of Saigon in Vietnam had ever threatened to happen in Mozambique. Instead, limited numbers of lightly armed guerrillas were tasked with wrecking the communications and outlier posts of the enemy state, be it the Portuguese colonial state in the early 1970s or the structures and personnel installed by Partido Frelimo during its brief communist interlude in the late 1970s and the early 1980s. The similarities are mostly conditioned by the relative weakness of the two rebel armies. Both had to operate as small-armed minorities in a large country with ethnically diverse populations and historically very little structural coherence for any kind of nation building. Portuguese colonization was notoriously based upon a ‘rule of the feeble’ except for the very last couple decades of hurried developmentalism intended to forestall decolonization.36 The difference then derived mostly from the world-historical timing and the different socio-cultural endowments of the political cadres of the two movements. Frelimo was formed during the 1960s, which was a uniquely advantageous period for national liberation movements in the colonial periphery. The epoch itself provided dynamism and political audacity to Frelimo. It is also what pushed it to the Left, to the winning side in the post-1945 geoculture of 36   Leroy Vail, ‘Mozambique’s Chartered Companies: The Rule of the Feeble’, Journal of African History, 17/3 (1976), 389–416.

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progressivism and internationalism during the unprecedented expansion of the world economy, or what the French call Les Trente Glorieuses. The founding cadres of Frelimo, children of the subordinate ‘coloured’ elite formed in the area of the colonial capital with its better access to educational and cultural resources, proved eminently capable of exploiting the favourable international environment to position themselves as legitimate and technically capable rulers of the projected independent state. By comparison, Renamo looks merely a shadow of its predecessor and the trailing rival in the project of fostering nationalist politics in Mozambique. But this is not only due to its parochialism and the original sin of having served as an auxiliary ‘force multiplier’ to the special agencies of Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa. In Chapter 1 of this book, Sérgio Chichava convincingly shows that, at least in the central parts of Mozambique, the anti-Frelimo sentiments could have deeply native roots dating back to the colonial period and thus predating Renamo’s military campaigns. Domingos Manuel de Rosário documents in Chapter 2 the successful efforts of Renamo to impose itself in the province of Nampula as defenders of local traditional authorities and their avengers against the failed attempt to impose a totalitarian revolutionary regime of rapid modernization. In Chapter 5, Eric Morier-Genoud adds a very important angle to the analysis of Mozambique’s civil war: the endemic famine that periodically reached catastrophic proportions. Drought alone, even combined with predatory plundering by the armed men on both sides, cannot entirely account for the chronic ecological stress.37 Evidently population growth in Mozambique, as in much of Tropical Africa, had exceeded the bearing capacity of local environments at the traditional level of subsistence agriculture.38 Yet, elsewhere in southern Mozambique (Frelimo’s home base) and perhaps also later into the devastating civil war, the rebels either could not or did not much care to gain social support. This is the grim picture we get from the testimonies of victimized civilians gathered by Lily Bunker. Reduced to the brutal military logic of post-independence insurgency in African states, here the invaders behaved as predatory warlords.39 Among the raided village communities, they deliberately spread the paralysing sense of defenceless vulnerability. The increasing use of child soldiers, though not uncommon in the earlier stages of this war, indicates the exhaustion of recruitment pools and general problems with discipline and desertions. The terrorizing fear of ghastly punishments served to maintain obedience in the rebel camps. The meagre rations of food and sex with the enslaved ‘wives’ became the few rewards for subordination in the fighting units operating in the severely plundered environments. The bizarre success of Naparama vigilantes, the spiritualistic ‘third 37   E. O. Wilson, Window to Eternity: A Biologist’s Walk through Gorongosa National Park (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014). 38   Jack A. Goldstone, Monica Duffy Toft & Eric P. Kaufmann, eds, Political Demography: How Population Changes Are Reshaping International Security and National Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012). 39   William Reno, Warfare in Independent Africa (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011).

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force’ emerging in the central provinces of Nampula and Zambezia towards the end of the 1980s, points to a considerable disorganization and psychological exhaustion of both rebel and government sides in this futile war. Otherwise, how could one ever explain the reports of the fighters with firearms fleeing in panic or making opportunistic alliances with the local vigilantes armed with clubs and spears plus some magic potion?! The picture of Mozambique’s civil war emerging from this volume is not only ugly but also rather complex. Ideological blinders of various sorts are the main hindrance we sought to overcome. This conflict was not merely a proxy confrontation in the global Cold War between superpowers. Washington, mindful of its vocal domestic constituencies, preferred to keep the rebels tainted by their association with apartheid South Africa at arm’s length. Moscow originally made greater investments in the Frelimo government of Mozambique. But Moscow’s commitment was becoming increasingly reluctant and financially constrained. Rather it was the newly proclaimed Partido Frelimo claiming Moscow as its ideological and geopolitical patron. In return, such proxies demanded massive amounts of aid to win their own economic and military battles. Perhaps the anti-communist insurgency was started as part of the containment strategy pursued by the white supremacist regimes of Rhodesia and South Africa. But their backing of Renamo seemed a rather cynical bet on creating a cheap irritant behind the enemy lines eventually to be traded on Mozambique’s support for their own domestic insurgencies, the Zimbabwean ZANU and South African African National Congress. The Renamo, however, unexpectedly proved more resilient and politically autonomous by far outliving its erstwhile foreign sponsors. The insurgency acquired local dynamics by tapping into the various sources of discontent and marginalized identities in both the central and eventually in the whole of Mozambique. Contrary to the common rhetorical claims on all sides, it was not a primarily ideological war between the committed Leftist revolutionaries and the conservative counterrevolutionaries. The subsequent political developments in Mozambique since the 1980s amply prove this point. The ideological and political evolution of Frelimo actively responded to the global structures of opportunity. During its anti-colonial guerrilla war Frelimo scored an almost improbable success in combining the elements of all contemporary hegemonic ideologies: liberal and social democracy, national liberation and Marxism-Leninism. Fighting against an antiquated relic of southern European fascism surely helped, too. Long before the formal independence of Mozambique in 1975, Frelimo had positioned itself as one of the most coherent and credible anti-colonial movements in Tropical Africa, thus eminently deserving recognition and assistance. A few internal rivals were silenced and marginalized in the process, which at the time only contributed to the image of Frelimo as a progressive developmentalist force and the sole legitimate representative of the whole of Mozambique. For a while, this reputation still looked broadly attractive in the international arena even after Frelimo achieved state power, when it had to make some hard political choices regarding the

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collapsing economy of Mozambique when it was abruptly abandoned by virtually all its bourgeois professionals and former capitalists. Openly moving to the Left, launching wholesale nationalizations, and next the ambitious ‘Decade of victory over underdevelopment’ seemed a fairly natural option in view of the contemporary international environment and Frelimo’s past achievements. At the moment of Mozambique’s independence in 1975 it appeared both morally dignified and politically helpful to take a confrontational stance against the internationally isolated racist regimes of Rhodesia and South Africa. To emphasize, the new leaders of Mozambique were radical politicians and not merely opportunistic. Already facing economic and social disaster right after 1975, they countered by banking their political project on the world climate (perhaps a better word would be the French conjoncture) which had so far uniquely favoured national liberation, social progressivism and state-directed developmentalism. But the world climate was undergoing deep change at exactly the same time. The modernization of Mozambique ran headlong into postmodernity. Still, Frelimo survives in power to this day and in the process it has transformed itself into a completely different ideological creature. Successful elites follow the great maxim from Lampedusa’s historical novel: ‘For things to remain the same, everything must change’.40 The purportedly pro-apartheid, anti-communist and socially conservative Renamo could hardly catch up with the vertiginous metamorphoses of its opponent. Neither was this war a struggle of progressive modern nationalism against atavistic tribalism. Ever since the late 1980s, a number of researchers, in particular the indefatigable Michel Cahen, in many of his publications, including Chapter 4 in this volume, did a lot to demonstrate the narrowly elitist nature of Frelimo leadership. Their opponents, rivals and one-time fellow travellers in fact represented the various proto-nationalisms at lesser scales coalescing in the social networks of local prominence. Such alternative networks could be embedded in the churches and missionary schools, traditional chieftaincies, in the merchant and notable families of provincial cities. In this (and perhaps only in this) respect, the civil war in Mozambique could be indeed comparable to the anti-Jacobin insurgency in the Vendée during the French revolution.41 From the outset the war was brutal and destructive. Lacking political cadres and broadly appealing ideology, Renamo relied on ‘propaganda of the deed’, killing the personnel of the ruling regime, destroying the state infrastructure and, in general, purposefully making the country unsafe for anyone except those to whom the rebels granted their protection. As the war dragged on, however, it was assuming an even more brutal character. It also looked terribly deadlocked as neither side could win. The war ended with the complete exhaustion of both belligerents whose erstwhile key foreign sponsors, the Soviet Union and the apartheid regime of   Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, The Leopard. Transl. from Italian by Archibald Colquhoun (New York: Pantheon, 1960). 41   See the classic: Charles Tilly, The Vendée (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964). 40

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South Africa, had themselves collapsed from exhaustion. As incredible as it might seem at the time, the opponents did transfer their confrontations from battlefields to the field of politics. Again, contrary to ideological labels, what Mozambique has experienced in the succeeding two decades on more sober consideration might not deserve the name of democratization. It has rather been what the political scientists who study the former communist states in Eastern Europe aptly called ‘competitive authoritarianism’.42 Such hybrid regimes combining the façade of liberal parliamentary institutions with cynical corruption and vote buying seem inherently unstable. Either they collapse in the electoral neo-liberal revolutions (recent examples are Georgia and Ukraine) or they grow into the more monopolistic consolidated authoritarianisms as in Putin’s Russia. The presence of concentrated natural rents from the exportation of mineral resources seems to significantly increase the likelihood of the Russian scenario. We might be yet seeing the final battle for Mozambique between its ex-communists and the ex-anti-communists. 42   Steven Levitsky & Lucan A. Way, Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes after the Cold War (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010).

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Conclusion New Perspectives on the Civil War in Mozambique Eric Morier-Genoud, Michel Cahen & Domingos Manuel do Rosário The literature on the war in Mozambique is quite extensive.1 Much of it, as we mentioned in the introduction, has focused on Renamo, its external connections and, to a lesser extent, its social roots. This has led to a bias in the historiography, which the present book has tried to redress by adopting a new angle, asking new questions and using new sources. The authors have, first, tried to cast their net wider by looking not only at Renamo but also the government and other military actors, and looking at non-military actors as well, including institutions of ‘civil society’ such as the church. Second, they have looked at the state, Frelimo and ‘the people’, not just as victims of a military aggression but as actors of the war as well. Third, to build their case, most chapters have used new primary sources, whether previously unused archives (provincial, district or church archives), actors’ documents or oral history. This has led to the uncovering of much new information and the development of new understandings about the war. This conclusion will try to systematize these findings and lay out areas still in need of research to write a new – thorough and encompassing – history of the civil war in Mozambique. A first result of the present volume relates to our understanding of the beginning and the chronology of the civil war in Mozambique. At a first quite obvious level (but it remains an important point to make), the war started at different times in different areas of the country – in 1976 in Manica, Sofala and Zambézia, in 1981 in Inhambane, Gaza and Tete, and in 1983 in Nampula, Niassa and Cabo Delgado. At another more original level, the volume has shown that the civil war started in 1976, not so much with Renamo’s single failed attack on a re-education camp as with the Partido Revolucionário de Moçambique (PRM), which started full military activities in western Zambézia. Contrary to what much of the literature has said, PRM was not just a marginal phenomenon, nor something linked to Renamo. The movement had its origins in the liberation struggle. It had popular support in Zambézia, so much so in fact that Renamo only made it into Zambézia in 1982 (six years later!) after it agreed to an alliance with this movement (which it then absorbed). This is a good example of how the civil war in Mozambique had local and regional historicities that complemented, and in this case preceded, regional and international dynamics.   See the Bibliography at the end of this volume which is aimed at being as exhaustive as possible.

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222 Conclusion Linked to this, a second major finding has to do with regional dynamics. The present book has shown that the post-colonial armed conflict in Mozambique developed distinctive features in different areas of the country. At the broadest level, we saw that the guerrilla was not successful in the south of the country in integrating large areas and population under its control and administration, whereas it did in the centre and north of Mozambique. Chapter 5 argued this was not because of an ethnic dimension of the war, but rather because of ecology and the success of Frelimo’s encompassing counter-guerrilla strategy. Similarly we saw that the war developed singular features in the centre of the country. At a first level, we saw the emergence of PRM which built on regional particularities and history. We also noted the extensive involvement of foreign troops (Tanzanian and Zimbabwean) in the region – a topic which remains to be studied. Further, we discussed extensively the emergence of popular militia in Zambézia and Nampula in the last phase of the war, which considerably shaped the conflict and its ending. Militia emerged elsewhere in the country too during the same period (for sure in Gaza, Inhambane and Cabo Delgado), but these were private rather than popular militia. At a second level, we gained the impression and hence would like to advance the hypothesis that the war in Central and Northern Mozambique took on a singular dynamic due to the historical influence of the ‘Old Mozambique’, i.e. the societies and social formations whose pre-colonial status and position were marginalized by modern colonialism as well as by Frelimo after independence.2 This profound and long-lasting marginalization led these societies to ally with Renamo, something which did not happen as extensively in the south of the country with marginalized social groups. All this relates to the fact that the space named ‘Mozambique’ was not a national space produced historically, and that the colonial and post-colonial periods socially and economically exacerbated the heterogeneity of these areas violently incorporated into the colonial space. This said, all the chapters confirm that, if ethnic issues mattered in this war, the armed conflict never became inter-ethnic or tribal conflict. A third discovery of the present volume concerns the army. We saw that the government army organized itself in many provinces before the conflict arrived there and that a hurried and ill-conceived deployment led, in some instances, to tensions and problems with the population. These problems led some of the population to refuse to collaborate with the army and either side with Renamo or at least refuse to work with the army against Renamo. Military strategy and behaviour continued the problem and we saw that some parts of the population argued that the army was a second enemy alongside Renamo. As in most conflicts, the army did not accept a middle ground and people or social groups not aligning with them was seen as meaning automatically that they were against the army and with Renamo – the same applied of course to the 2  Sérgio Chichava, ‘Le “Vieux Mozambique”: l’identité politique de la Zambézie, PhD Thesis (Bordeaux: Institut d’études politiques de Bordeaux, Université de Bordeaux, 2007); Michel Cahen, ‘Mozambique: histoire géopolitique d’un pays sans nation’, Lusotopie, I/1–2 (1994), 213–66.

