The War Within. New Perspectives on the Civil War in Mozambique, 1976-1992
Résumé
The 1976-1992 civil war which opposed the Government of Frelimo and the Renamo guerrillas (among other actors) is a central event in the history of Mozambique. Aiming to open up a new era of studies of the war, this book re- evaluates this period from a number of di erent local perspectives in an attempt to better understand the history, complexity and multiple dynamics of the
armed con ict. Focusing at local level on either a province or a single village, the authors analyse the con ict as a “total social phenomena” involving all elements of society and impacting on every aspect of life across the country. e 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 authors uncover alternative dimensions
of the civil war. e book thus enables a deeper understanding of the con ict and its actors as well as o ering an explanatory framework for understanding peacemaking, the nature of contemporary politics, and the current con ict in the country.
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 Scienti que (CNRS) at Bordeaux Political Studies Institute and at the Casa de Velázquez in Madrid.
Introduction: The Civil War in Mozambique - A history still to be written - Eric Morier-Genoud and Domingos Manuel do Rosário and Michel Cahen
PART 1: IN THE NORTHERN HEART OF THE CIVIL WAR
The Anti-Frelimo Movements and the War in Zambezia - Sérgio Inácio Chichava
War to enforce a political project? Renamo in Nampula Province, 1983-1992 - Domingos Manuel do Rosário
Spiritual power and the dynamics of war in the Provinces of Nampula and Zambézia - Corinna Jentzsch
The War as seen by Renamo: Guerrilla politics and the "move to the North" at the time of the Nkomati Accord (1983-1985) - Michel Cahen
PART II: IN THE SOUTH - ANOTHER KIND OF WAR?
War in Inhambane: Re-shaping State, Society and Economy - Eric Morier-Genoud
War Accounts from Ilha Josina Machel, Maputo Province - Lily Bunker
Part III: INSIDE OUT: NEW PERSPECTIVES AND THE WORLD-SYSTEM
Mozambique in the 1980s: Periphery goes Postmodern - Georgi Derluguian
Conclusion: New perspectives on the civil war in Mozambique - Eric Morier-Genoud and Michel Cahen and Domingos Manuel do Rosário
Towards a bibliography of the Mozambican Civil War - Eric Morier-Genoud and Michel Cahen and Domingos Manuel do Rosário
James Currey authors, Michel Cahen and Eric Morier-Genoud, discuss their new book, The War Within, New Perspectives on the Civil War in Mozambique, 1976-1992, which offers a fresh analysis of the post-colonial war in Mozambique, contributes to debates about conflict, peacebuilding, development and nationalism, and offers insights into the nature of contemporary politics and the current conflict.
Can you give a brief summary of contemporary politics in Mozambique?
While the civil war in Mozambique came to an end on 4 October 1992 when the Liberation Front of Mozambique (Frelimo) and the National Resistance of Mozambique (Renamo) signed a peace accord in Rome, tensions and armed confrontations have not disappeared. Mozambique saw between 2013-16 a conflict of “low intensity” between the government and Renamo (suspended by a ceasefire and negotiations since), and it is faced by an Islamist insurgency in the north of the country since 2017. This highlights the risks and consequences of social and regional inequalities, the absence of a policy of national reconciliation, the non-integration or marginalisation of former combatants, and an exercise of power which may not see a one-party state anymore yet remains hegemonic and exclusive, not least in relation to the distribution of wealth. The economic crisis triggered by the discovery of massive illegal secret loans in 2013, and the corruption linked to it, only add to the mix to undermine the stability of the country.
Why did you set out to write this book?
There is a need to revisit the history of the war in Mozambique and re-focus studies away from Renamo. For too long, the historiography has focused on the guerrilla movement. Studies were divided in two camps. Some saw Renamo as a creation and marionette of the Rhodesian secret services to fight the regime in Maputo who supported the ZANU guerrilla (led by Robert Mugabe) and, after 1980, supported by the South African apartheid regime. If there is no doubt the two neighbouring white regimes were aimed at destabilizing Mozambique, our analysis cannot be satisfied with this explanation only. How could so-called “armed bandits”, who supposedly only cut women’s breasts and men’s ears and pounded babies, managed to be active on 80% of the national territory, including in areas far from the Rhodesian and South-African borders? How could another guerrilla, which has not been studied until now and which merged with Renamo in 1982, be active in West of the province of Zambezi in 1976 already, without any Rhodesian help, acting even before Renamo was formed? Some authors, French in particular, began at the end of the 1980s to study the social base of Renamo among the peasantry. They revealed the war of destabilization was also a civil war, situated historically, and that rural societies had chosen to use/support Renamo to protect themselves from a modern state which tried to forcefully “modernise” them in the name of Socialism. Frelimo’s policy was hostile to the African society which it labelled as “feudal” and “obscurantists” and which it wanted to “organise” and modernise at any costs. The best examples are the “communal villages” (the authoritarian grouping of peasants into new “modern” villages) which was an agricultural, economic, social, cultural, religious and political disaster. Hostility was such that Renamo managed to gain much support by attacking these villages and allowing peasants to return to their ways of life in dispersed habitat, close to their cemeteries and under the rule of traditional chiefs. Apartheid was far away for the peasants, whereas the authoritarian regime of Frelimo was felt every day. South Africa’s support to Renamo never constituted a problem for the guerrilla, except for its legitimacy with the national elite and the international community.
What new perspectives do you bring to the study of the civil war in Mozambique?
