War, peace and development in Mozambique: A critical

assessment1
Bjørn Enge Bertelsen2
Paper presented to the ‘Peace building and post-war aid’ workshop, CMI, Bergen, June 2005

Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 1
I The trouble with exorcising 'root causes' ............................................................................ 6
I a Colonial machinations and the struggle for liberation ...................................................... 8
I b A rudimentary historical context .................................................................................... 12
I c Historiography, history and Mozambique....................................................................... 15
I d Collier’s theories and the Mozambican civil war ........................................................... 17
A final remark on the problems of applying Collier to Mozambique.................................. 23
II The Mozambican peace process........................................................................................ 25
II a War weariness, negotiations and peace ......................................................................... 25
II b The politics of peace...................................................................................................... 27
II c ONUMOZ as a mixed experience ................................................................................. 32
II d 1 GPA, ONUMOZ and a benevolent political climate.............................................. 33
II d 2 Demobilization and the perils of work half-finished.............................................. 36
A final remark on the peace process and ONUMOZ ........................................................... 39
III Mozambique 2005: What kind of peace? ....................................................................... 41
III a Aid and growth, or the erosion of the state .................................................................. 42
III b Stability and success? Thirteen years after the GPA?.................................................. 49
III b 1 Crime, corruption and criminal networks ............................................................. 49
III b 2 Reintegration of combatants: Tension and incompletion...................................... 53
III b 3 Regional differences, poverty and political division............................................. 60
III c Provisional notes one the elections of 2004 ................................................................. 62
Conclusive notes: Dark clouds, not ‘Heart of darkness’ anew ............................................ 65
Essay conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 67
Bibliography ........................................................................................................................... 70
1. Articles, books and reports............................................................................................... 70
2. Unpublished sources: Papers, newspapers articles, news items and bulletins, other
sources.................................................................................................................................. 82

1
I am indebted to many people who have commented on earlier versions of this text. Some, as Astri Suhrke and
Aslak Orre, both of CMI, Bergen have been instrumental in shaping the ideas and thoughts that are presented
here, and both have commented specifically on the text also. All flaws, faults and inaccuracies remain, alas, my
own. As this is still a work in progress, please do not quote the paper without permission from the author. All
comments remain, of course, welcome.
2
PhD researcher at Centre for development studies and Dept. of social anthropology, University of Bergen.
Norway. E-mail: Bjorn.Bertelsen@sfu.uib.no
Introduction
Endeavouring to ‘explain’ so-called civil war and warfare in general is an academic discipline
with a long history in the social sciences that may be traced back to classical philosophical
works by Hobbes, Machiavelli, Sun Tzu and Clausewitz. In recent times within the social
sciences, war has been thought of in terms of resource scarcity, ecological breakdown, inter-
group aggression, as a prolongation of politics etc. These last years an influential approach to
these issues attempting to generalise about both the causes, the dynamics and the ways in
which to end civil wars have been put forward by a group of researchers related to the World
Bank Development Research Group.3
This approach must be termed brave (in all senses of that term) as the researchers attempt to
generalise on a very large scale indeed: In the most influential work that has come out of this
research project, and also the work summing up the approaches, Collier et al. (2003) seeks to
relate development policy and the issue of civil war (writ large) in a very comprehensive and
all-embracing manner. Importantly, the work argues that the World Bank specifically and the
international community in general need to relate to civil war as a phenomenon for two main
reasons: Firstly, states Collier (2003:ix), this is because civil war "…is development in
reverse" causing or aggravating conditions of poverty among the civilian population. Collier
sees in this an argument for the international community to have a "…legitimate role as an
advocate for those who are the victims" (ibid). Secondly, building on his research, Collier
argues that development may be the most effective way to prevent conflict. He supports this
assumption by pointing out important features of the research that his book reflects, namely
that "[t]he risk of civil war is much higher in low-income countries than in middle-income
countries (ibid)". Further, Collier alleges (2003:53) that "[c]ountries with low, stagnant, and
unequally distributed per capita incomes that have remained dependent on primary
commodities for their export…" are much more prone to civil war than those with a more
diversified and, thus, developed economy.
Both of these reasons for looking at civil war as a phenomenon should be commended as far
too often the ‘dirty civil wars’ of (mainly) the South evade the gaze of international media
and, hence, also often the attention of policy-makers. Also, his call for attention to the fact
that poor countries are to a higher degree ridden by civil war serves as an attempt to
‘demarginalise’ (my term) these conflicts, making them not peripheral to the rich world but of

3
The project was initiated in 1999 and is entitled The Economics of Civil War, Crime, and Violence. Lead and
initiated by Paul Collier, it has received funding from World Bank institutions and programmes as well as the
governments of Norway, Switzerland and Greece (Collier et al. 2003:xiiif).