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other side. Thereafter, many people were punished and killed because of their (passive or active) neutrality. What the present volume has also uncovered is that the army changed approaches over time, passing from a regular warfare approach to an anti-guerrilla one after 1983, and passing from a reliance on state militia to private militia and popular militia (not least the Naparama) at the end of the 1980s. At a lower level, many smaller questions emerge from the present book about the history and role of electric fences around strategic villages and towns, about private militia and hunting companies during the war, about the state’s ‘people’s militia’, about the army, its strategy and crisis in the late 1980s, and, among others, about the roles of Zimbabwean and Tanzanian forces and their relationship to the state army. Clearly much more needs to be investigated about the war, particularly on the side of the government. A fourth discovery of the volume concerns the role of non-state militia in the armed conflict. The book has shown that several types of militia appeared in Mozambique in the late 1980s and 1990s, in a dynamic which is typical of many conflicts where private concerns lead the population to become involved not only in local arrangements to provide security, but also engaging in the war itself, independently. The book has revealed some first elements about private militia, independent military columns and electric fences. Much more was uncovered about the popular militia known as ‘Naparama’. As did previous authors, this book has shown that the Naparama were a neo-traditional reaction of an exhausted society victimized by two armies at war. What the present volume has added to this literature is an explanation of the internal divisions and dynamics of the movement, with competition between different leaders, as well as much information about the relationship of the Naparama to the two armies of Frelimo and Renamo, the response by Renamo to the rise of that movement (in certain regions Renamo organized a counter neo-traditional movement called ‘Mulelepeia’ and in other areas it brought in special forces with a reputation for having magical powers), and the impact of this neo-traditional militia on the overall dynamics of the war in the 1990s. What became clear overall is, first, that the war in the 1990s had become ‘neo-traditionalized’ on all sides in the centre of the country and, second, that the neo-traditional elements were very fluid because of their very nature and, in particular, because of a lack of institutionalization of their leadership. A fifth outcome of our volume relates to the role of society and ‘civil society’ in the war. Confirming the perspective of earlier authors on the war in Mozambique, such as Mark Chingono, the present volume has shown that society was not just a (passive) victim of the conflict. Society was (as it always is) diverse and active – Carolyn Nordstrom would say ‘creative’. What we have shown is that the Mozambican society was most active in the armed conflict. We saw that the Naparama were a reaction to the war but very rapidly became major actors in it. We saw that the Catholic Church was an actor too which, from suffering from the war, not only posited itself outside it, but soon also positioned itself publically against the war and in favour of negotiations (from as early as 1983). We also discussed the role of traders, of their armed columns, of

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224 Conclusion non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and of the humanitarian aid complex which became a dominant feature of the last phase of the war – aid in Mozambique was most successfully instrumentalized by the government. What the overall picture reveals is that different actors had different importance and different types and levels of influence during each phase of the conflict. Just as importantly, we can say that the conflict was not just opposing a guerrilla against a state. Indeed, soon enough, the whole of society was engulfed in the conflict and there were many inputs, from the international to the regional to the local, and from foreign armies (supporting one side) to NGOs (supporting one side) to the Catholic Church (against the war) and to traders, faith diviners and healers (with their own agendas, strategies and alliances). A sixth finding has to do with the role of ecology and drought. At one level, it relates to the fact that the ecology shaped the war by limiting what could be done and not be done, depending on water, arable land, mountains, forests, etc. We saw how Renamo’s guerrilla actions and localization in southern Mozambique had much to do with ecology. Looking at Inhambane we saw that the parts of the province with reasonable conditions for agriculture were limited to a small stretch of land along the coast and that, aggravating the situation, the province (like the country) was hit by recurrent droughts in the 1980s. Thereafter Renamo had little choice but to establish itself on the fringe of the agriculturally productive areas of the province and it could not sustain a counter-society there, squeezed as it was by poor agricultural conditions and the pressure of the Frelimo army; this presents a quite different explanation for Renamo’s dynamics in the south of the country than the ethnic argument, by and large unsubstantiated by the present book. At another level, the role of ecology had to do with what actors did with it. While Renamo was mostly constrained by ecology, the government successfully used natural conditions and the droughts to its advantage. It intensified the drought for Renamo by engaging in a ‘water war’ (the guerrilla was also accused of poisoning wells in other areas), it built electric fences to protect itself and prevent certain movements, it discharged itself of its social responsibilities onto foreign humanitarian organizations, and it used refugee camps and humanitarian aid to control as much of the population as possible: drying the Mozambican pond so as to kill the Renamo fish swimming in it (as the expression goes). Seventh, the volume uncovered a new facet of the history of Renamo. Based on the guerrilla’s own documentation (which reveals that the Gorongosa diaries published by the government were ‘fake’), the book has shown that Renamo was highly organized and disciplined (far from any banditry) from its earliest days. We saw a division of the country into different areas each with their own name, a clear organizational structure, and constant communication and control from the guerrilla’s headquarters. We also saw that Renamo had a political programme, even if a weak one, much earlier than usually understood (before Nkomati). Moreover, the volume uncovered that the 1984 non-aggression pact was more than an agreement between South Africa and the Frelimo government and that Renamo placed much hope in it; something of a negotiation between Renamo and Frelimo did take place and, most

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importantly, the negotiations (and the expectations they created) shaped the dynamics of Renamo. Said differently, the book uncovered a Renamo guerrilla quite different from that which has been described in earlier literature – better organized, more political, and more autonomous – and it uncovered that the Nkomati Accord was a turning point for the war and the guerrilla, but not in the way one has understood it until now: the turning point was not as big as has been argued and there were many continuities between Renamo before and after 1984. Finally, the volume has tried to articulate anew the local, internal, and historical dynamics of the civil war in Mozambique with the broader regional and world-systemic trends – not so much the Rhodesian, South African and Cold War forces as the systemic developments of the world. What the book has shown as a result is that the local and global dimensions of the war were not exclusive during the period under consideration (as much literature has tried to make us believe). Instead the two dynamics were interconnected, the question being exactly how. Against authors advancing that the conflict was not a civil war but a solely externally driven aggression, this book argues that there were many internal dimensions, some social, some political, some economic, as well as several external dimensions (Rhodesia and Apartheid South Africa primarily), the two linking up to produce the war and shape its unfolding. At this point in time, it would probably be more fruitful historiographically to think of this dynamic in terms of the internationalization of a local war than the internalization of an external conflict. Further, the link with external factors must be understood, as Georgi Derluguian suggests, not so much as a Cold War affair (even if mediated through regional factors) as a world-system historical moment. Said in another way, the ‘outside in’ and the ‘inside out’ of the civil war were not just political or economic but also systemic. Irrespective of the external support both sides received, the civil war after 1976 was a very Mozambican affair – diverse, complex, with social, historical and political roots. It developed at a moment when tectonic social and political plates were moving in Mozambique, the region and the world – a very singular moment indeed. To be more specific, it seems clear that, if western Zambézia was in a situation of civil war as soon as 1976 and the central provinces of the country were in a state of civil war from 1980, the characterization of the conflict as a full civil war for the whole country should probably wait for 1982, when Renamo shifted the core of its war to the Northern provinces of the country. As we can see, even in relation to chronology, the war was heterogeneous. To conclude, let us highlight some issues on which the present volume has not been able to shed light, and lines of inquiry that have emerged out of the present research. In line with the literature on civil wars, and on wars more generally, it is clear that many aspects of the war in Mozambique still need to be investigated. Among them are the daily life of fighters (whether government, Renamo or Naparama); the material culture of the war; studies of war diaries and correspondence; a grassroots political economy of the war; and war and gender (womanhood and masculinity). The Mozambican historiography would also benefit from studies of geographical areas dominated by

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226 Conclusion Frelimo during the anticolonial struggle that turned to Renamo after independence; from studies of the role of religions during the war, in particular Islam as a factor in spreading (or not) the civil war to the north of the country; investigations of the role of foreign troops (Zimbabwean and Tanzanian) in the war and their relationship to the Mozambican army; research about the government’s army, logistics, strategy and problems; an enquiry about propaganda; a thorough study of the massacres of Homoine and Chaimite, as well of the many more massacres in the centre and north of the country; etc. For this, many new archives have opened, as we have shown (district, provincial, religious), and oral history has proven most successful at this point in time. These archives need to be explored further, new ones accessed (the army’s archive, the Soviet, Tanzanian and Zimbabwean archives),3 some documentation localized and exploited (among others family diaries and correspondence, Renamo’s documentation, and the full set of Renamo Gorongosa documents held by the government, if still existing), and many more interviews done and life histories gathered. Our book aimed at pushing the historiography of the war in Mozambique a step further. If we have succeeded, this will only be a single step and many more will be needed before we have a full encompassing history of the post-colonial war in Mozambique. Still, our ambitions and hopes with the present book were high and will hopefully have been achieved by opening a new phase in the research on the civil war in Mozambique. 3   For a first example of the use of Soviet archives and veteran testimonies in Angola, see Kelly Cristina Oliveira de Araújo, ‘Politique et militarisme en Angola: les relations entre le Mouvement Populaire de Libération de l’Angola (MPLA) et l’Union des Républiques Socialistes Soviétiques (URSS) 1965–1985’, PhD thesis (Paris: University of Paris-Sorbonne, 2014).

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Towards a Bibliography of the Mozambican Civil War Eric Morier-Genoud, Michel Cahen & Domingos Manuel do Rosário The post-colonial war has been studied from different perspectives. The present bibliography includes not only studies of the civil war as a military event, but also works looking at it from a social, economic and gendered dimension. It also includes some post-conflicts studies when they included information about the war itself. This bibliography is an academic one: there are no newspaper articles and no romance or literature studies. With few exceptions (principally those produced in Mozambique), BA and MA theses have not been included. Witness accounts and similar kinds of testimonies have been included, not least some reports from international agencies and memoirs. The bibliography presented here is not just limited to the references used by the editors and authors of the chapters of this book. It is wider and tries to include literature in different languages. The aim is to provide a tool for researchers, academics, students, and the public in general. Adam, Yussuf, ‘Guerra, fome, seca e desenvolvimento: lições de Changara, Moçambique’, Arquivo: Boletim do Arquivo Histórico de Moçambique,  10 (October 1991), 185–207. [Also exists in English, as an unpublished paper: ‘War, hunger, drought and development: lessons from Changara, Mozambique’, paper for the Workshop Mozambique: Contemporary Issues and Current Research (Oxford, 23 February 1991).] —— Trick or Treat: the relationship between destabilization, aid and government development policies in Mozambique 1975–1990’, PhD Thesis in Development Studies (Roskilde: Roskilde University, 1996). —— Escapar aos Dentes do Crocodilo e Cair na Boca do Leopardo: trajectória de Moçambique pós-colonial (1975–1990) (Maputo: Promédia, 2005) (‘Identidades’ 31). Africa Watch, Conspicuous Destruction: War, famine and the reform process in Mozambique (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1992). Aird, Sarah, Efraime Junior, Boia & Errante, Antoinette, Mozambique: the battle continues for former child soldiers (Washington: Youth Advocate Program International Resource Paper, 2001). Alberts, Tom & Eduards, Krister, Drought and Destabilisation: An evaluation of Swedish disaster relief in Mozambique, 1983 to 1985 (Stockholm: SIDA, 1987), Evaluation Report 3. Alden, J. Christopher, ‘The UN and the resolution of conflict in Mozambique’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 33/1 (1995), 103–28.

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228 Bibliography —— Mozambique and the Construction of the New African State: from negotiations to nation building (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001). —— ‘Political violence in Mozambique: past, present and future’, Terrorism and Political Violence VIII/4 (1996), pp. 40–57; the same in Gutteridge, William, Spence, J.E. (eds), Violence in Southern Africa (New York, Frank Cass, 1997) (2nd ed: Routledge, 2013). —— Apartheid’s Last Stand: the rise and fall of the South African security state (Houndmills: Macmillan, 1996). Alden, J. Christopher & Simpson, Mark, ‘Mozambique: a delicate peace’, Journal of Modern African Studies, XXXI/1 (1993), 109–30. Alexander, Jocelyn, ‘Terra e autoridade política no pós-guerra em Moçambique: o caso da província de Manica’, Arquivo: Boletim do Arquivo Histórico de Moçambique, 16 (1994), 5–94. —— ‘The local state in post-war Mozambique: political practice and ideas about authority’, Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, 67/1 (1997), 1–26. [This article is about post-war but includes, drawing on case study material from Manica Province, research and a statement that neither the Frelimo party-state nor the opposition military movement Renamo inculcated a political practice that prepared the way for democratic demands.] Alexander,  Jocelyn, Littlejohn, Garry & McGregor, John (eds) ‘Special issue: Mozambique,’ Journal of Southern African Studies, 24/1 (1998). [This special issue is mainly about the immediate post-war period in Mozambique but is of obvious interest, including for the civil war. Some articles are referenced in this bibliography (João Paulo Borges Coelho, JoAnn McGregor, Carrie Manning, M. Anne Pitcher) but the whole dossier is worthy.] Allen, Tim & Morsink, Hubert, eds, When Refugees Go Home: African experiences (London: James Currey; Trenton (NJ): Africa World Press, 1994). Alusala, Nelson & Dye, Dominique, Reintegration in Mozambique: an unresolved affair (Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies Papers 217, September 2010). Andersson, Hilary, Mozambique: a war against the people (London, Macmillan; New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992). Anouilh, Pierre, ‘Sant’Egidio au Mozambique: de la charité à la fabrique de la paix’, Revue Internationale et Stratégique, 59/3 (2005), 9–20. —— ‘Des pauvres à la paix: aspects de l’action pacificatrice de Sant’Egidio au Mozambique’, Le Fait Missionnaire / Sciences sociales et missions, 17 (2005), 11–40 —— Sant’Egidio et les métamorphoses de la fabrique de la paix: une étude comparée Mozambique-Burundi’, PhD Thesis in political science (Bordeaux: Université de Bordeaux, 2010). Antunes, Diamantino Guapo, A Semente Caiu em Terra Boa: os Missionários da Consolata em Moçambique – 75 anos de evangelização ao serviço da igreja local (1925–2000), Studi e Testi 25 (Rome: Edizioni Missioni Consolata, 2003). —— Martires de Guiúa, Testemunho cristão em Moçambique, 4th ed. (Fátima, Consolata Editora, 2016). [About the massacre of 24 Mozambican catechists on 22 March 1992 at Guiúa.]

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Bibliography 229 Armando, Hassane, Tempos de fúria: memórias do Massacre de Homoíne, 18 de Julho de 1987 (Lisbon: Colibri, 2018). Armon, Jeremy, Hendrickson, Dylan & Vines, Alex, The Mozambican Peace Process in Perspective (London: Accord – An International Review of Peace Initiatives, 3, 1998, reprinted 1999, 2012). [Includes complete text of the General Peace Agreement and other primary documents; see in particular the chapter by Martin Rupiya, ‘Historical context: war and peace in Mozambique’, pp. 10–17.] Arnfred, Signe, ‘Women in Mozambique: gender struggle and gender politics’, Review of African Political Economy, 41 (1988), 5–16. Askin, Steve, ‘Mission to Renamo: the militarization of the religious right’, Journal of Theology for Southern Africa, 69 (1989), 106–16; same title but slightly different content, in Issue: A Journal of Opinion, 18/2 (1990), 29–38; Portuguese edn: ‘Missão a Renamo: a militarização da religião’, Cadernos de História, 8 (Maputo, 1990), 53–72. Austin, Kathi, ‘Invisible crimes: U.S. private intervention in the war in Mozambique’ (Washington DC: Africa Policy Information Center, 1994). Baines, Gary & Vale, Peter, eds, Beyond the Border War: new perspectives on Southern Africa’s late-Cold War conflicts (Pretoria: Unisa Press, 2008). Balch, Jeffrey A., ‘Mozambican resettlement and rehabilitation: towards effective action and support’, paper presented at the International Conference on First Country of Asylum and Development Aid (Lilongwe: Malawi Government and York University, 1992). Barnes, Sam, ‘Humanitarian aid coordination during war and peace in Mozambique, 1985–1995’, Studies on Emergencies and Disaster Relief, Report 7 (Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 1998). Baritussio, Arnaldo, Mozambico: 50 ani di presenza dei Missionari Comboniani (Bologna: Editrice Missionaria Italiana, 1997). Portuguese edn: Moçambique. 50 anos de presença dos Missionarios Combonianos (Roma: Missionari Comboniani, 2015). [See section 4 of the book, with documents related to the civil war.] Behn, Sharon, ‘Threadbare rebellions in Mozambique’, Mozambique Institute Media Comment, 3 (London: Mozambique Institute, 1987). —— ‘The unknown side: Renamo in Mozambique’ (Mozambique Institute Media Comment, 4) (London: Mozambique Institute, 1987). Bertelsen, Bjørn Enge, ‘“The traditional lion is dead”: the ambivalent presence of tradition and the relation between politics and violence in Mozambique’, Lusotopie, 15 (2003), 263–81. —— ‘Sorcery and death squads: transformations of state, sovereignty, and violence in postcolonial Mozambique’, in Crisis of the State: war and social upheaval, eds Bruce Kapferer & Bjørn Enge Bertelsen (New York: Berghahn Books, 2009), pp. 210–40. —— Violent Becomings: state formation and the traditional field in colonial and postcolonial Mozambique, PhD Thesis (Bergen: University of Bergen, 2010). —— Violent Becomings: state formation, sociality, and power in Mozambique (New York/Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2016). [Mainly for Chapter 1, ‘Violence:

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230 Bibliography war, state, and anthropology in Mozambique’, pp. 26–55.] —— ‘War, peace and development in Mozambique: a critical assessment’, paper presented at the ‘Peace building and post-war aid’ workshop, CMI, Bergen (Norway), June 2005. [It is an assessment of Paul Collier et al.’s argument in relation to Mozambique – see mainly Chapters 1 & 2, pp. 1–39. The paper is available on the author’s Academia webpage: www.academia.edu.] Birmingham, David, Frontline Nationalism in Angola & Mozambique (London: James Currey, 1992). Bonga, Violet M., ‘Refugees as a development resource: the case of the Mozambican refugees in Malawi’, paper presented at the International Conference on First Country of Asylum and Development Aid (Lilongwe: Malawi Government and York University, 1992). Borges, Anselmo, ed., D. Manuel Vieira Pinto, Arcebispo de Nampula: Cristianismo, política e mística (Antologia, introdução e notas de Anselmo Borges) (Oporto: Edições ASA, 1992). Bowen, Merle L., The State against the Peasantry: rural struggles in colonial and postcolonial Mozambique (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2000). Bragança, Aquino de, ‘Mozambique: facing a war without end?’ in National Movements and World Peace, ed. Tuomo Melasuo (Aldershot: Avebury, 1990), pp. 85–92. Bragança, Aquino de & Depelchin, Jacques, ‘From the idealization of Frelimo to the understanding of the recent history of Mozambique’, African Journal of Political Economy, I/1 (1986), 162–80. Braxton, D. Beeme, ‘“Milhões de braços, uma só força”: a problematized history of the Mozambican civil war’, MA Thesis in History (Laramie: University of Wyoming, 2013). Brennan, Tom, Refugees from Mozambique: shattered land, fragile asylum (Washington DC: US Committee for Refugees Yearbook, 1986). —— ‘Mozambicans: a people at risk’, World Refugee Survey (1987), pp. 41–7. Brochmann, Grete & Ofstad, Arve, Mozambique: Norwegian assistance in a context of crisis (Fantoft, Norway: Chr. Michelsen Institute, 1990). Brück, Tilman, ‘Macroeconomic effects of the war in Mozambique’ (Oxford: Queen Elizabeth House Working Paper 11, 1997). —— ‘Guerra e desenvolvimento em Moçambique’, Análise Social, 33/149 (1998), 1019–51. —— ‘Determinants of rural poverty in post-war Mozambique: evidence from a household survey and implications for government and donor policy’ (Oxford: Queen Elizabeth House Working Paper 67, 2001). Bunker, Lily, ‘Researching memories of war in rural Mozambique’, Postamble, 7/2 (2012), 1–11, online at: http://postamble.org/wp-content/ uploads/2016/09/MozPhotoEssay.pdf. Cabá, Sérgio Nathú, ‘A guerra na província da Zambézia e o papel do Malawi, 1975–1988’, BA thesis (Maputo: Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, Departamento de História, n.d.). Cabral, Ilundi, ‘Rito y reconciliación en Mozambique: la cultura como media-

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Bibliography 231 dora de la experiencia bélica’, Revista CIDOB d’Afers Internacionals, 87 (Barcelona, 2009), 123–45. Cabrita, João, Mozambique: the tortuous road to democracy (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2000). Cahen, Michel, Mozambique, la Révolution Implosée: études sur douze années d’indépendance (1975–1987) (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1987). —— ‘La crise du nationalisme’, Politique africaine, 29 (1988), 2–14. —— ‘Mozambique: guerre et nationalismes’, Politique africaine, 29 (1988), 2–85. —— ‘Clarence-Smith on Mozambique’, Southern African Review of Books, 2/6 (1989), 26–7. —— ‘Is Renamo a popular movement in Mozambique?’ Southern African Review of Books, 2/12 (1989–90), 20–21. —— Mozambique, Analyse Politique de Conjoncture 1990 (Paris: Indigo Publications, 1990). —— ‘Mozambique 1990: dernière année de guerre civile?’ in Approches Polémologiques: conflits et violences politiques dans le monde au tournant des années quatre-vingt-dix, eds Daniel Hermant & Didier Bigo (Paris: Éditions de la Fondation pour les Études de Défense Nationale, 1991), pp. 122–31. —— ‘“Dhlakama é maningue nice!” Une ex-guérilla atypique dans la campagne électorale’, L’Afrique Politique 1995 (1995), pp. 119–61 ; English edn: ‘“Dhlakama é maningue nice!” An atypical former guerrilla in the Mozambican electoral campaign’, Transformation: Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa, 35 (1998), 1–48. —— ‘Algérie, les leçons du Mozambique’, Politique africaine, 70 (1998), 129–37. —— ‘Nationalism and ethnicities: lessons from Mozambique’, in Ethnicity Kills? the politics of war, peace and ethnicity in sub-saharan Africa, eds Einar Braathen, Morten Bøås & Gjermund Sæther (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000), pp. 163–87. —— Les Bandits: un historien au Mozambique, 1994 (Paris: Publications du Centre culturel Calouste Gulbenkian, 2002); Portuguese edn, Os outros: Um historiador em Moçambique, 1994 (Basel: P. Schlettwein Publishing Foundation, 2003). —— ‘À la recherche de la défaite: notes sur une certaine historiographie de la “revolution” et de la “contre-révolution”, au Mozambique et sans doute ailleurs’, Politique africaine, 112 (2008), 161–81. —— ‘De la guerre civile à la plèbe: la Renamo du Mozambique – trajectoire singulière ou signal d’évolution continentale?’ In Du Social Hors la Loi: l’anthropologie analytique de Christian Geffray, eds Yann Guillaud & Frédéric Létang (Marseilles: IRD Éditions, 2009), pp. 73–88. —— ‘Civil war in Mozambique’ (15 January 2015), H-Luso-Africa/H-Net Reviews in the Humanities & Social Sciences, www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf. php?id=42879. [Review essay of Emerson’s The Battle for Mozambique, qv.] —— ‘Nós Não Somos Bandidos’: a vida diária numa guerrilha de direita: a Renamo na época do Acordo de Incomati (1983–1985), forthcoming. Cahen, Michel & Geffray, Christian, ‘Manifeste et programme de la résistance nationale mozambicaine’, Politique africaine, 30 (1988), 106–11.

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232 Bibliography Cahen, Michel, Meillassoux, Claude, Messiant, Christine & Derluguian, Georgui, ‘Vencer a guerra, pela democracia, para o socialismo’, África, 104 (Lisbon, 1989), 5; English edition: ‘Mozambique: the debate continues: Michel Cahen writes…’, Southern Africa Report (Toronto), 5/5 (1990), 26–7. Cammack, Diana, ‘The “human face” of destabilization: the war in Mozambique’, Review of African Political Economy, 14/40 (1987), 65–75. —— ‘South Africa’s war of destabilisation’, in South African Review 5, eds Glenn Moss & Ingrid Obery (Braamfontein: Ravan Press, 1989), pp. 191–208. Campbell, Horace, ‘Nkomati, before and after: war, reconstruction and dependence in Mozambique’, Journal of African Marxists, 6 (1984), 47–73. —— ‘War, Reconstruction and Dependence in Mozambique’, Third World Quarterly, 6/4 (1984), 839–67. Casal, Adolfo Yãnez, ‘A violência em África: da guerra primitiva à guerra civil em Moçambique – a violência como facto social total’, Actas do Colóquio Construção e Ensino da História de África (Lisbon: Grupo de Trabalho do Ministério da Educação para as Comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses, 1995), pp. 273–92. Castellari, Graciano, ‘Deboli tra Deboli’: memórias de um missionário em Moçambique, 1964–2005 (Porto: Centro de estudos africanos da Universidade do Porto, 2015) (edited by Patricia Teixeira Santos & Nuno de Pinho Falcão). Chan, Stephen, ed., Exporting Apartheid: foreign policies in southern Africa, 1978– 1988 (London: Macmillan, 1990). Chan, Stephen & Venâncio, Moisés, eds, War and Peace in Mozambique (London: Macmillan, 1998). [Mainly for Chapters 1 & 2: ‘War and gropings towards peace’, pp. 1–33, and ‘Roman talks’, pp. 34–46.] Chichava, Sérgio, Le ‘Vieux Mozambique’: l’identité politique de la Zambézie, PhD Thesis in political sciences (Bordeaux: Université de Bordeaux, 2007). —— ‘“They can kill us but we won’t go to the communal villages!” Peasants and the policy of “socialisation of the countryside” in Zambezia’, Kronos (Cape Town), 39/1 (2013), 112–30. Chigudu, Hope B., ‘The socio-economic situation of Mozambican refugee women and children living in camps in Zimbabwe’, unpublished report (Harare: Danish Refugee Council, 1990). Chinchilla, Fernando A., Paix Soutenable: rapports de force et affaiblissement des extrémistes en Angola, en Colombie, au Salvador et au Mozambique de 1989 à 1999, PhD Thesis (Montréal: Université de Montréal, 2008). Chingono, Mark, ‘Mulheres, guerra e transformação na província de Manica: uma herança ambígua’, Arquivo: Boletim do Arquivo Histórico de Moçambique, 16 (1994), 95–134. —— The State, Violence and Development: The political economy of war in Mozambique, 1975–1992 (Aldershot: Avebury, 1996). —— ‘War and economic change, and development in Manica Province, 1982–1992’, in War and Underdevelopment, Vol. 2. Country Experiences, eds Frances Stewart & Valpy Fitzgerald (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 89–118. —— ‘Women, war and peace in Mozambique: the case of Manica Province’,

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Bibliography 233 African Journal on Conflict Resolution, 15/1 (2015), 107–30. Chol, Anthony Ayok, ‘Mozambican refugees in Tanzania: yesterday and today’, paper for the Silver Jubilee Conference (Cambridge, UK: African Studies Association, 1988). —— ‘The endless tale of the Mozambican refugees’, paper presented at the International Conference on First Country of Asylum and Development Aid (Lilongwe: Malawi Government and York University, 1992). Ciment, James, Angola and Mozambique: postcolonial wars in southern Africa (New York: Facts on File, 1997). Clarence-Smith, Gervase, ‘The roots of the Mozambican counter-revolution’, Southern African Review of Books (April/May 1989), 7–10. Cliff, Julie, L., ‘The war on women in Mozambique: health consequences of South African destabilization economic crisis and structural readjustment’, in Women and Health in Africa, ed. Meredith Turshen (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1991). —— ‘Destabilisation, economic adjustment and the impact on women’, Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity, 14 (1992), 25–38. Cliff, Julie & Noormahomed, Abdul Razak, ‘Health as a target: South Africa’s destabilization of Mozambique’, Social Science and Medicine, 27/7 (1988), 717–22. —— ‘The impact of war on children’s health in Mozambique’, Social Science and Medicine, 36/7 (1993), 843–8. Cline, Sibyl W., RENAMO: anti-communist insurgents in Mozambique – the fight goes on (Washington DC: United States Global Strategy Council, 1989). Coelho, João Paulo Borges, Protected Villages and Communal Villages in the Mozambican Province of Tete (1968–1982): a history of state resettlement policies, development and war, PhD Thesis (Bradford: University of Bradford, 1993). —— ‘State resettlement policies in post-colonial rural Mozambique: the impact of the communal village programme on Tete Province, 1977–82’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 24/1 (1998), 61–92. —— ‘Da violência colonial ordenada à ordem pós-colonial violenta: sobre um legado das guerras coloniais nas ex-colónias portuguesas’, Lusotopie, 10 (2003), 175–95. —— ‘“Quantitative Literature” and the interpretation of the armed conflict in Mozambique (1976–1992)’, in Pobreza e paz nos PALOP, eds Cristina Rodrigues Udelsmann & Ana Bénard Costa (Lisbon: Sextante Editora, 2009), pp. 88–106. Coelho, João Paulo Borges & Cabá, Sérgio Nathú, eds, Elementos para a História Social da Guerra em Moçambique, 1978–1992, (Maputo: Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, 2003). Unpublished book, includes: 1. João Paulo Borges Coelho & Sérgio Nathú Cabá, ‘Introdução’; 2. João Paulo Borges Coelho, ‘A guerra e o território’; 3. Boaventura Massaiete, ‘Chicualacuala: Moçambique e os seus vizinhos’; 4. Sérgio Nathú Cabá, ‘A guerra na Zambézia e as relações fronteiriças, 1975–1988’; 5. Gedeão do Rosário, ‘A guerra de desestabilização no corredor de Nacala’; 6. João Graziano Pereira, ‘Comunidades locais

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234 Bibliography e a guerra: estudo de caso do Norte de Sofala, 1977–1992’; 7. Raúl Mourinho Kuyeri, ‘Forças de insurgência e contra-insurgência em Tete: o caso de Boroma-Marara, 1975–1992’; 8. Ana Maria Caetano, ‘A guerra e o funcionamento da Renamo: estudo de caso do Distrito de Morrumbene, Inhambane’; 9. Ronoldo Manhique, ‘O impacto da guerra na Matola-Rio’; 10. Viriato Alberto Tamele, ‘O Niassa: entre a guerra e o subdesenvolvimento’; 11. Renato Augusto Pereira, ‘A guerra e a assistência sanitária nas aldeias comunais, 1978–1987: o caso do distrito da Mutarara’; 12.  Guilherme Mbilana, ‘Algumas notas sobre o impacto da guerra civil na escola agrária de Bilibiza’; 13. Orlando Nhancale, ‘O fenómeno da guerra e a visão cosmológica: o caso Mungoyi, Moçambique, ca. 1982–1992’; 14. Amélia Neves de Souto, ‘Guerra civil / guerra de desestabilização: uma bibliografia’. Coelho, João Paulo Borges & Vines, Alex, Pilot Study on Demobilization and Re-integration of ex-Combatants in Mozambique (Oxford: University of Oxford, Queen Elizabeth House, Refugee Study Programme, 1994). Conceição, António Rafael da, Entre o Mar e a Terra: situações identitárias do norte de Moçambique (Maputo: Promedia, 2006). [About the high level of hostility towards Frelimo within coastal communities in the north of Mozambique.] Correia, Jorge, Renamo. Resistência Nacional Moçambicana (Lisbon[?]: Forum Moçambicano, 2000 [1989]). Cramer, Christopher M., A Luta Continua? a contribution to the political economy of war in Angola and Mozambique, PhD Thesis (Cambridge: University of Cambridge, 1995). Davies, Robert, South African Strategy towards Mozambique in the Post-Nkomati Period: a critical analysis of effects and implications (Uppsala: Scandinavian Institute of African Affairs, 1985) (Research Report, 73). —— ‘South African strategy towards Mozambique since Nkomati’, Transformation, 3 (1987), 4–30. —— ‘The SADF’s covert war against Mozambique’, in War and Society: the militarization of South Africa, eds Jacklyn Cock & Laurie Nathan (Cape Town: David Philip, 1989). Darch, Colin, ‘Are there warlords in provincial Mozambique? Questions of the social base of MNR banditry’, Review of African Political Economy, 45/46 (1989), 34–49. —— ‘A guerra e as mudanças sociais recentes em Moçambique (1986–1992): cenários para o futuro’, Estudos Afro-Asiáticos, 23 (1999), 213–27. Davies, Robert & Dan, O’Meara, ‘Total strategy in southern Africa: an analysis of South African regional policy since 1978’, in Stephen Chan, ed., Exporting Apartheid: foreign policies in southern Africa, 1978–1988 (London: Macmillan, 1990). de Zeeuw, Jeroen, From Soldiers to Politicians: transforming rebel movements after civil war (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2008). Derluguian, Georgi, ‘Les têtes du monstre: du climat social de la violence armée au Mozambique’, L’Année Africaine 1989 (Bordeaux: CEAN/Pedone, 1990), pp. 89–128. —— ‘Social decomposition and armed violence in post-colonial Mozambique’,