The book starts from the view that the armed conflict in Mozambique was a civil war. If one accepts that the conflict was not solely an external aggression, then one needs to study the war at large, considering all actors and all factors involved. For too long the historiography has focused on Renamo, its origins and its social base – and to a lesser extent on Frelimo and its “mistakes”. Yet, if Renamo and Frelimo were the main actors of the conflict, they were not the only ones, not even the only military ones. We felt it was time to consider other actors and look at other dimensions of the war – social, economic, ecological, etc. We opted to do so through a series of local case studies. We have not been exhaustive, so many other cases will need to be studied and many other factors will need to be considered in the future (material, psychological, visual, etc.). Through the case studies we did gather, there is a discussion of the logistics of the guerrilla, the importance of spirits, the role of churches, the role of the state and the army, and issues of gender and violence. Much time has now passed since the end of the conflict, so many new sources have become available to work on such aspects. Oral history has become easier to conduct since actors are more open to talk now, even if time also alters their memory. New written sources have become available. The contributors in our book have accessed new archives, in regional or local governments (sometimes disorganized, sometime not), and in Catholic dioceses. They have also used wholly new documentation from Renamo itself too – copies of thousands of radio messages between HQ and local groups. Thus we have progressed towards a more local or “micro-history” of the civil war.
How do “micro-histories” help us understand the civil war better?
Our book (except for the last chapter which deploys a “macro” analysis) is organized regionally. This has to do with the historiography too. There has always been more information about the “war of destabilisation” in the South of the country, close to the capital city, because the state controlled the region better and had more means of information. When Renamo committed a massacre in the South, the information was immediately known nationally and internationally. When a massacre was committed by Renamo or by the government in Zambezia, rarely did anyone in the capital or abroad learn about it. This has given the impression that the war was more intense and violent in the South of Mozambique. But our book shows clearly that the centre of gravity of the war was in the provinces of central and north Mozambique. Let us not forget either that the civil war started in the West of the province of Zambezia in 1976.
To say that the centre of gravity of the war was in the north of the country does not mean we ignored the South of Mozambique. Two chapters look at this region in different ways. The first analyses a model “communal village”, a sort of Potemkin village, which was well protected, but suffered from the conflict none the less. The second looks at the province of Inhambane to reveal the role of the Catholic church and ecological factors, among others, both elements which are usually under-estimated. Yet, it should have been obvious that a guerrilla does not develop in the same way in a province with good rains and much population and in a province where there is a low population density and the climate is dry.
Our analysis of the heterogeneity of the war at the local and regional level has also revealed new actors. There were actors as diverse as private militia, “magical warriors”, churches and NGOs which were not all involved militarily but all had an impact on the conflict. The internal sources of Renamo have revealed, among other things, the daily life of the guerrilla and its relation to rural communities.
You were talking of other actors aside from the government’s armed forces and Renamo…
Yes, it is extremely important to consider all actors to understand how this war – “a total social fact” – could last sixteen years in such a heterogeneous country. The main actors were of course Frelimo (who controlled the state) and Renamo (the guerrilla). But both established links to local communities which reacted differently. We talked already of the first guerrilla of the Partido Revolucionário de Moçambique (1976-82), an inheritor of dissident groups of the 1960s which were manipulated by the Portuguese colonial services to some extent, yet still had a real social base. Peasant societies also generated their own militia, the Naparamas, which was made up of men armed with spears who were « vaccinated » against bullets by a war chief who had himself resuscitated from the dead. They waged victorious offensives against Renamo, before being co-opted by the government and before the guerrilla created its own special troops with magical powers. These military developments are not just quirky or “exotic” developments; they were the social expression of peasant societies who were exhausted by the war and tried to protect themselves. They became very important military players at the end of the war, particularly in the provinces of Zambezia and Nampula. To add to the complexity, there was also local militiamen on the side of Renamo, men known as mudjibas, who responded to traditional chiefs and had an important role in intelligence activities. Among others they warned the Renamo base when government soldiers approached. Needless to say, the government had its own militia too, since the very start, the so-called “people’s militia”, which had a presence in “communal villages” in particular, which were poorly trained and armed, but were very important for surveillance and information gathering. Last but not least, large private companies and plantations created their own private militia, from the mid-1980s, some trained and supervised by foreign mercenaries. In short, there was quite a diversity of actors in this war, even if the central actors were and always remained the government and the guerrilla.
A last comment?
The appearance of a new armed group in October 2017 in the extreme North of Mozambique shows yet again that, in a context of great poverty, high inequalities, and social desperation, societies can generate rebellions which are not politico-military guerrillas in the classic sense of the term, like the ones in Latin America or certain parts of Africa, but the expression of a social or political problem which can take the form of millenarian or magical movements. This was also an element of the civil war, so to better understand the civil war of 1976-1992 should help us understand Mozambique today. We hope to have contributed in this and hope to be able to translate the book rapidly in Portuguese to widen the debate and the impact of the book.
Ce livre, sur la base de sources nouvelles (archives régionales au Mozambique, archives catholiques, documents internes de la rébellion) remet en cause l’historiographie selon laquelle la guerre civile au Mozambique aurait eu seulement deux acteurs, le Frelimo (gouvernement) et la Renamo (rébellion). Il analyse la guerre, confirmée comme « civile » et non seulement d’« agression externe » comme un fait social total et démontre qu’une rébellion armée existait dès 1976 dans une partie du pays et que d’autres acteurs ont été produits par les seize ans de guerre.