1
the utmost importance. (This last point is, of course, underscored by his concern also with the
rise of global terrorism, a phenomenon this text will not delve into.) Collier's work is
therefore important and it forwards both analyses of the whys and wherefores of civil war as
well as prescribing universally applicable recipes for which actions the international
community should take (however one may more specifically identify and define that). As
such, this work merits attention from scholars and practitioners alike, as it also has.
An important aspect of Collier’s work is the policy recommendations that are forwarded, and
it indeed provides a very systematic approach in providing a typology of countries that are to
be considered in relation to the risk of civil war starting or resuming. Based on statistical and
economic evidence, Collier finds firstly, that the risk of civil war in high income countries is
very low to virtually non-existent and he, thus, in pointing out a relation between civil war
and national economic income creates a typology of four types of countries with
corresponding policy recommendations for preventing or ending civil war. These four types
are:
a) Middle income at peace
b) Low income at peace
c) Low income at war
d) Low income after war

In keeping with his focus on the primary importance of economic factors (which will be
explored extensively below in the case of Mozambique), Collier is extremely clear and
outspoken in a general recommendation for all four kinds of countries: The promotion of the
continued, revived or heightened economic growth are the keys in all cases and needs to be
seen as “…the primary issue” (Collier 2003:135). However, Collier develops more specific
policy recommendations for all four types of countries, and for the case of Mozambique,
which in the time after 1992 would fall clearly and squarely into category d), Collier
recommends, among other things, the following measures:

-Undertake measures to demobilise, reintegrate and disarm former combatants

-Heavily reduce military budgets and expenditure
-Assess whether an external military presence is necessary for peacekeeping
-Re-start or initiate economic growth
-Include diasporas and encourage these to partake in reconstructive and productive work
-Prioritise reducing the risk of civil war before democratization

In Collier’s mind, it is also extremely important that these measures, and all measures
undertaken by the international community in a post-conflict situation, are sequenced
correctly. Thus, Collier argues for the following typical sequence:

2
Year 1-3/4: Peacekeeping
Year 3/4-5/6: Development assistance and aid
Year 5/6-10: Strengthen democratic institutions

The measures that Collier has recommended and the sequence, in which he recommends
these, will be related to in the case of Mozambique both directly and indirectly. However, as
not all of the aspects of the measures are equally relevant, all will not be given the same
priority. Those that are seen to be the most relevant for the Mozambican case are those
concerning peacekeeping and international presence, those relating development aid and
economic growth, and those pertaining to democracy and political developments. These will
all be developed below.
However, before venturing into these matters further, a note about Collier’s research basis for
these recommendations should be made. Collier, in a manner suggestive of the whole text,
states: “Statistical patterns are useful in that they can suggest policies that might typically
work in particular situations (Collier 2003 et al.:54).” Collier’s strict focus on statistical
patterns, patterns of numbers suggesting, speaking and recommending seemingly in and of
themselves, is needed to be kept in mind when reading Collier’s analyses and
recommendations when faced with the dangers of civil war and policies of how to end or
avoid them. Bearing his statistical and economic vantage point in mind, this text will assess
Collier’s theories in light of the evidence from Mozambique which was ravaged by first a war
of liberation from 1964 to 1975 against the Portuguese colonial regime, and then an even
bloodier war from 1976 to 1992 that has been described by many as a civil war. Also,
Mozambique is one of the many countries included in Collier’s analysis and as such is a
relevant choice for a case study assessment of his theories. This assessment will be
undertaken through an extensive exploration of the most available literature, and will use case
studies and other literature as a contrastive and critical reading of Collier's work against the
backdrop of Mozambique’s violent past and present political condition. Thus, it will also
analyse Collier's theories about civil war and its end in relation to this particular case. This
text will consist of three sections, all contrasting central general aspects of Collier's theories:

Part I will be a brief exploration of Collier’s ‘root causes’ of civil war and their applicability
to the case of Mozambique.