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Bibliography 235 Review. A Journal of the Fernand Braudel Center, 13/4 (1990), 439–62. —— Social Decomposition and Armed Violence in Postcolonial Mozambique (Binghamton, NY: Fernand Braudel Center, 1990). —— ‘Mozambique: a tight knot of problems’, International Affairs (March 1990), 103–111. Dhlakama, Afonso, The Dhlakama Papers (the Renamo constitution expounded and the Frelimo charter appraised (Washington DC, 1991). [Document disseminated by lobbyist Bruce Fein, Washington DC.] —— Negotiating a Peaceful Transition to a Constitutional Republic in Mozambique: an elaboration of the diplomatic stance of Renamo drawn from honourable precedents of the United Nations (Washington, 1991). [Document disseminated by lobbyist Bruce Fein, Washington DC.] Dias, João Ferro & Guedes, Rodrigo Carlos, Memórias de um Combatente: e a verdade sobre a fundação da Resistência Nacional Moçambicana (Loulé: ed. Authores/Gráfica Comercial Arnaldo Matos Pereira), 2008). Diederichsen, Telse & Ulf Engel, ‘Der krieg in Mosambik’, in Die Kriege 1985 bis 1990: Analyse ihrer Ursachen, ed. Jens Siegelberg (Munster/Hamburg: LIT Verlag, 1991), pp.127–39. Dinerman, Alice, ‘In search of Mozambique: the imaginings of Christian Geffray in La Cause des Armes au Mozambique: anthropologie d’une guerre civile’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 20/4 (1994), 569–86. —— ‘O surgimento dos antigos Régulos como “chefes de produção” na província de Nampula (1975/87)’, Estudos Moçambicanos, 17 (1998), 95–256. —— ‘From “abaixo” to “chiefs of production”: agrarian change in Nampula Province, Mozambique, 1975–87’, Journal of Peasant Studies, 28/2 (2001), 1–82. —— Revolution, Counter-revolution and Revisionism in Post-Colonial Africa: the case of Mozambique, 1975–1994 (Abingdon: Routledge, 2006). —— ‘Regarding totalities and escape hatches in Mozambican politics and Mozambican studies’, Politique africaine, 113 (2009), 187–210. Documentos de Gorongosa (extractos) / Gorongosa Documents (Extracts) (Maputo, 1985), 108 folhas (216 p.), 2nd edn. Dodge, Cole P. & Raundalen, Magne, Reaching Children in War: Sudan, Uganda and Mozambique (Bergen: Sigma Forlag, 1991). Domingues, Patrick, ‘A database on the Mozambican civil war’, Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy, 17/1 (2011), 1554–97. —— Guerre Civile et Capital Humain: le cas du Mozambique, PhD Thesis in economics (Paris: Université de Paris 1, 2011). —— ‘Health and conflict: evidence from Mozambique’, in Ethnic Conflict, Civil War and Cost of Conflict, ed. Raul Caruso (Bingley, UK: Emerald, 2011), pp. 141–69. Domingues, Patrick & Barre, Thomas, ‘The health consequences of the Mozambican civil war: an anthropometric approach’, Economic Development and Cultural Change, 61/4 (2013), 755–88. Duffield, Mark, Development, Security and Unending War: governing the world of peoples (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2007). [Mainly for Chapter 4, ‘Mozam-

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236 Bibliography bique, governmentalization and non-material development’, pp. 82–110.] Ebata, Joanne Michi, ‘The Transition from War to Peace: politics, political space and the peace process industry in Mozambique, 1992–1995’, PhD Thesis (London: London School of Economics and Political Science, 1999). Ecumenical Documentation and Information Centre, War and Peace in Southern Africa: Namibia and Mozambique in the frontline (Harare: EDIC, 1989). Efraime Júnior, Boia & Errante, Antoinette, ‘Rebuilding hope on Josina Machel Island: towards a culturally mediated model of psychotherapeutic intervention’, International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, 9/3 (2012), 187–211; original German edn: ‘Kindersoldaten und traumata: der fall Mosambik’, Kindheit in Armut Weltweit, eds Karin Holm & Uwe Schulz (Leverkusen: Leske & Budrich, 2002). Egan, Erica Ann, Socialism, the State and Aid-Effectiveness: A Case Study of the Emergency Program in Zambezia Province, Mozambique 1988–1992 (Norwich: University of East Anglia, 1994). Egerö, Bertil, Mozambique: a dream undone – the political economy of democracy, 1975–1984 (Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 1990); Portuguese edn: Moçambique: os primeiros dez anos de construção da democracia (Maputo: Arquivo Histórico de Moçambique, 1992). Emerson, Stephen A., The Battle for Mozambique: The Frelimo–Renamo struggle, 1977–1992 (Solihull, UK: Helion & Co., 2014). Englund, Harri, From War to Peace on the Mozambique-Malawi Borderland (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press for the International African Institute, 2002). —— ‘Conflict in context: political violence and anthropological puzzles’, Violence and Belonging: The quest for identity in post-colonial Africa, ed. Vigdis Broch-Due (Oxford: Routledge, 2005), pp. 60–75. Errante, Antoinette, ‘Peace work as grief work in Mozambique and South Africa: post-conflict communities as a context for child and youth socialization’, Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 5/3 (1999), 261–79. Fauvet, Paul, ‘Roots of counter-revolution: the Mozambican National Resistance’, Review of African Political Economy, 29 (1984), 108–21. Fauvet, Paul & Gomes, Alves, ‘South Africa’s marionettes of destabilization’, Ufahamu: A Journal of African Studies, 12/1 (1982), 8–18. Finnegan, William, A Complicated War: the harrowing of Mozambique (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992). Florencio, Fernando, ‘Christian Geffray e a antropologia da guerra: ainda propósito de La Cause des Armes au Mozambique’, Etnográfica, 4/2 (2002), 347–64. —— Ao Encontro dos Mambos: autoridades tradicionais vaNdau e estado em Moçambique (Lisbon: Instituto de Ciências Sociais da Universidade de Lisboa, 2005). Flower, Ken, Serving Secretly: an intelligence chief on record, Rhodesia into Zimbabwe 1964–1981 (London: John Murray, 1987). French, Paul, Shadows of a Forgotten Past: to the edge with the Rhodesian SAS and Selous Scouts (Solihull, UK: Helion & Co., 2012). [Chapter 6 is about the Mozambique National Resistance.]

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Bibliography 237 Gárate Castro, Luis Alberto, ‘La conflictividad social en la pacificación de Mozambique’, Nova Africa (Barcelona), 13 (2003), 31–41. Garenne Michel, Coninx, Rudi & Dupuy, Chantal, Effets de la Guerre Civile au Centre-Mozambique et Évaluation d’une Intervention de la Croix Rouge (Paris: CEPED, 1996), Les Dossiers du CEPED 38. Geffray, Christian, La Cause des Armes au Mozambique: anthropologie d’une guerre civile (Paris: Karthala-CREDU, 1990) ; Portuguese edn: A Causa das Armas: antropologia da guerra contemporânea em Moçambique. (Porto: Afrontamento, 1991). —— ‘Vivre et manger en guerre au Mozambique’, in Les Spectres de Malthus: déséquilibres alimentaires, déséquilibres démographiques, eds Francis Gendreau, Claude Meillassoux. Bernard Schlemmer & Martin Verlet (Paris: ORSTOM, 1991), pp. 297–313. —— ‘Fragments d’un discours du pouvoir (1975–1985): du bon usage d’une méconnaissance scientifique’, Politique africaine, 29 (1998), 2–13. Geffray, Christian & Pederson, Mogens, ‘Nampula en guerre’, Politique africaine, 29 (1998), 28–40; Portuguese edn: ‘Sobre a guerra na província de Nampula: elementos de análise e hipóteses sobre as determinações e consequências socio-económicas locais’, Revista Internacional de Estudos Áfricanos, 4–5 (1987 [1986]), 303–18. Gersony, Robert, ‘Summary of Mozambican refugee accounts of principally conflict-related experience in Mozambique’, report submitted to Ambassador Jonathan Moore, Director, Bureau for Refugee Programs and Dr. Chester A. Crocker, Assistant Secretary of African Affairs (Washington DC: Department of State, Bureau for Refugee Programs, 1988). Gifford, Paul, The New Crusaders: Christianity and the new right in southern Africa (London: Pluto Press, 1991 [1988]). Goodison Paul & Levin, Richard, The Nkomati Accord: the illusion of peace in southern Africa (Liverpool: University of Liverpool, Department of Political Theory and Institutions, 1984). Graham, Matthew, ‘Cold war in southern Africa’, Africa Spectrum, 45/1 (2010), 131–39 (review essay). Granjo, Paulo, ‘Trauma e limpeza ritual de veteranos em Moçambique’, Cadernos de Estudos Africanos, 21 (2011), 34–69. Guerra, João Paulo, Os ‘Flechas’ Atacam de Novo (Lisbon: Editorial Caminho, 1988). Guillaud, Yann & Létang, Frédéric, eds, Du Social hors la loi: l’anthropologie analytique de Christian Geffray (Marseilles: IRD Éditions, 2009). Hall, Margaret, ‘The Mozambican National Resistance Movement (RENAMO): a study in the destruction of an African country’, Africa: The Journal of the International African Institute, 60/1 (1990), 39–68. Hall, Margaret & Young, Tom, Confronting Leviathan: Mozambique since independence (Athens OH: Ohio University Press, 1997). Hammond, Peter, In the Killing Fields of Mozambique (Cape Town: Frontline Fellowship, 1998). Hanlon, Joseph, Beggar Your Neighbours: apartheid power in southern Africa (London: James Currey, 1986).

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238 Bibliography —— Apartheid’s Second Front: South Africa’s war against its neighbours (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1986). —— The Revolution under Fire (London: Zed Books, 1990). —— Mozambique: who calls the shots? (London: James Currey, 1991). Harper-Ronald, Jake, Sunday, Bloody Sunday: a soldier’s war in Northern Ireland, Rhodesia, Mozambique and Iraq (Johannesburg: Galago Publishing Co, 2009). [See in particular the pages about the private Lomaco militia in Chilembene, in Gaza Province.] Harries, Patrick, ‘Mozambique’s long war’, Social Dynamics, 15/1 (1989), 122–31 (review essay). Harrison, Graham, ‘Marketing legitimacy in rural Mozambique: the case of Mecufi district, northern Mozambique’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 36/4 (1998), 569–91. —— The Politics of Democratization in Rural Mozambique: grassroots governance in Mecufi (Lampeter, UK and New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 2000). Haugereid, Lena, ‘Fred i Mosambik: en analyse av hvilke faktorer som førte frem til at det ble fredsavtale mellom Frelimo og Renamo i 1992’, MA Thesis (Oslo University, 1998). Hedges, David, ‘Apontamento sobre as relações entre Malawi e Moçambique, 1961–1987’, Cadernos de História, 6 (1987), 5–28. —— ‘Notes on Malawi-Mozambique Relations, 1961–1987’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 15/4 (1989), 617–44. Hegertun, Nikolai, ‘Faith-based mediation? Sant’ Egidio’s peace efforts in Mozambique and Algeria’, MA Thesis in Peace & Conflict Studies (Oslo: University of Oslo, 2010). Hein, Ellie, Mozambique: beyond the shadow (Dallas: Christ for the Nations, 2000). Hein, Rodney & Hein Ellie, Mozambique: the cross and the crown (Dallas: Christ for the Nations, 1989). Hjermann, Reidar Kvaal, ‘Prospects for psychosocial rehabilitation of children in Mozambique’, MA Thesis in psychology (Turku, Finland: Åbo Akademi University, 1996). Hoile, David, Mozambique: a nation in crisis (London: The Claridge Press, 1989). —— Mozambique: propaganda, myth and the reality (London: The Mozambique Institute, 1991). —— Mozambique, Resistance and Freedom: a case for reassessment (London: The Mozambique Institute, 1994). —— ed., Mozambique 1962–1993: a political chronology (London: The Mozambican Institute, 1994). Honwana, Alcinda M., ‘Healing for peace: traditional healers and post-war reconstruction in southern Mozambique’, Journal of Peace Psychology, 3 (1997), 293–305. —— ‘Negotiating post-war identities: child soldiers in Mozambique and Angola’, Codesria Bulletin (Dakar), 1/2 (1999), 4–13. —— ‘Untold war stories: young women and war in Mozambique’, African Gender Institute Newsletter, 6 (May 2000), 7–9.

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Bibliography 241 bika v Novoe i Noveishee vremia (The History of Mozambique in Modern and Contemporary Periods)]. Knight, Derrick, Mozambique Caught in the Trap (London: Christian Aid, 1988). Leão, Ana, ‘A luta continua: children and youth in Mozambique’s struggles’, in ed. Angela McIntyre, Invisible Stakeholders: children and war in Africa (Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies, 2005), pp. 31–44 (Chapter 2). —— Different Opportunities, Different Outcomes: civil war and  rebel groups in Angola and Mozambique (Bonn: Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik, 2007, Discussion Paper 24). Legrand, Jean Claude, ‘Logique de guerre et dynamiques de la violence en Zambézie, 1976–1991’, Politique africaine, 50 (1993), 88–104. —— ‘Passé et présent dans la guerre du Mozambique: les enlèvements pratiqués par la Renamo’, Lusotopie 2 (Paris: Karthala, 1995), pp. 137–50. Legrand, Jean Claude & Weissman, Fabrice, ‘Les enfants soldats et usages de la violence au Mozambique’, Cultures & Conflits, 18 (1995), 165–80. Legum, Colin, ‘The counter revolutionaries in southern Africa: the challenge of the Mozambique National Resistance’, Third World Reports (March 1983), pp. 1–22. —— Battlefronts of Southern Africa (New York: Africana, 1988). Lemia, Rosário Jaime, ‘Pós-independência, guerra e reassentamento da população no Distrito de Namacurra (1975–1998/9)’, BA Thesis (Maputo: Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, Departamento de História, 2001). Lerma, Francisco, Mártires do Guiúa de 22.3.92 (Torino: Arti Grafiche San Rocco, 2001). Le Scour, Jean-Pierre, ‘The snake of fire: memorandum on the electric fence between Mozambique and South Africa’ (Johannesburg: South African Catholic Bishops’ Conference, Bureau for Refugees, 1989). —— Ao lado do Rio Komati, preface by Maria de Jesus Barroso Soares (Coimbra: Pro Dignitate – Fundação dos Direitos Humanos, 2011). Longo, Michael & Lust, Ellen, ‘The case for peace before disarmament’, Survival, 4/51 (2009), 1–15. Lopes, José Mota, ‘The MNR: opponents or bandits?’, Africa Report, 31/1 (1986), 67–73. Lourenço, Vítor Alexandre, ‘Estado(s) e autoridades tradicionais em Moçambique: análise de um processo de transformação política’ (Lisbon: Centro de estudos africanos, 2005, Ocasional Paper Series, 14). [Mainly for Chapter 7, ‘O papel das autoridades tradicionais na génese da ‘guerra civil’ em Moçambique’, pp. 36–44.] Lubkemann, Stephen, Situating Wartime Migration in Central Mozambique: gendered social struggle and the transnationalization of polygyny, PhD Thesis (Providence, RI: Brown University, 2000). —— ‘Migratory coping in wartime Mozambique: an anthropology of violence and displacement in “fragmented wars”’, Journal of Peace Research, 42/4 (2005), 493–508. —— Culture in Chaos: an anthropology of the social condition in war (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008).