Part II will present the case of the Mozambican General Peace Agreement in 1992 in relation
to Collier’s policy suggestions for the ending of civil war with a particular focus on the
international community

3
Part III will be a reassessment of the peace in Mozambique through a critical analysis of the
present political and social condition in Mozambique.

As an overall question, the essay will necessarily focus on 'what kind of peace’ exists in
Mozambique building on a thorough assessment of the so-called civil war.4 Through these
two foci, the ‘civil war’ and the ensuing period of peace following the GPA, it will, thus, seek
to contribute to presenting Mozambique as a case against which Collier's assumptions and
theories may be viewed.
Within the work of Paul Collier, three factors are important in his approach to the civil war
and what may be done to end it. Throughout this text, these three aspects will be sought
addressed within the Mozambican context:

a) Was the role of the military in ending or mediating the conflict in Mozambique
important?
b) How important, if at all, was the role of aid for both political compromise being made
and for post-conflict economic growth in Mozambique?
c) What importance should one place on the early post-conflict elections in Mozambique
held in 1994? Were these of any importance to ending the conflict?

Varyingly throughout the text’s three sections, these three factors will be related to and the
text will seek to answer if they a) were present in Mozambique, b) if they worked in
accordance with Collier’s assumptions, and c) if there are other more important factors
present. This tripartite division into the civil war, its end and immediate period thereafter and
then, lastly, an assessment of Mozambique in 2005 will thus directly and indirectly contrast
Collier’s analysis with the Mozambican case.
Prior to probing the Mozambican case specifically, there is also a general point about
Collier’s work that I would like to note as there will not be room for this in the analysis
below, and that is the often implicit internalist bias in looking at civil war: In Collier’s work,
he seems to imply that what he sees as the ‘root causes’ of civil war necessarily lie within the
confines of a country. This is supported by the rather formalist (adopted uncritically and
without any substantial discussion) use of a definition of civil war. This impression of Collier
is strengthened by the imagery chosen when he describes a central finding of the research
being to have found that there is a 'ripple effect' (Collier et al. 2003:ix-x) to civil war, starting

4
The term ‘civil war’ is problematic to apply in Mozambique as in many other complex war situations. Using
the term 'civil war' is difficult in many cases as it may often gloss over dimensions related to state domination
and terrorism, elements of ethnic cleansing, international interests etc. It should therefore be qualified in each
case and in the case of Mozambique there has been, and still is, a lively discussion on which terms to use for the
warfare that took place between 1976/77 and 1992. The different positions will be extrapolated below. However,
for the sake of simplicity of argument the term will be used in this text to apply to this period of warfare.

4
within the confines of the country and expanding to neighbouring countries and ending at a
global level where "…civil war generates territory outside the control of any recognised
government, and such territories have become the epicentres of crime and disease" (ibid:x). In
relation to Mozambique, this internalist interpretation of Collier is also supported by a recent
article by Jeremy Weinstein (2002) who is part of the same research team as Collier.
Weinstein argues that although “…the emergence of Renamo cannot be understood without
understanding the geopolitical situation of Mozambique during the Cold War (Weinstein
2002:147)”, in the article Weinstein seems, at the same time, to argue that the civil war in
Mozambique was inevitable given historically explained regional divisions (Frelimo’s
allegedly Southern bias) and the, according to Weinstein, harsh, cruel and destructive
Marxist-Leninist practice of Frelimo: “Renamo’s appeals fell on ready ears at least in part
because Mozambique’s peasant majority was reeling from the disastrous effects of Frelimo’s
failed socialist agricultural policies and nationalization campaigns (Weinstein 2002:148)”.
The case of Mozambique and Weinstein’s assumptions will be explored extensively below.
But on a more principled level of analysis, this internalist and natural catastrophe imagery –
seeing civil war as emanating from a sick territory out of control, rippling through, engulfing
and destroying areas – should be challenged seriously. Within the last decade or so, there has
been a strengthening of an increasingly unipolar international system of aggressive policing
and military intervention of conspicuously selective areas spearheaded by the United Stated of
America. In this frame of mind, military conflicts and interventions as well as ‘civil wars’ or
‘dirty wars’ need to be contextualized in relation to this emerging global system in which the
violent forging of economical relations, political allegiances and dependencies as well as
aggressive belligerent practices need to be viewed as intertwined with geopolitical interest
and humanitarian motives. These increasingly important formations of violence, economic
power and war have been analysed critically by many, most famously in the analysis of this as
‘empire’ ‘(Hardt and Negri 2000). But this may also be seen as the constitution of a new form
of political order as coined by Alain Joxe’s term ‘Empire of disorder’ (2002). Joxe argues that
"[t]he geographical prevalence of armed violence in the Souths should not lead us to think that
these are new examples of 'cultural savagery': they are the result of a strategy by the dominant
countries to spatialize violence and push the most virulent causes of violence into the South
(Joxe 2002:8f, italics retained).”5 Although it would lead to far to go into Joxe's and others
alternative analyses of the what Collier calls the “rising global incidence of conflict” (2003:5),

5
For some recent additional contributions from political philosophy and anthropology, see e.g. Agamben (2000),
Trouillot (2003) and Friedman (2003).

5
it is important to note that strong, alternative readings of this rise that challenge the internalist
approaches evident in so much of his analyses, do exist and are valid. However, this
dimension of Collier's work will not be discussed in any detail within the context of this text
as this would unduly complicate the analysis of Collier’s work in relation to the case of
Mozambique which is the empirical focus of this text. On the other hand, it needs to be
stressed strongly that the international dimensions of the case will be pointed out and analysed
where this is relevant for presenting the broader case in relation to Collier's analyses. And in
the case of Mozambique, both in the period of civil war, in the brokering of peace and in the
thirteen years that have passed since the signing of the general peace agreement in 1992, the
international presence has been strong, active and very influential.
Following the above, this text will consist of three main sections dealing with different
aspects of Mozambique, and will, simultaneously test Collier’s views against Mozambique as
well as go through some recent Mozambican history and present. The first section will
therefore delve into what Collier would call 'the root causes' of civil war.

I The trouble with exorcising 'root causes'

Mozambican national history is often narrated academically, visually as well as in dominant

political discourses on a national level, as a progression from being shackled by the violent
chains of colonialism to the breaking of these by glorious liberation in 1975. In Mozambique
this history is visibly present in public space as well as in a particular casting of the past. As a
narration of the past and as a continuing presence it impinges heavily on post-war politics in
Mozambique. Regardless of the diverse readings and veracity of the narratives, the
Mozambican immediate and violent past constitutes an important aspect of wider national
processes endowed with political meaning where commemoration of specific events, traits or
conditions are highlighted to different effects. This chapter briefly addresses some of these
aspects providing firstly a general historical backdrop to Mozambican history of colonialism
and liberation before venturing into more muddled waters approaching the dynamics of the
civil war and Renamo. Against the backdrop of discourses on its past, Collier’s theories on the
origins, structures and dynamics of civil war in general will be spelt out and assessed. The
academically and politically highly contested nature of both Renamo as one of the two
belligerents in what has been dubbed a ‘civil war’ (see discussion of this term below) suggest

6
that an exploration into these debates and cases as worthwhile if one is to understand and test
Collier’s analyses.

In his work, Collier emphasises heavily the role of economic decline of GDP, bleak prospects
for employment and the reliance on export of natural resources as constituting an important
context for understanding the advent of civil war. When reading Collier against
Mozambique’s colonial history, struggle for liberation and the horrors of the civil war
between 1977 and 1992, questions of several orders arise. Firstly, and this is a question of
principal importance, what import does Collier put on the specific configurations and
trajectories of time, in short, history, that amounts to specific practices, institutions, legacies
and identities in a country vis-à-vis civil war? Secondly, how well does Collier’s
interpretations of the universal reasons, the ‘root causes’ in his terminology, for civil war
translate into the Mozambican context?
The first of these two questions might be answered quite swiftly after having reviewed
Collier: In his mind, the historical and colonial context plays an extremely limited role in
understanding initiation, development and end of a particular civil war – the economic
performance is far more significant: “While the colonial legacy presumably affects the risk of
conflict to some degree, the connection appears to be weaker than the influence on economic
performance (Collier et al 2003:66)”. Thus, economic factors triggering violence seems to be
given the primacy in the search for ‘root causes’. And despite his apparent acknowledgement
that all wars are different, Collier time and again clears away the debris of messy contexts and
complicated politics, paving the way for the ‘broader view’, evidenced by this typical quote:

Each war is distinctive, with its own particular personalities, events, and
antecedents. Any all-embracing, general theory of civil war would therefore
be patently ridiculous, and sensibly enough most analyses are country-
specific, historical accounts. However, when we pan back from the
particular patterns emerge, some of them surprisingly strong, which
suggests that some characteristics tend to make a country more or less
prone to civil war (Collier et al. 2003:54).