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242 Bibliography Luiza, José, ed., Manuel Vieira Pinto: o visionário de Nampula (Maputo: Paulinas, 2016). Machava, Benedito Luís, ‘State discourse on internal security and the politics of punishment in post-independence Mozambique (1975–1983)’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 37/3 (2011), 593–609. Magaia, Lina, Dumba Nengue: run for your life – peasant tales of tragedy in Mozambique (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1988). Magode, José, Pouvoir et réseaux sociaux au Mozambique: appartenances, interactivité du social et du politique: 1933–1994 (Saint-Denis, France: Connaissances et savoirs, 2006). [Published version of a PhD in Political Sciences defended in 2003 in Lyon 2 University; several chapters include the state-building process at the time of the civil war and the Peace Agreement.] Mahumane, Jonas. ‘Crenças religiosas na guerra entre a Frelimo e a Renamo: o caso das igrejas zione em Homoíne, 1980–1994’, BA Thesis in history (Maputo: Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, 2003). Maier, Karl, ‘The battle for Zambézia’, Africa Report, 34/2 (1989), 13–16. —— ‘A Program for Peace’, Africa Report, 34/5, 1989, 55–8. Malache, Adriano, Paulino Macaringue & João Paulo Borges Coelho, ‘Profound transformations and regional conflagrations: the history of Mozambique’s armed forces from 1975–2005’, in Evolutions & Revolutions: a contemporary history of militaries in southern Africa, ed. Martin Rupyia (Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies, 2005), pp. 155–98 (Chapter 7). Manguezi, Nadja, Amizade traída e recuperada, o ANC em Moçambique (1976– 1990) (Maputo: Promedia, 2007). —— The Maputo Connection: ANC life in the world of Frelimo (Johannesburg: Jacana Media, 2010). Manjate, Joaquim Marcos, Análise Estratégica da Liderança na Guerra em Moçambique: batalha da Zambézia (1986–1992) (Maputo: Diname, 2013). Manning, Carrie L., ‘Constructing opposition in Mozambique: Renamo as political party’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 24/1 (1998), 161–89. —— The Politics of Peace in Mozambique: post-conflict democratization, 1992– 2000 (Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2002. [About the war period, see Chapter 3: ‘Backdrop to civil war in Mozambique’ and Chapter 4: ‘Renamo from guerrilla movement to political party: building the core’.] Marangoni, Pedro, A Opção Pela Espada: um brasileiro na linha de frente, em defesa do Ocidente (author’s ed., 2004). Marchal, Roland & Messiant, Christine, Les Chemins de la Guerre et de la Paix: fins de conflits en Afrique orientale et australe (Paris: Karthala, 1997). Mário, Tomás Vieira, Negociações de Paz de Moçambique: crónica dos dias de Roma (Maputo: Instituto Superior de Relações Internacionais, Centro de Estudos Estratégicos Internacionais, 2004). Massaiete, Boaventura, Chicualacuala: A guerra na fronteira, 1975–1992, BA Thesis (Maputo: Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, 1999). McCreight, Robert E. & Weigert, Stephen L., ‘Up in smoke: political and chemical weapons use allegations during Mozambique civil war’, International Politics, 38 (2001), 253–72.

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Bibliography 243 McGregor, JoAnn, ‘People without fathers: Mozambicans in Swaziland 1988– 1993’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 20/4 (1994), 545–67. —— ‘Violence and social change in a border economy: war in the Maputo hinterland, 1984–92’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 24/1 (1998), 37–60. Meillassoux, Claude & Verschuur, Christine, ‘Entre l’État et les “bandits” armés par l’Afrique du Sud: les paysans ignorés du Mozambique’, Le Monde Diplomatique, 379 (October 1985), 14–15. Mendes, João A., A Nossa Situação, o Nosso Futuro e o Multipartidarismo (Maputo: Tempográfica, 1994). [Includes historical analysis of Renamo.] Messiant, Christine, ‘La paix au Mozambique: un succès de l’Onu’, in Les Chemins de la Guerre et de la Paix: fins de conflits en Afrique orientale et australe, eds Roland Marchal & Christiane Messiant (Paris: Karthala, 1997), pp. 49–105. Metz, Steven, ‘The Mozambique National Resistance and South African foreign policy’, African Affairs, 85/341 (1986), 491–507. Meyns, Peter, Konflikt und Entwicklung im Südlichen Afrika (Opladen, Germany: Leske & Budrich, 1999). Middleton, Nick, Kalashnikovs and Zombie Cucumbers: travels in Mozambique (London: Phoenix, 1994). Minter, William, ‘The Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo) as described by ex-participants’, research report submitted to Ford Foundation and Swedish International Development Agency (Chicago, Amsterdam: Holland Committee on Southern Africa, 1989). —— ‘Inside Renamo: as described by ex-participants’, Transformation: Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa, 10 (1989), 1–27; also published in Development Dialogue, 1 (1989), 89–132. —— Apartheid’s Contras: an inquiry into the roots of war in Angola and Mozambique (London: Zed Books, 1994). Mlambo, Norman, ‘Raids on Gorongossa: Zimbabwe’s military involvement in Mozambique 1982–1992’, Working Paper 3, SACDI Defence Digest (Johannesburg: Southern African Centre for Defence Information, 1999). Moorcraft, Paul L. ‘Mozambique’s long civil war – RENAMO, puppets or patriots?’ International Defense Review, 20 (1987), 1313–16. Morgan, Glenda, ‘Violence in Mozambique: towards an understanding of Renamo’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 28/4 (1990), 603–19. Morier-Genoud, Éric, ‘Sant’ Egidio et la paix: interviews de Don Matteo Zuppi & Ricardo Cannelli’, Le Fait Missionnaire: Social Sciences & missions, 13 (2003), 119–45. Morier-Genoud, Éric & Anouilh, Pierre, ‘Revolution, war and democracy: the Catholic Church in Mozambique’, in Religion and Politics in a Global Society: comparative perspectives from the Portuguese-speaking world, eds Paul Manuel, Alynna Lyon & Clyde Wilcox (Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2013), pp. 185–203. Morozzo della Rocca, Roberto, Mozambico: Dalla guerra alla pace – storia di una mediazione insolita (Cinisello Balsamo, Italy: San Paolo Edizioni, 1994, 1st edn); German edn: Mosambik: vom krieg zum frieden – geschichte einer unge-

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244 Bibliography wöhnlichen vermittlung (Hamburg: Verl. Dienste in Übersee, 1997); French edn: Mozambique de la Guerre à la Paix: histoire d’une médiation insolite (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1998); English edn: Mozambique: achieving peace in Africa (Washington DC: Georgetown University, 2003). —— Mozambico: una pace per l’Africa (Milan: Leonardo International, 2002). Morozzo della Rocca, Roberto & Riccardi, Luca, ‘The peace process in Mozambique’, in Community and the State in Lusophone Africa, eds Malyn D.D. Newitt, Patrick Chabal & Norrie Macqueen (London: King’s College, 2003), pp. 127–36. Mozambique History Net, www.mozambiquehistory.net/contact_details.php. [Site established in April 2008 by Colin Darch, former documentalist and historian at the Centro de Estudos Africanos at the Universidade Eduardo Mondlane from 1979 to 1987, now resident in Cape Town. Within files, see in particular: ‘The conflict with Renamo’ (dossier MZ 0020), ‘Constantino Reis’ (MZ 0532), ‘Evo Fernandes’ (MZ 0015), ‘The massacre at Homoíne’ (MZ 0178), ‘Hunger and famine’ (MZ 0166), ‘The peace process in Mozambique’ (MZ 0772); the whole site is useful for the history of the civil war, mainly viewed from Frelimo’s side.] Mozambique News Agency, ‘The MNR from within: an interview by the Mozambique News Agency, with Constantino Reis, a defector from the MNR who is now in Maputo’ (Maputo, Agência de Informações de Moçambique, supplement to AIM Bulletin 102, December 1984). Available at: www. mozambiquehistory.net/people/constantino_reis/19841200_mnr_from_ within.pdf. Mubai, Marlino Eugenio, ‘A seca e a ajuda humanitária com factores para o fim da guerra em Moçambique. o caso do distrito de Zavala, 1982–1992’, BA Thesis (Maputo: University Eduardo Mondlane, 2001). —— Making war on Village and Forest: Southern Mozambique during the sixteen year conflict 1976–1992, PhD Thesis in History (Iowa City: University of Iowa, 2015). Muianga, Elisa, ‘Mulheres e guerra: reintegração social das mulheres regressadas das “zonas da Renamo” no distrito de Mandlakazi’, Arquivo: Revista do Arquivo Histórico de Moçambique, 18 (1995), 47–92. Müller-Blattau, Beate, Julieta und die Stille des Todes: Mosambik – vom krieg gegen die kinder (Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1990). Murray, Nancy. ‘Mozambique: the revolution and the banditry – an interview with Lina Magaia’, Race and Class, 30/4 (1989), 21–9. Mussa, Carlos, Les conflits au Mozambique: la longue marche vers la liberté, 1930– 1992, PhD Thesis in Modern History (Poitiers: Université de Poitiers, 2006). [See third part, ‘L’échec du socialisme au Mozambique, 1977–1992’ which includes the civil war.] Myers, Gregory W., Land Tenure Issues in Post-War Mozambique: constraints and conflicts (Madison: University of Wisconsin-Madison Land Tenure Center, 1993). Nemuire, Júlio, ‘Demobilized soldiers in Mozambique’, in Demobilized Soldiers Speak: Reintegration and Reconciliation in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Mozam-

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Bibliography 249 Soares, Maria de Jesus Barroso, Viagem a Moçambique (Coimbra: Pro Dignitate, 2009). [Documents on the action of Maria Barroso –  Mário Soares’ wife – for peace in Mozambique; book has forewords by cardinal archbishop Alexandre dos Santos (Maputo), former Mozambique president Joaquim Chissano, and Renamo’s President Afonso Dhlakama.] Söderberg Kovacs, Mimmi, From Rebellion to Politics: the transformation of rebel groups to political parties in civil war peace processes, PhD Thesis (Uppsala: Uppsala University, 2007). [Deals with El Salvador, Mozambique, Sierra Leone and Cambodia.] —— ‘From rebel groups to political parties: Renamo in Mozambique and RUF in Sierra Leone’, in From Intra-State War to Durable Peace: conflict and its resolution in Africa after the cold war, ed. Thomas Ohlson (Leiden: Republic of Letters Publishing, 2012), pp. 209–37. Steudtner, Peter, The Social Integration of Child Soldiers: concepts and experiences from Mozambique (Berlin: Berghof Research Center, 2000); German edn: Die soziale Eingliederung von Kindersoldaten: konzepte und erfahrungen aus Mosambik (Berlin: Berghof Research Center for Constructive Conflict Management, 2001, Berghof Report 6). Stewart, Frances & Wilson, Ken, ‘Conflict and development: what kind of policies can reduce the damaging impact of war?’, in A World Divided: militarism and development after the cold war, eds Geoff Tansey, Kathleen Tansey, Paul Rogers (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994), pp. 26–43. [See in particular, pp. 39–43, section ‘A case study: Mozambique’.] Stiff, Peter, The Silent War: South African Recce Operations 1969–1994 (Alberton: Galago, 1999). Strachan, Beth, ed., Mozambique: The Quest for Peace: the political, social and economic context 1980–1994 – a selected and annotated bibliography (Johannesburg: The South African Institute of International Affairs, 1996, Bibliographical Series, 31). Succato, Rino, La Deviazione di Rotta: memorie dal Mozambico (1979–1994) (Torino: L’Harmattan Italia, 2006). Sumich, Jason & Honwana, João, ‘Strong party, weak state? Frelimo and state survival through the Mozambican civil war – an analytical narrative on state-making’, Crisis States Working Paper 2 (London: London School of Economics, 2007). Synge, Richard, Mozambique: UN peacekeeping in action, 1992–94 (Washington, DC: Institute of Peace, 1997). Taju, Gulamo, ‘Renamo: os factos que conhecemos’, Cadernos de História, 7 (Maputo, Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, 1988), 5–44. Tembe, Joel das Neves, ‘Moçambique e as sanções internacionais contra a Rodésia do Sul, 1965–1980’, Cadernos de História de Moçambique 1 (Maputo: Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, 2012), 42–52. Thaler, Kai M., ‘Ideology and violence in civil wars: theory and evidence from Mozambique and Angola’, Civil Wars, 14/4 (2012), 546–67. Thomashausen, Andre E.A.M., ‘The National Resistance of Mozambique’, Africa Insight, 13/2 (1983), 125–9.

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250 Bibliography —— ‘The Mozambique National Resistance’, in Weerstandsbewegings in Suider-Afrika, ed. Christiaan Jacobus Maritz (Pochefstroom: Departement Sentrale Publikasies, Potchefstroomse Universiteit vir Christelike Hoër Onderwys, 1987), pp. 29–66. —— ‘Politics of identity and exclusion in Africa: Mozambique, a case study’, in report of conference ‘Politics of Identity and Exclusion in Africa: from violent confrontation to peaceful cooperation’, 25–26 July, Senate Hall, University of Pretoria (Johannesburg: Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, 2001), pp. 97–109. Thomaz, Omar Ribeiro, ‘Entre inimigos e traidores, suspeitas e acusações no processo de formação nacional no sul de Moçambique’, Travessias: revista de ciências sociais e humanas em língua Portuguesa, 4/5 (Lisbon, 2004), 269–94. —— ‘Campos, aparato repressivo e construção social do inimigo, notas sobre a cooperação da RDA em Moçambique’, Timor-Leste por Trás do Palco: cooperação internacional e a dialética da formação do estado, eds Kelly Cristiane da Silva & Daniel Schroeter Simeão (Belo Horizonte: Editora UFMG, 2007), pp. 383–416. —— ‘Escravos sem dono? A experiência social dos campos de trabalho em Moçambique no período socialista’, Revista de Antropologia, 51/1 (2008), 177–214. Thompson, Carol B., ‘War by another name: destabilization in Nicaragua and Mozambique’, Race and Class, 29/4 (1988), 21–44. —— ‘Beyond civil society: child soldiers as citizens in Mozambique’, Review of African Political Economy, 26/80 (1999), 191–206. Thompson, Drew Anthony, Aim, Focus, Shoot: photographic narratives of war, independence, and imagination in Mozambique, 1950 to 1993, PhD Thesis (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota, 2013). [Mainly Chapter 5: ‘Radicalizing Wars: The AIM photography section and the politics of representing the ‘War of Destabilization’ in Mozambique, 1982 to 1993’, pp. 393–498.] Urdang, Stephanie, And still they Dance: women, war and the struggle for change in Mozambique (New York: Monthly Review 1989). Val Garijo, Fernando, ‘Niños soldados: los casos de Angola y Mozambique’, Transformaciones Sociales, Políticas, Jurídicas y Culturales en Portugal, Brasil, Angola y Mozambique, eds Rubén Darío Torres Kumbrián & María Fernanda Moretón Sanz (Warsaw: Instytut Studiów Iberyjskich i Iberoamerykan´skich, Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 2012), pp. 157–77. van Dis, Adriaan, In Afrika (Amsterdam: Meulenhoff, 1991); French edn: En Afrique (Paris: Terres d’aventure; Arles: Actes Sud, 1993); Portuguese edn: Em África: romance de viagem (Lisbon: Dom Quixote, 1998). —— (interviewed by Kadir Van Lohuizen), Waar Olifanten Twee Vechten: Mozambique en oorlog (When Two Elephants Fight: Mozambique at war) (Amsterdam: Meulenhoff, 1992). Venâncio, Moises, ‘Mediation by the Roman Catholic Church in Mozambique, 1988–91’, in Mediation in Southern Africa, eds Stephen Chan & Vivienne Jabri (London: Macmillan Press, 1993), pp. 142–58. Vilanculos, Júlio André, Role Played by Church and State in the Democratization