Collier goes on to argue both for universally applicable analyses and policies for low-income
countries ravaged by conflict and caught in what he terms a ‘conflict trap’. Attempting to
follow Collier, this part of the text will endeavour to see, firstly, if Collier’s readings of
reasons for and dynamics of civil war holds true for Mozambique, and secondly, see if
scholarly works on the historical, social and political context of these wars in Mozambique
support or challenge Collier’s main theories on civil war.

7
I a Colonial machinations and the struggle for liberation
At independence in 1975, Mozambique had been under Portuguese cololinal rule that may be
traced back to the 16th century, prior to which the Mozambican territory was subject to wide-
spread slave trade and trade in general.6 The colonial regime gradually penetrated the
geographical areas later to become Mozambique, although Portuguese strongholds have
traditionally been along the coast. Through the centuries, territorial expansion, in tandem with
colonial interests, culminated with a more formalised colonial bureaucratic and territorial
control, amounting to more effective extractive economic practises in the late 1800s to early
1900s. Structures of the Portguese colonial regime may be seen to have evolved concurrently
with and resulting from economic incentives, rather than ideals of civilizing the colony and its
natives.7
In the 20th century, strong restrictions were placed on Mozambican peasants by Portuguese
colonial authorities. Among the most important and far-reaching was the introduction of poll
tax, and the requirements to do wage labour, chibalo, away from home for six months of the
year "...effectively forcing them to migrant labour" (Hanlon 1996:9). Contrasting in this way
British and French colonies, the Portuguese continued this practice until independence
(Munslow 1984:203). These measures greatly ruptured agricultural practices by forcibly
removing male members of the household for longer periods of time (Newitt 1995:413).
Another colonial measure was taken in the field of education. To a large degree controlled by
the Catholic Church, it was directed at being, in the Cardinal Clemente Gouveia's words, "...a
way of making them [natives] prisoners of the earth" (quoted in Hanlon 1990:21).8 Through
these severe economic and structural colonial machinations, Mozambicans' room for
manoeuvre in many social, economic and practical aspects were sharply restricted.
In the 1950s and 1960s, based on predominantly British and South African capital, various
industrial enterprises were established, and by 1970 Mozambique was comparatively one of
the most industrialised countries in Africa. Simultaneously, the governments of Salazar's
Portugal adopted a strategy of exporting often poorly educated Portuguese landless workers to

6
For a recent interesting work on slavery in South Central Africa, cf. Isaacman and Isaacman (2004). See also
Alpers (1967) and Capela (1993) on slavery in Mozambique specifically.
7
Newitt (1995) is perhaps the most influential general work on the history of Mozambique. But see also Duffy
(1962) for early colonial Portuguese Africa and the massive 1100 pages work on Mozambican colonial history
from 1854 to 1918 by René Pélissier (1994), published both in French and Portuguese.
8
The dominance of the Catholic Church in Mozambique and its close relationship with the colonial regime lead
a Presbyterian minister, Dr. Amos Zita, to claim it "…played the role of 'domesticating' the blacks and making
them good Portuguese citizens" (Roussow and Macamo 1993:538). However, post-independence relations
between the new state and religious denominations are complex, cf. Morier-Genoud (1996a,1996b,2000), Cruz e
Silva (2001) and Monnier (1995).

8
its colonies. Mozambique thereby became the epitome of a particular brand of colonialism,
aptly dubbed 'shopkeeper colonialism' by Frelimo – Frente de Libertação de Moçambique –
Mozambique’s anti-colonial liberation movement. This meant settlers had no economic
control of businesses or capital, but only managed foreign enterprises, literally as
shopkeepers. Again contrasting sharply British and French colonies, in Mozambique the
Portuguese were "…the taxi drivers, low-level government clerks, ticket collectors on trains,
and especially shopkeepers" (Hanlon 1996:10). These particular Portuguese colonial practices
effectively barred the bulk of population from ever accessing substantial amounts of know-
how of the various specialised tasks involved in industrial and administrative sectors.9
In keeping with the general contemporary trend of liberation in Africa from colonial powers,
the liberation movement Frelimo was founded in 1962 in Dar es Salaam.10 However, the
specific backdrops for Frelimo’s ability to mobilise were the continued Portuguese colonial
measures enacted against the African population, a colonialism permeated with violence.11
Opposing Portuguese rule, Frelimo countered the colonial violence by launching its first
armed attacks in 1964 from bases within southern Tanzania. The colonial conscripts
eventually became weary of the war, and towards 1975 Portugal increasingly used elite troops
and a dirty war tactics in an attempt to win militarily.12 However, a coup d'état on 25 April
1974 in Portugal, informed by among other elements its colonial wars, toppled its
government. The new regime took heed to the human and economic expenses of the country's
different colonial wars, and a process of reluctant hand-over to Frelimo was initiated in 1974
and finalised during 1975.
These sketches of colonialism and liberation outlined above are crucial to understanding the
state of affairs of 1975 post-independence Mozambique: The Portuguese emigrated in large
numbers, taking capital and expertise with them, sometimes having destroyed industrial
machinery, repair manuals, records that could not be removed (Hanlon 1990:48) or

9
Marshall dubs the extreme exploitation of the colonial regime in Mozambique ‘ultracolonialism’ (1993:17).
10
Frelimo gradually became the most influential, based on other proto-nationalist groups including Malawi-
based Unami (União Nacional Africana de Moçambique Independente), Rhodesia-based Udenamo (União
Democratica Nacional de Moçambique) and Tanzania-based Manu (Mozambique African National Union)
(Opello 1975, Alpers 1979). Cf. also Hanlon (1990), Newitt (1995) and Munslow (1983) for early Mozambican
foreign-based nationalism and Mateus (1999) for an exploration of Lusophone liberation movement elites. Cf.
also Penvenne (1989,1996,2003), Isaacman (1988) and Zamparoni (2000,2002) for early African Mozambican
elites and varying degrees of liberation aspirations. For perhaps the most comprehensive collection of sources to
early liberation movement documents, cf. Chilcote (1972).
11
de Lemos early comment on Portuguese African rule underscores this: "Violence may be regarded as one of
the principal characteristics of traditional colonialism" (1965:41). Cf. also the documentation of colonial torture
by Afrontamento (1977) and for other views on the violence of colonialism cf. e.g. Fanon (1998), Serequeberhan
(1998) and Behdad (1997).
12
E.g. Portuguese soldiers committed atrocities against peasants as in the massacres in Wiriamu, Tete Province
in December 1972 on the notion that they were supporting Frelimo (Hanlon (1990:36ff).

9
slaughtered the cattle of the farms (Finnegan 1992:30). This notwithstanding, in 1976 Frelimo
was carried forward on a wave of enthusiasm after gaining independence from the
Portuguese, and had managed to govern the country in the face of Portuguese exodus. Being a
country now ruled by what at least seemingly was a vanguard Marxist-Leninist party, in a
region where white minority-ruled states still dominated, the Frelimo government closed its
borders and imposed United Nations-sponsored sanctions against Ian Smith's Rhodesia.13
Rhodesia had prior to this politically and regionally 'bold' Mozambican move, already
initiated attacks on Mozambique effectively starting the era of ‘civil war’ from 1977-1992.
In Rome on October 4 1992, the military leaders of Mozambique's two main belligerent
parties, Renamo and Frelimo, signed a General Peace Agreement (GPA), and finalised 12
negotiation rounds spanning a good two years (Rupiya 1998:7). Post-GPA, the fighting died
down, and after an ONUMOZ-unit had been deployed into Mozambique a general election
was held during the autumn of 1994. At least in a legal and formal sense ‘the war' had thus
ended, and a new national army, FADM, was subsequently formed from the contingents of
fighters from all military levels of both Renamo groups and Frelimo units.14
However, what was the debris of the war? Some figures may indicate the scale of the damage
inflicted: Of Mozambique's mid-1980s population of 13-15 million, 1 million had been killed,
1,7 million were refugees in neighbouring countries, and at least 3,2 million were deslocados
typically living near to towns and cities, often in abject poverty (Hanlon 1996:16).15 It had
“…the world’s lowest GDP per capita and an extreme aid dependence” (Braathen and
Palmero 2001:295n3), and large parts of the physical and administrative infrastructure that the
new 'Marxist-Leninist' Frelimo state accomplished to construct in liberated Mozambique had
been destroyed (Hanlon 1996:15). Hanlon has argued this was not 'mindless violence', but
part of Renamo's strategy to "...destroy the gains of independence" (ibid). Because health and
education were some of the main reasons for Frelimo's initial popularity, schools and health
posts were targeted, along with students, teachers, nurses and patients, who often were
kidnapped or killed "…so people would be afraid to provide or use social services" (ibid.).
But what were the basis and dynamics of Renamo?
If we are to follow Collier, one explanation that should be discarded at the very beginning is
that rebellions are related to what Collier terms ‘grievances’. He claims that “…all rebel