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Bibliography 251 Process in Mozambique, 1975–2004, PhD Thesis (Pretoria: University of Pretoria, 2013). Vines, Alex, Renamo, Terrorism in Mozambique (London: James Currey, 1991). —— No Democracy Without Money: The road to peace in Mozambique 1982–1992 (London: Catholic Institute for International Relations, 1992, IIR Briefing Paper). —— Renamo: from terrorism to democracy in Mozambique? Revised and updated edn. (London: University of York, 1996 [1991]); further revised edn in 1999. —— ‘The business of peace, “Tiny” Rowland, financial incentives and the Mozambican settlement’, Accord: An International Review of Peace Initiatives, 3 (1998), 66–74. —— ‘Renamo’s rise and decline: the politics of reintegration in Mozambique’, International Peacekeeping, 3/20 (2013), 375–93. Vivet, Jeanne, Déplacés de Guerre dans la Ville: la citadinisation des deslocados à Maputo (Mozambique) (Paris: Karthala, 2012); Portuguese edn: Os Deslocados de Guerra em Maputo (Maputo: Alcance Editores, 2015). —— ‘Déplacés de guerre et dynamiques territoriales postconflit au Mozambique’, Hérodote, 158 (2015), 160–81. Waterhouse, Rachel, Mozambique, Rising from the Ashes (Oxford: Oxfam, 1996, Oxfam Country Profiles). Weinstein, Jeremy M., Inside Rebellion: the politics of insurgent violence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). Weinstein, Jeremy M. & Francisco, Laudemiro, ‘The civil war in Mozambique: the balance between internal and external influences’, in Understanding Civil War: evidence and analysis, eds Paul Collier & Nichols Sambanis (Washington DC: World Bank, 2005), pp. 157–92 (chapter 6). Weissman Fabrice, ‘Mozambique: la “guerre du ventre”’, in Économie des Guerres Civiles, eds François Jean & Jean-Christophe Rufin (Paris: Hachette, 1996), pp. 299–340. West, Harry, Sorcery of Construction and Sorcery of Ruins: power and ambivalence on the Mueda Plateau, Mozambique, 1882–1994, PhD Thesis (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin, 1997). White, Eduardo, Vozes de Sangue: a criança e a guerra em Moçambique (Maputo: Tempográfica, 1988). White, Landeg, ‘Review article: the revolution ten years on’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 11/2 (1985), 320–32. Wiegink, Nikkie, ‘“It will be our time to eat”: Former Renamo combatants and big-man dynamics in central Mozambique’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 41/4 (2015), 869–85. —— Beyond Fighting and Returning: social navigations of former combatants in central Mozambique, PhD Thesis (Utrecht: University of Utrecht, 2014). —— ‘Why did the soldiers not go home? Demobilized combatants, family life, and witchcraft in postwar Mozambique’,  Anthropological Quarterly, 86/1 (2013), pp. 107–32. Wilson, Kenneth. B., ‘War, displacement, social change and the re-creation of community: an exploratory study in Zambézia, Mozambique –

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252 Bibliography preliminary report of a field study in Milange District, March–April 1991’ (Oxford: Refugee Studies Programme, May 1991). —— ‘Cults of violence and counter-violence in Mozambique’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 18/3 (1992), 527–83. —— ‘The socio-economic impact of war and flight in Posto Derre, Morrumbala District, Zambézia’, unpublished paper (Oxford: University of Oxford January, 1992). —— ‘The implication of health and educational service infrastructure in Renamo-held areas of Western Zambezia’, unpublished paper (Oxford: Refugee Studies Programme, April 1992). —— ‘Internally displaced, refugees and returnees from and in Mozambique’ (Oxford: University of Oxford, Queen Elizabeth House, Refugee Studies Programme; Studies on Emergency and Disaster Relief 1, 1994). Wilson, Kenneth. B. & Nunes, Jovito, ‘Repatriation to Mozambique: refugee initiatives and agency planning in Milange District 1988–1991’, in When Refugees Go Home, eds Tim Allen & Hubert Morsink (London: James Currey; Trenton (NJ): Africa World Press, 1994), pp. 167–236. Young, Tom, ‘The MNR/Renamo: external and internal dynamics’, African Affairs, 89/357 (1990), 491–509. —— ‘From MNR to Renamo: making sense of an African counter-revolutionary movement’, in The Dynamics of Change in Southern Africa, ed. Paul B. Rich (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1994). —— ‘A victim of modernity? Explaining the war in Mozambique’, The Counter-Insurgent State Guerrilla Warfare and State Building in the Twentieth Century, eds Paul B. Rich & Richard Stubbs (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2001), pp. 120–52.

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Index

A page reference in bold indicates a table and figures are shown by a page reference in italics. abductees abduction of women by Renamo 194–5, 196 in Ilha Josina Machel 181, 188–9, 194–5, 197 in Inhambane 169 in Renamo’s forces 51 return of by Naparama 92–3 Acção Nacional Popular (ANP, People’s National Action) 25 ACs see communal villages adivinheiros 204 Africa history of wars in 7 África Livre 20–1 African Development Bank 176 African National Congress (ANC) 3, 102, 161 agribusiness 185 Agricom 173, 175 agricultural cooperatives 181, 182, 185, 186–7 agriculture agricultural rehabilitation 167 on Ilha Josina Machel 185, 187 production 49, 59, 64, 173–4, 186 state companies 81, 151, 173, 175 state farms 3, 176, 177 aid, humanitarian and agricultural rehabilitation 167 as discharging the state from obligations 170–1 to feed the Mozambican population 171–2 transport infrastructure 173–5 and war costs 169, 170 Ajape, José (Frelimo) 30–1 Albino, Ambrósio 85–7, 87, 97

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Albino, José 32 aldeamentos 132 aldeia comunal/aldeias comunais see communal villages Alto Molócuè 36, 38, 39, 40, 42, 84 Amin Dada, Idi 30 ammunition militia’s access to 189, 191 Renamo’s from Zambezia 61 shortage, Renamo 69, 177 supplies in Búfalo region 128–30, 129 Angoche abuses of the population 57, 58, 62 Naparama in 67–8, 71, 87 Renamo in 48, 51, 62, 63, 64–5, 112 Angoche Plantation Company (Companhia de Culturas de Angoche, CCA) 67 Angola 6, 87, 102, 214 anti-colonial struggles and Frelimo 8, 218 global anti-colonial liberation movements 208, 209 in Nampula 50–1, 123 UNAR in Milange 22 veterans of in the government forces 30, 33, 51, 55, 158 in Zambezia 17, 43 António, Manuel see also Naparama death of 41, 76, 91 and the death of Calisto Meque 89 in Mocuba 85 origin story of 38, 39, 67, 82–3 provinces of 87 recruitment strategies 93–4 reputation of 94, 95 rivalry with Nampila Mupa 94–6

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254 Index vaccine and initiation rituals into Naparama 75, 83–4, 85, 92 apartheid state see also South Africa aims for Frelimo 102 and the Angolan war 102 civil war within dynamics of 2, 6–7, 47, 203, 225 Renamo as military branch of 2, 4, 101, 102, 134, 218 archival resources see also Cadernos de Gorongosa archives 10, 18, 56–8, 101, 103–4, 150, 221, 226 see also Cadernos de Gorongosa armed bandits (bandidos armados (BA)) see also Renamo in Inhambane 170 of Mulelepeia 40 in Nampula 50, 63 PRM as 23–4 Renamo as 31, 47, 49, 62, 63, 69, 101, 134, 142–6 in state propaganda 159, 159 traps for 157 Armed Forces of Mozambique see FAM (Forças Armadas de Moçambique) Arnaldo 30 Arouca, Domingos 152 assimilados 43–5 Aube 63, 71 Baioneta 193 Bambela 153 Banda, Kamuzu 19, 20 bandidos armados see armed bandits (bandidos armados (BA)) barracks 54, 55, 60, 153, 154 barter economy 172–3 battalions Destacamento Feminino (Female Battalion) 114 n1, 115 n5, 144, 194 ‘Lobo’ battalion 57 of Renamo 114, 155, 194 ‘Scorpion’ battalion 57 Bila, Albino 188 Bioforce (ONG) 171 Bithonga 155 Bizique, Ndai Pessanha 135

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black market 55, 105, 157, 173, 205 Bobe, Commander (Hermínio Morais) 109, 140 Boila 64, 68 Boina Vermelha (red berets) 33, 85 Border Guards 156 bows and arrows 33, 157 boy soldier see also child soldiers 192 Cabo Delgado in the Cadernos de Gorongosa 120 population and numbers of victims of war 34 Renamo military activity in 108, 112, 117, 119–20, 121, 126–34 start of the war 221 Cadernos de Gorongosa’ (‘Gorongosa Notebooks’) see also Renamo military regions as archival source 102–3, 104–5 government publication of 101 Calamidades see Department for the Prevention and Combat of Natural Disasters Calipo 49, 63, 118 Canganitore 100 n2 capitalism 207 Caritas Mozambique 165–6 Carlos, Manuel 49 Casa Banana 100–1, 102, 113, 161 casualties 34, 69, 130, 131, 190 Catholic Church as actor in the war 223 base community model 163–4, 165 calls for peace and dialogue 164– 5, 175 Caritas Mozambique 165–6 Catholic list of war victims 166 denouncement of the army 58–9 National Pastoral Assembly 164 opposition to communal villages 52 population change in the diocese of Inhambane 163 post-independence status of 152, 162 Renamo attacks on, Inhambane 162–3

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Index 255 restricted presence, Inhambane 163–4 stance on the Naparama 42–3, 71 in Zambezia 42–3, 44 Cavilhão, Xavier 62 Changaans 72 Chapala 40 Chibabava 137 Chibique, Salema Mufundisse 175 chiefs see tribal chiefs (régulos) chieftaincies see also traditional chiefs 9, 22, 53, 64 child soldiers 115–16, 191–2, 217 Chímica 112, 113, 114 Chimoio 137, 138 Chinde 34, 36, 38 Chindginguire 158 Chindio 23 Chinga 60 Chipande, Alberto 50, 55 Chire 29 Chissano, Joaquim 28, 32, 65, 70, 175 Chiure 126, 127, 128, 130 Chivambo, Maria 188, 197–8 Chopi 154, 155 chupa-sangue (blood suckers) 25, 44, 45 Church see Catholic Church; Protestants Cinco, Commander 71 civil war academic studies of 46–7 chronology of 221, 225 context within other African wars 7–8 and the creation of states 206 impacts on the whole social system 223–4 within the internationalist system 215, 218–20, 225 last phase of 175–8 memories of 199–200 peace talks 175 regional dynamics of 7, 222 research on the totality of the war 5–6 spiritual dimension of 88–9 term 2

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and the transition to postmodernity 206–7 Cold War 6 collaboration government/Naparama 88 government/rebels 195 by the population 17, 53, 57 with Renamo 191, 197 colonialism see also anti-colonial struggles civil wars and 7–8 in Ilha Josina Machel 183–6 industrial legacy of 213 columns (military) 54, 127, 130, 223 Comité Revolucionário de Moçambique (Mozambique Revolutionary Committee, COREMO) see COREMO (Mozambique Revolutionary Committee) communal villages burning of by Renamo 21–2, 118, 119, 120, 123, 124, 125–6, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 137 in Cabo Delgado 126 and Frelimo’s modernization policies 44 in Inhambane 156–7, 169 and liberation of the people 122–3, 131–2 Montepuez and Ocua Zones 127 in Nampula 48, 49, 52, 54, 59, 72, 74, 122, 123, 124, 125 in the Pemba area 130 PRM’s stance against 23 to weaken PRM support 24–5 Communist model 13, 213 Congono 22 consumer cooperatives 49, 127, 151 continuadores 115, 144 cooperantes 151 COREMO (Comité Revolucionário de Moçambique (Mozambique Revolutionary Committee)) 18, 19, 20 corridors, transport 34, 51, 61, 187 counter-offensives by Frelimo 78, 90, 158 by Renamo 40 Covó 51, 123

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256 Index Cristina, Orlando (Mário Salima) 26, 27, 216 Cuamba 34, 123, 124, 125, 139 Cuba 6, 209 Cuban advisors 157, 203–4, 205 Cumbana 154, 156, 157, 178 curandeiros/as 192, 193 curfews 159

Dlakhama, Afonso 61 Documentos de Gorongosa (‘Gorongosa Documents’) 101 see also Cadernos de Gorongosa’ (‘Gorongosa Notebooks’) Domingos, Raúl 107, 109, 113 Dondo 137, 138 droughts 52, 79, 151–2, 160–1, 167, 180, 224 Dynamizing Groups (GD) 21, 23, 24, Defence Department (Departamento de 25, 29, 49, 123, 124, 151, 184 Defesa (DD)) of Frelimo 140, 160 ecology 156, 160–1, 180, 224 of Renamo 105, 113, 135 economic factors della Casa, Nicholas 194 agricultural rehabilitation 167 Democratic Mass Organizations barter economy 172–3 (ODMs) 23, 24 international debt 161, 171 Department of Prevention and neoliberal economic model 176 Combat against Natural Disasters peace zones 80 (Departamento de Prevençao e war economy 12, 170–5 Combate as Calamidades Naturais, Electricidade de Moçambique 62 DPCCN) 62, 172, 172 elementos 105 Derre 29, 32 Elimue, Mário 33 Destacamento Feminino (female EMG (Estado Maior General, General battalions) Military Staff) see General Staff of Renamo 114 n1, 115 n5, 144, (EMG) 194 Entete 49 developmentalism 213, 215, 216, estruturas 25, 29, 30 218, 219 Eusébio, Hector 61 Dhlakama, Afonso see also Pedro, executions 124, 132, 159, 165 Zacarias and Cadernos de Gorongosa 101, FAM (Armed Forces of Mozambique) 105 see also FPLM campaign against Naparama 72 abuses of the population 34–5, 35, declaration of victory 136–7 56–9, 159–60, 195 and the departure of Gimo Phiri 27 changing strategies of 222–3 as leader of Renamo 26, 28, 64, child soldiers 191–2, 195 65, 98, 106 communal villages policy and 52 and the Nkomati Accord 141–2 efforts to retake Zambezia 31–2, political strategies of 136–40 33–4 pseudonym 105 ‘50th Birthday of President and the push to the North 119–20 Samora Machel’ offensive 158–9 Renamo’s presence in Mueda as internal conflicts within 50 spoken by 133, 134 lack of response to Renamo reputation of 216 assaults in Nampula 55, 56 dialogue, political see negotiations logistical and material shortages of Dinerman, Alice 47 31–2, 55–6, 61 Dique, Raúl 132–3, 136–7, 141 low morale of, Inhambane 157–8 discipline military activity in Nampula 62 necessity of 26 Naparama attacks against 67–8, in Renamo’s forces 61, 143, 224 74

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Index 257 offensives in Inhambane 158–60 recruitment strategies 191 in relation to Naparama 38–9 reorganization of 30–1, 50–1, 55–6, 158 re-training courses 160 veterans of in the government forces 30, 33, 51, 55, 156 violence against the population, Nampula 56–9 wartime collaboration with Renamo 195 weakness of 216 famine 32, 34, 36, 52, 79, 151–2, 160–1, 167, 196–7, 224 fascism 208 feitiçeiros 204 fences, electric 13, 188, 223, 224 Fernandes, Evo 108 firearms 189, 191 flooding 165, 183, 184 Fondo, Domingos 168 Fondo Aiuti Italiano (FAI) 177 food see also agriculture; aid, humanitarian; famine and army moral 55, 56, 61, 157–8, 177, 189 distribution 165, 170, 172–3, 174 food shortages and communal village policies 52 and power hierarchies 196–8 for PRM troops 24, 26 production 64, 172–3, 174, 187 shortages, Ilha Josina Machel 196–8 xima 189 forças de defesa territorial (‘territorial defence forces’) 81 Fortunato, Lourenço 61 FPLM (People’s Liberation Forces of Mozambique) 132–3, 153, 167 see also Armed Forces of Mozambique (FAM) Frelimo see also Armed Forces of Mozambique (FAM); Defence Department (Departamento de Defesa (DD)) 4th Congress 50, 160 5th Congress 88, 175 communist model of a

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developmental state 213–14 emergence of 216–17 founding leaders 210–11 hostility towards the Nampula people 50 hostility towards Zambezia 17, 43–5, 222 ideological and political evolution of 175, 212, 218–19 Politburo 157 Political Bureau meeting (1984), Nampula 49–50 relations with the USSR 214–15 social base 52, 212 Frente Unida de Moçambique (FUMO) 152 Funhalouro 153, 155, 163, 178 Funhamuendo, Commander 35 Furancongo 116, 135 garrisons 156, 157 Gaza agricultural production 177, 185 Búfalo Sul 112–13, 114 Otto Roesch’s case study of 149–50 peace zones 79 population and numbers of victims of war 34 start of the war 221 Geffray, Christian 4, 9, 46 General Peace Agreement (AGP) 27, 62 General Staff (EMG, Renamo) 105, 109, 113, 124, 130, 132 Gerasse, 22 Gilé 30, 32, 33, 36, 41, 84 girls 193–4, 197, 198–9 Girmoio, Francisco 168 Gonçalves, Dom Jaime 175 Gorongosa Mountains 100, 102 Gorongosa National Park 100 government co-option of Naparama 39–40, 41–2, 69–70, 87–8 government propaganda leaflet 159 industrial development strategies 212–13, 215 international relations of 6–7, 208–9, 211