13
Several works capture well this sense of optimism and aspirations for a socialist future. See Alpers (1979),
Davidson (1979), Henriksen (1976,1978), Isaacman and Isaacman (1983), Nwafor (1983) and Saul (1979,1985).
14
For the formation of FADM, cf. J. Honwana (1999), Stephen (1995) and E. Young (1999).
15
Of these, 1 058 500 were registered in Malawi in 1993, Zambia had 25 400, Zimbabwe 137 900, Tanzania 20
000 and Swaziland 24 000 (UNHCR Report 1993). However, e.g. Rupiya (1998:7) claim that the numbers
amounted to between 5 and 6 million, while Juergensen claims 'internally marooned' were 4.5 million (2000:6).

10
groups provide a litany of severe grievances, many of which are undoubtedly genuine (Collier
et al 2003:65)”. But this ‘litany’ does not provide any explanation, according to Collier, as
“…for such grievances to explain rebellion they should be significantly worse than those of
groups in other societies that resort to less violent political processes” (Collier et al 2003:66).
This means, if we are to take this literally that ‘grievances’ may not be used as parts of causal
or contributing explanations of civil war as the statistical data on ‘grievances’ differs from
country to country, some who have had civil and other wars, some not. The term ‘grievances’
in Collier’s parlance seems, then, to be a catch-all phrase for everything from slavery and the
gravest exploitation and conditions of most extreme poverty, to non-materially based
perceptions of troubled conditions. Nowhere in the text is ‘grievances’ sought nuanced or
refined in terms of e.g. class, structural violence, marginalisation etc. However, it is quantified
in terms of ‘inequality of household incomes’ and ‘inequality in the ownership of the land’,
and Collier “…find no effect of either income or land inequality on the risk of conflict”
(Collier et al 2003:66). Interpreting this, one could say that for a war to start in a country, the
group initiating the war (because it is always a group and, seemingly, never a state who
initiates this in Collier’s mind) need to be objectively (that is, economically) worse off than
groups in ‘other societies’. This position, what we may term ‘the unimportance of grievances’
thesis, seems to disregard any and all contexts of political processes and practices, structures
of exploitation and poverty or historical trajectories of violent struggles. Contrary, for a civil
war to start, and Collier does define the civil war in Mozambique as one (as does the report he
relies heavily on, Sambanis 2003, for data about Mozambique), then the important part of the
incentives for fighting should be the imagined gain from warfare in material resources as
envisaged by ‘rebel leaders’ (again Collier’s terms).
However, in the context of Mozambique, the destruction of state and other infrastructure at
the hands of Renamo is surely irrational economic behaviour as one would, following Collier,
perhaps expect these soldiers to maximise their profits by looting and then attempting to resell
rather than mostly sack and burn. Perhaps some were motivated by political grievances so
explicitly unimportant to Collier’s analysis when he states that “…although most rebel groups
have political agendas that appear reasonable, their actual agendas may be somewhat
different, and in any case, similar agendas are normally promoted by mass political action
rather than by rebellion” (2003:66). Perhaps the state apparatus and the people serving it took
on meanings not possible to translate into purely economic terms, thus, informing actions
where destruction, killing and maiming, someties in ritualistic settings, on one level also was
about the attempted alteration of meaning and not purely maximising profits? Let us look at

11
the ‘litany of grievances’ that Collier claims is always put forward by rebels (and is part of his
‘unimportance of grievances’ thesis), serving in Collier’s mind as part of a series of
arguments (including ethnic identities, for instance) constituting a smokescreen covering the
real motives of economic gain through the creation and early dynamics of Renamo.