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258 Index modernization policies of 22, 29–30, 43, 49 Revolutionary state of 151–2 Service for Associative and Religious Affairs 162 governors of Inhambane 156, 157, 160, 169–70 of Nampula 58, 61, 70 of Sofala 50 of Zambezia 30, 31, 50 Govuro 155, 162, 178 Grupo Limpa 40n112, 72 Grupo Maria 28 see also PRM Grupos Dinamizadores (GD) see Dynamizing Groups (GD) Gruveta, Bonifácio 30 Gundana, Feliciano 31 Gurué 31, 34, 35, 82, 84, 120 GVP (People’s Vigilance Groups) 25, 30, 57 healers, traditional see also António, Manuel; Mulelepeia; Naparama abuses of the population 40 healing 4, 200 Renamo support for 29 Renamo use of 63 Herculano, Hirondina 107 n28 Homoine Catholic Church 162, 164, 169 displaced people 178 Frelimo in 158, 160 massacre 10, 177, 180, 226 Renamo in 153, 154, 159 hostages see abductees husbands, wartime 193, 197, 198–9 Iapala 48, 118 Ile 33, 35, 84, 96 Ilha de Moçambique 49, 58, 62, 117 Ilha Josina Machel abductions in 181, 188–9, 194–5, 197 agricultural cooperatives 186–7 Bairro 1 183 Bairro 2 183 Bairro 3 188, 189 Bairro 4 183 Bairro 5 183

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Bairro 6 183 Bairro 7 183 bairros 181, 183, 188, 189, 190, 200 disruption to daily lives 188–9, 196–9 Dzonguene 183 food shortages in 196–8 Madjedje 183 militias in 189–91 overview of 182–5, 184 Renamo attacks in 187–8, 190, 195 Renamo bases on 192–3 wartime in 187–8 wartime narratives of 181–2, 196, 199–200 Imala 56 Incomáti River 182 incursions in Cabo Delgado, Renamo 108, 112, 117, 119–20, 121, 126–34 in Ilha Josina Machel 187, 188, 194 in Inhambane 149, 156–60 in Nampula 51–2, 61–2, 119, 121, 123 in Niassa 123–4 in Zambezia 29 independence, war of 17, 20, 186 see also anti-colonial struggles indiscipline in the estruturas 25 in the government forces 30, 35, 56–7, 157–8, 217 in Renamo’s forces 177 informers 122–3 Inhambane abductees in 169 aid to feed the population 171–2 archives 10 Caritas Mozambique 165–6 Catholic Church in 162–4, 165 civil war in 153, 176–7, 221 civilian abuses by the army 159–60 counter-guerrilla tactics, postNkomati Accord 167–8 discharge of the state and international aid 170–1 displaced people 178, 178–9

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Index 259 drought and famine 151–2, 160–1, 167, 224 ecology 160–1 economic situation, postindependence 151–2 estimated population to be provided for by commerce and the DPCCN 172 ethnic diversity of Renamo in 155–6 Frelimo military activities in 156–60 material cost of the war 169–70 mine workers in South Africa 151 NGOs working in 171 oil fields 176 popular support for Renamo 154 population and numbers of victims of war 34 population change in the diocese of Inhambane 163 post-independence status of 151 private militias 177 re-education centres 152 Renamo military regions 112 Renamo’s military activity in 149, 154–6 rural population self-sufficiency, supplies arrangements and access 174 state opposition in 152 villagization 157 water war 168, 224 Inharrime 153, 155, 157, 159, 178 Inhassune 152, 153, 176, 177 Inhassunge 34, 84 intelligentsia 210–11, 212 internal narratives (Renamo) 144 international community 46, 85, 94, 107, 141, 142, 161 internationalists 151, 157 irrigation 176 Irrigation Project of the Save Valley (PIVASA) 176 Islamic societies 53 Ismael, General 109 Itoculo 51, 123 Jangamo 153, 154, 155, 157–8, 178 Jardim, Jorge 19

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Kalashnikov 127, 129, 132, 204, 208 Kangaroo Company 57 Khmer Rouge of Africa 46 kidnap see abductees Lalaua 51–2, 73, 83–4, 90, 97 Lancaster House Agreements 106 land mines 181, 187 land tenures 59, 186 Languane, Vareia Manje 113, 153, 155 Larde 48 legitimacy, Renamo 61, 136, 140, 141–4, 149–50 Leopardo, Coloma 34 liberated zones during the anti-colonial war 108 by Frelimo 117, 132, 144 of Renamo 72, 112, 125, 126, 131–2, 136, 141, 195 in Zambezia 32, 41 liberation war 8, 183, 186 Lichinga 119, 120, 124, 125, 137 Lidimo, Henriques Lagos 33, 35–6 Ligonha River 118 Limbe 19 Limpo, Manuel 72 Liúpo 60, 68, 69 livestock 167, 170 Lobo Battalion 57–8 logistics Frelimo 31–2, 55, 177 PRM 25–6 Renamo 61, 69, 127–30, 129, 133, 141, 177 lojas do povo (people’s shops) 23 Lomaco 177 Lomwe 22, 27, 42–3 Lourenço-Marques 117 Luabo 33, 132 Lugela 22, 26, 29, 33, 36, 84 Lunga 51, 60 Lúrio 60 Lúrio River 122, 127, 130 Lusaka Accord 42 n122, 44 Lutheran World Federation 171 Mabote 154, 155, 178 Mabote, Sebastião Marcos 50 Macalonge 120

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260 Index machambas 50 n29, 136, 137, 186, 187 Machava, Moisès 72 Machel, Josina Simbine 185 Machel, Samora anti-corruption campaign 152 on the Casa Banana attack 100 death of 175 desire to see Stalin’s secret memorandum 213 in Inhambane 158 on the Political Bureau meeting in Nampula 50 reorganization of the army 30, 31 reputation of 216 machetes 22, 38, 68, 72, 81, 82, 83, 92, 169, 193 Machungo, Mário da Graça 31, 50 Macia 185 Maconde land 133–4 Maconde people 117, 133 Macua see Makhuwa people Macuane 53 Maganja da Costa 33, 36, 84, 96, 120 Magude 34, 193 Majojo, Raúl Dique 109, 113, 119, 120, 123 Majude 120, 124, 125 Makhuwa people 53, 71, 72, 81, 82, 123, 134 Malawi Cuamba-Malawi railway line 123 PRM relations with 18, 26 refugees to 22, 23, 32, 35, 79 relations with UNAR 19 Renamo in 32 Malawi Congress Party (MCP) 19 malnutrition 36, 167, 187, 197 Malova 156 Mandimba 120, 123 Mandua 22 Manhiça 187, 192, 193 Manhoso 33 Manica 32, 34, 34, 108, 109, 112, 114, 116, 137, 153, 155, 221 manioc 185 Manjacaze, 79 Manuel, Luís 135 Maputo (capital city) 6, 11, 27, 31, 41,

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44, 108, 136, 159, 160, 172, 182, 213, 214 international strategic importance of 215 people expelled of 112 n41 Maputo (province) 11, 12, 31, 107, 113, 114, 141, 168, 175, 181, 184, 193, 215 see also Ilha Josina Machel map of 184 population and numbers of victims of war 34 Maputo Air Force Base 195, 215 Maravi Empire 19 Maria Group (Grupo Maria) 27, 28 Marrupa 124, 125 Marxism 45, 210 Marxism-Leninism 88, 175, 218 Mass Democratic Organizations (ODMs) 23, 24 massacres Chaimite 226 by government forces 126, 195 Homoine 10, 177, 180, 226 Mueda 117 Massinga 155, 156, 162, 178 Matibane 60 Matsanga 203–4 see also Renamo Matsangaíssa, André 143 Mavuco 49, 66 Maxixe 177 Mazua 51 Mecanhelas 22, 123 Meconta 49 Mecuburi 51, 60, 70, 71, 81, 88, 94 Mecuburi River 61 Mecula 48 Megaza (Administrative Post in Morrumbala District) 29, 30 Memba 34, 51, 55, 56, 57–8, 60 memories of civil war 196–200 wartime narratives, Ilha Josina Machel 181–2, 199–200 Mepinha 29 Meque, Calisto 51, 89, 107, 128 mganga (spirit mediums) 79–80, 81, 88, 204–5 Micaune 29 Milange 22, 23–4, 25, 29–30, 32, 34 Milhana 69

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Index 261 military bases see also Renamo bases Naparama 84–5, 90, 92 Renamo 51, 61, 63–4, 68, 69, 94, 133, 153, 153–6, 159 military training 34, 81, 156, 189, 203, 216 militias see also forças de defesa territorial (‘territorial defence forces’); Mulelepeia; Naparama in civil war settings 76 emergence of 223 firearms 189, 191 in Ilha Josina Machel 189–91 in Inhambane 156 in the last phase of the war 177 popular 81–2 private militia, southern Mozambique 177 private security firms 177 regional dynamics of 222 spiritual power and 77, 80–1 mineworkers 151 Ministry of the Interior 162 Mirasse, Silva Taitosse 85–7, 87 Mission of São Gonzaga of Malatane 58 Mocuba 31, 84, 85, 87, 94, 96, 120, 137 modernization 22, 29–30, 43, 49 Moeda see Mueda Mogincual 51, 60, 68, 70, 71 Mogovolas 63, 87 Molir [Murrire?] 23 Molumbo 29 Moma 38, 48, 49, 55, 58, 66, 67, 68, 70, 71, 87 Momola 66 Monapo 34, 51, 62 Mondlane, Eduardo 212 Monteiro, Mariano 62 Montepuez 34, 41, 119, 126–7, 128, 130–1, 132 Mopeia 22, 33, 36, 38 Morais, Hermínio (Bobe) 109, 140 morale 81, 157, 197 Morrumbala 29, 30, 32, 33, 51, 80, 120 Morrumbene 155, 157 Mossuril 51, 54, 55, 60 Mossurize 137

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Mozambique estimated population to be provided for by commerce and the DPCCN 172 internally displace people by district 178 population and numbers of victims of war and/or famine by province at the end of 1986 34 during WWI 7–8 Mozambique Liberation Front see Frelimo Mozambique People’s Police (PPM) 23 MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola) 102 Muabanama 22 Muandiua 29 Mucaquia 64 mudjibas 32, 89, 105, 118, 120, 122, 137, 138, 140 Muecate 57, 58, 62, 120 Mueda 112, 117, 119–20, 129, 131, 132, 133, 134 Muerimu, Chief 61 Muite 60, 69 Mulelepeia Khonkos 91 origins of 42, 43 popular support for, Zambezia 40 as response to Naparama 40, 90–1, 223 Mungoi 79–80, 81 Mupa, Nampila 85–7, 87, 91, 94–5 Murremone 67 Murrupula 38, 51, 61, 66, 67, 70, 71, 85, 87, 89, 91, 94, 96, 97 Mussagy, Adula Mohamed 173–4 Mutala 39 Muthaico 60 N1 highway 187 Nacala 57, 62, 123, 137 Nacala corridor 51, 61 Nacala Porto 56, 57, 60, 121 Nacarôa 51, 60 Nacavala 49 Nacololo 48 Namacurra 30, 41, 82, 84, 91 Namahia 69 Namapa 70, 87, 122, 123, 127

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262 Index Namaponda 68 Namarroi 22, 33, 36, 81, 84, 90, 92, 118 Namavura 51 Namavura River 51 Nambila 66 Nametil 118, 120 Namialo 62, 71, 120 Namige 60, 68, 69 Namilo Lagoon 68 Naminane 69 Nampila Mupa 85, 87 Nampula (city) archives 10 Political Bureau meeting (1984) 49–50 Renamo military activity in 119, 137 Nampula (province) administrative control by Renamo 54–5 anti-Naparama forces 89 communal village strategies in 52 and the emergence of Naparama 78–9, 85 famine in 52 Frelimo army violence against the population 47, 56–9 population and numbers of victims of war 34 recruits to Renamo 51 Renamo administrative control areas 54–5, 59, 60, 63–4 Renamo in Lalaua 51–2, 73 Renamo military activity in 49, 51–2, 54, 61–2, 119, 121, 123 Renamo military regions in 59– 60, 112 Renamo’s early strategies in 48–9, 54 Renamo’s violence against the population 47 social base for Renamo in 47 start of the war 221 Namuli Mount 82, 83 Namuno 82, 126, 128 Nantulo 64–5 Naparama see also António, Manuel and the army’s prestige 38–9 attacks against Renamo 68–9,

*War Within.indb 262

84–5 attacks against the population 35, 40, 41, 70–1 battlefield rules 83 co-optation of by Frelimo 39–40, 41–2, 69–70, 76, 87–8 as cult of violence 88–9 emergence of 78–9, 85–7 initiation rituals 84, 85, 92 initiators and leaders 86, 87, 223 internal conflicts 91, 94–6 messianic movements 17 non-recognition of the government 67–8 origins of 38, 42–3, 66–7, 83–4 overview of 75–7, 97–8 parama (vaccine) 38, 39, 67, 84, 85–7, 94, 95, 97 popular support for 93 recruitment strategies 93–4 recuperation of the population 92–3 Renamo strategy against in Nampula 72–3 Renamo’s anti-Naparama forces 89–90 and the role of the spiritual leader 92 success of 217–18 vaccination and initiation ritual 75, 83–4, 85, 92 in Zambezia 84–5 narratives internal (Renamo) 144 wartime narratives 181–2, 199– 200 Nashingwea, Tanzania 22 Natuba 49 Nauela 40, 41, 42, 43, 85, 90, 91 Ndau people 27, 72, 150, 155, 158, 192 negotiations see also Nkomati Accord in Kenya (1989) 3–4, 175 Pretoria (1984) 108, 120, 126, 135–7, 141–2, 143, 144 role of the Catholic Church 65, 175, 223 Rome (1990) 65, 175 neopatrimonialism 212 Ngonhamo, Mateus 108

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Index 263 NGOs (non-governmental organizations) archives of 103 in Inhambane 165, 170, 171, 172 role in the war 5, 224 Nhadué River 100 Nhavarre, Lake 155 Nhazombe 22 Niassa in the Cadernos de Gorongosa 119, 120 Cuamba-Malawi railway line 123 population and numbers of victims of war 34 Renamo military activity in 112, 117, 120, 123–4 Renamo soldiers in 114 start of the war 221 Nicoadala 84, 85, 93 Nkomati Accord 3, 101–2, 107, 108, 109, 135–6, 141–2, 143, 161, 224 Nkomati Accord II 176 non-capitalist modernizations 213–14 Nova Sofala 135 Nozica 68 Nwamadjosi 192 Nyungwe (people) 205 Ocua 127, 130 Operação Cabana (Operation Shack) 158–9, 161 Operation Gorongosa 153 oral histories 9–10 Organisation of African Unity (OAU) 20 Organization of Mozambican Women (OMM) 26, 124 Palmeira 191 Pambarra 167 Panda 152, 153, 155, 157, 164, 178 Pande 176 Partido Revolucionário de Moçambique (Revolutionary Party of Mozambique, PRM), see PRM peace zones 79–80 peasants see also communal villages and collectivization 213 under colonialism 186

*War Within.indb 263

and the communal village policy 24, 157 famine 196 land tenures 186 middle peasants 186 Naparama and 69, 84, 87, 92, 93, 94 and Renamo 107, 145 support for PRM 24, 45 Pebane 32, 35, 36, 67, 84, 87, 87, 94–5, 96 Pedro, António 120, 121, 134 Pedro, Zacarias see also Dhlakama, Afonso 105, 124, 126 Pemba 126 Pembe 153, 154, 160, 162 People’s Assemblies 33 People’s Liberation Forces of Mozambique (FPLM) see FPLM people’s shops (lojas do povo) 23 People’s Vigilance Groups (GVP) 25, 30, 57 Phalaborwa 107 Phiri, Gimo (PRM) 17, 21–2, 26–8 PIDE-DGS (International and State Defence Police-General Security Directorate) 19, 25, 27 Pinda 29 Pinto, Dom Manuel Vieira 42–3, 71 plantations 22, 29, 58, 59, 67, 151, 187 plebeian guerrilla movements 145–6 poison 168, 224 police force attacks on by PRM 22, 23 corruption of 31 destruction of police stations by Renamo 54, 57, 62 as organ of the state 178 reports on Renamo violence 169 political commissars (Renamo) 131, 132, 135, 136, 140, 143, 144, 160 politico-organizational campaign 152 Ponderane 22 Ponta Vermelha 61 Portugal 17, 19, 43–4, 209 Portuguese (language) 29 postmodernism 206–7 PPM (Mozambique People’s Police) 23

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264 Index prazeiros, 43–4 prazos 43 press-gangs 177 Pretoria talks (1984) 108, 120, 126, 135–7, 141–2, 143, 144 PRM (Partido Revolucionário de Moçambique (Revolutionary Party of Mozambique) anti-Frelimo activities 23 and the blood sucker (chupasangue) phenomenon 25, 44, 45 confusion with África Livre 20–1 fields of action 22, 25–6 fighters of 22–3 Frelimo’s response to 23–4 loss of leadership 26 operation Wotcha Weka 21–2 popular support for 17, 24–5, 221 presence in Milange 22, 23–4 stolen uniforms of the PPM 22, 23 unification with Renamo 26, 108, 221 propaganda PRM 21 Renamo 60, 64, 65, 131, 136, 137, 138, 139, 219 state propaganda 159, 159 UNAR 19 Protestants 164–5, 171 Public Security Police (PSP) 25 Quelimane 31, 32, 33, 34, 41, 85, 120, 137, 172 Quembo, Binha 135 Quilua 71 Quinga 60 Quissico 153, 164 Rafael, Aníbal 72 railway lines 61, 112, 120, 123, 125, 153 rainy season 130, 184 rape 56, 57, 71, 154, 160, 193, 195, 205 Ratane 69 rebels see armed bandits (bandidos armados (BA)); Renamo 29 reconciliation and the Catholic Church’s efforts 165

*War Within.indb 264

social healing 199, 200 recruitment strategies FAM 191 Naparama 93–4 Renamo 191 recuperation of the population (recuperados) 71, 93 re-education centres 152 regulados (kingdoms) 136, 154 régulos see tribal chiefs (régulos) Reis, Carlos Alexandre dos 27–8 relief agencies 178 see also humanitarian aid Renamo mobilization of the population 135–6 politicization of 134 Renamo (Resistencia Nacional de Moçambique (Mozambique National Resistance)) see also armed bandits (bandidos armados (BA)); Cadernos de Gorongosa; mudjibas; Mulelepeia; Renamo military regions abductions by 194–5, 196 academic studies of 2–5 administrative control in Nampula 54–5, 59, 60, 63–6 administrative control in Zambezia 32–3, 36, 37 attack on Casa Banana headquarters 100–1, 161 attacks against by the Naparama 68–9 attacks in Ilha Josina Machel 187– 8, 190, 195 attacks on Frelimo estruturas 29 attacks on state infrastructure 153–4 Cacimbo Ardente (Burning Bush) offensive 168 changed tactics, post-Nkomati accord 168–9 child soldiers 115–16, 191–2, 217 creation of Mulelepeia 40, 41, 42, 43 as cult of violence 88 Destacamento Feminino (female battalion) 107 n28, 114 n1, 115 n5, 144, 194 education of traditional chiefs’

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Index 265 families 65–6 emergence of 2–3, 215–17 flag of 64 in Ilha Josina Machel 217 international perceptions of 46 lack of archival resources on 103–4 lack of legitimacy in southern Mozambique 149–50 in the last phase of the war 176–7 leadership’s movement to Mozambique (1980-4) 106–7 military geography of (1984) 109–17 and military success 136–7 military weakness of 216 in Nampula 48–9, 51–2, 54, 59–60 as only a guerrilla movement 142–6, 149 Operational Units (OPs) 113, 126 political strategies of 47, 60–1, 65, 136–40, 143, 224 popular support for, Zambezia 17, 29–30, 31, 40–1 presence in the south 179–80 presence in Zambezia 28–9 public image strategies 141 recruitment strategies 191 relations with the traditional authorities 64–5 Rhodesian support for 2, 107, 143, 216, 217, 218 social base 3, 4, 47, 50, 52, 63, 143–6 South African support for 2, 3, 47, 101–2, 107, 108, 118, 141, 153, 161, 218, 219–20, 225 strategic hamlet 123, 132 see also communal villages support from chiefs and Mudjibas 32 transformation from guerrilla to politico-guerrilla group 134, 224–5 unification with PRM 108 Renamo bases bases in Gaza province 193 bases in Maputo province 193 Calanga 193–4

*War Within.indb 265

Chichocosa 193 in Inhambane province 153–5 Majoze 193 Mirone 193–4 Ngungwe 193, 195 Xinhanguanine 193 Renamo military regions 1a Zona Norte 113 1a Zona Sul 113, 114 2a Zona Norte 113, 121 2a Zona Sul 113, 114 Búfalo Centro 109, 110–11, 119 Búfalo Norte 109, 110–11, 112, 114, 119, 126–34 Búfalo Sul 109, 110–11, 113, 114, 119 Chímica 112, 113, 114 Crocodilo 109, 109–12, 110–11, 114 Elefante Sul 109, 110–11, 113, 114 Gato Centro 109, 110–11, 114 Gato Norte 109, 110–11, 114, 116, 117–18, 119, 135 Gato Sul 109, 110–11, 113, 114, 155 Grupo Coordenador Norte 113, 119, 120, 128 Grupo Coordenador Centro 113, 115 n3 Leão Centro 109, 109–12, 110–11, 114, 119, 137 Leão Norte 109, 110–11, 114, 119 Leao Sul 109, 110–11, 113, 114, 119 Leopardo Centro 109, 110–11, 112, 114, 119, 135, 138 Leopardo Norte 109, 110–11, 114, 117–19, 119, 121–3 Leopardo Sul 109, 110–11, 113, 114, 119 military supplies 118–19, 120–1, 127–30, 129, 133, 141 move to the North 117–34 in Nampula 112 North Coordination Group (NCG) 113, 119, 120, 128 number of Renamo soldiers by military region 114, 115–17, 121, 122 overview of 109–13

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266 Index Peixe 109, 109–12, 110–11, 114 Rinoceronte 109, 110–11, 113, 114, 116, 123, 135, 139, 141 Tigre Centro 109, 109–12, 110–11, 114, 119 Tigre Norte 109, 110–11, 112, 114, 119, 123–6 Tigre Sul 109, 110–11, 113, 114, 119, 155 in Zambezia 112 Zonas Centro 113 resilience 218, 220 revolutionary vanguards 207–8, 210 revolutions 207–8, 210 Rhodesia África Livre 21 departure of Renamo members from 106 Mozambican fighters in 30–1 policies towards Mozambique 7, 151 ties with Renamo 2, 107, 143, 216, 217, 218 Ribáuè 48, 84, 85, 94, 97 rice 121, 185 Rioeque 48 Rocha, Fernando 72 Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Nampula 52, 58 Rombézia 19–20 rural traders 186 Sabelua 22 Sabonete, Manuel 84 Saenda 22 Saguate, Lucas 22–3, 26 Sakuzi re-education camp 143 Salima, Mário see Cristina, Orlando Salomão, Commander 57 salt 64, 172, 175, 197 Samatenje 80 Samuel, Henriques 120 Santos, Marcelino dos 50 São Tomé & Príncipe 22 Savimbi, Jonas 102 n11 schools Church schools 44, 162 destruction of 36, 169 destruction of by Renamo 29, 49, 54, 132, 154

*War Within.indb 266

kidnap of trainee teachers, Momola 66 in Mungoi 80 Scorpion battalion 57 self-defence groups see militias; Mulelepeia; Naparama Sena 155 sepoys 25, 50, 90 sex 83, 105, 193, 217 shipping 173 shopkeepers 172–3, 186, 188 ‘sixteen years war’ 2 Smith, Ian 30 SNASP (Serviço Nacional de Segurança Popular) 27, 28, 43 sobbels 58 Socialism 13, 88, 151, 164, 210 Sofala 31, 32, 34, 50, 80, 100 n1 108, 109, 114, 116, 153, 221 soil 21, 123, 182, 183 South Africa see also apartheid state African National Congress (ANC) 102, 161, 218 in the Cadernos de Gorongosa 101–2 Frelimo negotiations with 161 mine workers from Inhambane 151 Nkomati Accord 3, 101–2, 107, 108, 109, 135–6, 141–2, 143, 161, 224 Nkomati Accord II 176 policies towards Mozambique 6, 7, 47, 107 Pretoria talks (1984) 108, 120, 126, 135–7, 141–2, 143, 144 relationship with Renamo 2, 3, 47 Renamo bases in 106–7 stance on Angola 102 support for Renamo 101–2, 107, 108 153, 118, 141, 161, 218, 219–20, 225 Soviet Union (USSR) aid to Mozambique 214–15 childhoods in 204 Cold War politics and Mozambique 6, 219–20 national-federalist architecture of 211 post-Soviet insurgency 206 special forces 85, 89, 91, 98, 114,

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Index 267 158, 177, 223 spirit mediums (mganga) 79, 80, 81, 88, 204–5 spirituality see also Mulelepeia; Naparama cults of violence 88–9 and militia movements 77 Mungoi (spiritual leader) 79–80, 81 regional variations in 81 reputations of spiritual leaders 91–2 spiritual dimension of the civil war 88–9 starvation 32, 34, 36, 52, 79, 151–2, 160–1, 167, 224 state administration 177–8 state companies 173, 175 state farms 3, 176, 177 subalternization 43, 146 Sumane, Amós (PRM) 17, 18, 21, 26, 27 Sungusungu 66 Tanzania refugee camps in 211 Sungusungu 66 troops and the Mozambican army 33–4, 223, 226 troops in Nampula 51, 53, 66 troops in Zambezia 36 Tazama, Oswaldo 30 tempo de fome (the time of hunger) 196–7 see also famine Tenda, Matias 22 Tendai 173, 175 Tengua 22 Tete (city) 28 Tete (province) effects of the war on 112 population and numbers of victims of war 32, 34 Renamo in 203–4 as Rinoceronte region 113, 114, 116, 123, 135, 139, 141 start of the war 221 UNAR in 19, 20 witch-doctors and spiritual warfare in 204–5 Thai, Hama 158

*War Within.indb 267

The Independent 53 Timana, Adriano Chimbutana 183 Timana family 183 Tocolo 49, 58, 60 Tomé 153, 154–5, 159 Tomé, Domingos 72 Tomeia 60, 63 traders 173–4, 186, 223–4 traditional chiefs (régulos) Chief Muerimu 61 education for 65–6 under Renamo administration 63, 64–5, 155 support for PRM 24, 25 support for Renamo 31, 32, 50, 51, 106, 150, 154 the Timana family 183 traditional medicine 80, 197–8 see also António, Manuel; Mulelepeia; Naparama; vaccines transport infrastructure 173–5 Trovoada, Filipe Elias 155 Tsequete, Abel 120 Tswa 155 UDEMO (União Democrática de Moçambique (Democratic Union of Mozambique)) 28 UNAMO (União Nacional Moçambicana (Mozambican National Union)) under Carlos Reis 27–8 formation of 18, 20 reformation of 26–7 Unango 112 n40, 125 UNAR (União Nacional Africana de Rombézia (African National Union of Rombézia)) creation of 18–19 presence in Milange 22 relations with the Banda government 19 stance on the independence of Rombézia 19–20 UNITA (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola) 6, 102 United States of America (USA) 6, 141–2, 209, 218 USSR (Soviet Union) see Soviet Union (USSR)

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268 Index vaccines of anti-Naparama forces, Nampula 72, 89–90 Naparama 38, 39, 67, 84, 85–7, 94, 95 origins of 97 Vatican 164, 164 Vaz, Joaquim 108 Veleia, Joaquim 26 Vendée 206, 219 veteran fighters 30, 33, 51, 55, 156, 158 vigilante groups 33, 126, 157, 189, 218 see also militia Vilankulo (district) 155, 157, 159, 167 villagization see communal villages Vinduzi 100 volunteers 33–4, 93, 156, 189 Vulalo 22 waganga see mganga (spirit mediums) war see anti-colonial war; civil war; liberation war; war of destabilization; War of Independence; water war war of destabilization 2 War of Independence 17, 20, 186 see also anti-colonial war war of liberation 117 warlords 7, 143, 145, 206, 217 warrior social body 142 water war 168, 224 weapons 118–19, 120–1, 127–30, 129, 133, 141 weather 160–1 wheat 185 women see also Renamo, Destacamento Feminino abduction of by Renamo 194–5, 196 access to food during wartime 198 in militia 189 treatment of on Renamo bases 193–4 wartime abuse of 193, 198–9

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Wotcha Weka see also PRM 21–2 xima 189 Xinavane 188, 1812 n4 Zambezia or Zambézia anti-colonial fight in 17, 43 anti-Naparama forces 90–1 archives 10 and the emergence of Naparama 78–9 Frelimo’s efforts to re-take 31–2, 33–4 Frelimo’s hostility towards 17, 43–5 Naparama in 39–42, 84–5 peace zones 79 popular support for Renamo 29–30, 31 population and numbers of victims of war 34 post-independence tensions with the assimilados 43–5 prazeiros in 43–4 PRM militants from 26 regional effects of the war 36 under Renamo administration 28–9, 32–3, 36, 37 Renamo military regions in 112 start of the war 221 volunteer Frelimo fighters 33–4 ZANU 218 Zavala 155, 159, 178 Zeca, Pedro 33 Zimbabwe attack on Casa Banana headquarters 100 independence of and Renamo 106, 107, 142 Manuel António in 96 Shona mhondoro 81 troops from 11, 33–4, 78, 158, 222, 223, 226 Zinave National Park 153 Zinco 84, 90, 97 Zionist Pentecostal church 63

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Mozambique_PPC_TJI 22mm_B+B 11/05/2018 12:07 Page 1

Eric Morier-Genoud is a Lecturer in African history at Queen’s University Belfast; Domingos Manuel do Rosário is Lecturer in electoral sociology and electoral governance at Eduardo Mondlane University, Maputo, Mozambique; Michel Cahen is a Senior Researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) at Bordeaux Political Studies Institute and at the Casa de Velázquez in Madrid. Cover photograph: The red beret and the war mask. Rebel soldiers in a demobilizing camp, Mozambique, 1993 (© Michel Waldman)

ISBN 978-1-84701-180-0

JAME S CU RR E Y An imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge IP12 3DF (GB) and 668 Mt Hope Ave, Rochester NY 14620-2731 (US)

9 781847 011800 www.jamescurrey.com

The War Within

NEW PERSPECTIVES ON THE CIVIL WAR IN

MOZAMBIQUE 1976–1992 Edited by Eric Morier-Genoud, Michel Cahen & Domingos M. do Rosário

The War Within

The 1976−1992 civil war which opposed the Government of Frelimo and the Renamo guerrillas (among other actors) is a central, and still controversial, event in the history of Mozambique. Focusing on a province or a single village and aiming to open up a new era of studies of the war, the authors here analyse the conflict as a ‘total social phenomena’ involving all elements of society and impacting on every aspect of life. The chapters examine Frelimo and Renamo as well as private, popular and state militias, the Catholic Church, NGOs and traders. Drawing on previously unexamined sources such as local and provincial state archives, religious archives, the guerrilla’s own documentation and interviews, the book enables a deeper understanding of the conflict as well as offering a framework for understanding peacemaking and the nature of contemporary politics.

NEW PERSPECTIVES ON THE CIVIL WAR IN MOZAMBIQUE, 1976–1992

‘For some years now, scholarship on the 1976-92 war in Mozambique has been moving away from earlier interpretations that saw the war entirely as a product of foreign aggression [...] This book is important in that it brings together a number of locally based studies to create a more coherent narrative about the war.’ – Justin Pearce, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the Department of POLIS, University of Cambridge

Edited by MORIER-GENOUD, CAHEN & DO ROSÁRIO

‘... provides a much-needed fresh look at the conflict that wracked Mozambique from 1977-1992. It also provides important raw material necessary to fully understand not only the recent recurrences of conflict but also the patterns of politics that have characterized Mozambique in the multiparty era.’ – Carrie Manning, Georgia State University