I b A rudimentary historical context

In endeavouring to exorcise causes and consequences, and instigators and victims from the
diverse texts on the civil war in Mozambique, one is first struck by scientific dissonance
regarding many broad issues. An instructive example is the nature of Renamo, of which there
is surprisingly little agreement. However, what is generally acknowledged is that Renamo
(MNR) was to a certain extent created by Rhodesia as a direct result of Mozambican
independence around 1976. The explicit dual aims were, firstly, to target mainly ZANLA
guerrillas,16 which were fighting for a liberated Zimbabwe and which operated from bases in
Mozambican hinterlands, and secondly to wreak havoc on the new majority-ruled state of
Mozambique. As Newitt (1995:564) puts it: "...Renamo was simply a mercenary unit of a
white colonial army".
Around Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980, it is pointed out by most researchers, control of
Renamo changed from Salisbury to Pretoria’s BOSS (South African Bureau of State Security)
and SADF (South African Defence Forces). Renamo thereby became an integrated part of
South Africa's regional 'destabilisation strategy'. But from here on, diverse views and
conflicting analyses emerge: Many scholars lay the heaviest responsibility for the dynamics
and development of Renamo on exogenous factors as Rhodesia and South Africa, also
arguing that SADF forces were directly involved in battles, army bases, logistics, and in
killing Frelimo activists abroad.17 This claim is contested by some, stressing endogenous
factors evidenced by Renamo’s popular base from which it drew support among the
disgruntled Mozambican civilian population due to (at least) two much criticised Frelimo
strategies: The socialist inspired strategy of forced villagisation for increasing agricultural
production, together with the refusal to recognise traditional authority, especially the régulo.
These, they claim, contribute strongly to explaining regional peasant support for Renamo.18

16
Zimbabwean African National Liberation Army (ZANLA) and Zimbabwean African People's Union (ZAPU)
fought for the liberation of Zimbabwe (Bhebe and Ranger (1995,1996), Kriger (1992) and Schmidt (1996).
17
See i.e., Alden (1996: 43ff), Beinart (1992:484), Birmingham (1992), Hall and Young (1997), Hanlon (1986,
1990, 1991 and 1996), Isaacman and Isaacman (1983), Newitt (1995:574ff), Norwegian Ministry of Foreign
Affairs (1997:35), Ranger (1992), Roesch (1992), Rupiya (1998), Vines (1991) and Waterhouse (1996).
18
Cf. Geffray (1990), J.C. Legrand (1993) and Cahen (1993) for this view. An early attempt at analysing the
Mozambican conflict not only as external aggression was done by Meillassoux and Verschuur (1985).

12
Opposing this latter view, and rather indicating strong exogenous interests in Mozambique, is
the far from insignificant role played by foreign interests. This adds to the points made about
Rhodesia's and South Africa's interests and direct involvement in the war, corroborated by
former SADF chief Magnus Malan: "I know all about this movement because I was its
number one propagandist from the start… Its name was the Mozambican National Resistance
[Renamo] and when I first started glorifying its exploits in July 1977, it existed in name only"
(quoted in Magaia 1988:6). The propagandist support of Renamo, dubbed 'freedom fighters'
"...like the contras in Nicaragua..." by the right wing in USA, also materialised through the
training of troops, logistical support, weaponry, and money (Magaia 1988:3).19 The Soviet
Union and other Eastern Bloc countries were also heavily involved in the country, having
invested politically and capital-wise. After independence the USSR and GDR provided
military logistics, expertise and capital to Frelimo and its army FAM (Forças Armadas de
Moçambique), thus, also having clear interests in the escalating conflict.20 The image of a
country engaged in a non-national 'cold war turned warm' emerges, and this perspective is
strengthened if turning towards other African states that were involved directly and
indirectly.21
Hence, defining (and thereby confining) the conflict fully as a 'civil war' clearly does not hold
in the light of (vested or stated) geo-political interests and attacks/support from neighbouring
countries (hostile and friendly) and superpowers and groups based inside and outside the
region (hostile and friendly). And as Sidaway states "...even now, to call it a civil war is to be
seen to have accepted a particular interpretation" (1998:246). Exogenous factors and the
structures of the 'Cold War' hence seem salient as entry points to a macro analysis on the level
of the international shakers and movers. But what of the groups identified as involved in the
war: Do the images of two distinct warring and coherent parties, Frelimo and Renamo, hold
when going into the war in more detail?

19
The image of Renamo as God-fearing anti-communists turned out to be a success among the extreme right and
Christian organisations. It has been documented that the International Freedom Foundation collaborated with
BOSS and supplied Renamo with thirty tonnes of weapons via Malawi in 1991 (Dinerman 1994:570). Other
bizarre extremist organisations in the US that supported Renamo were Christ for the Nations Inc., the Believers
Church and the End of Time Handmaidens (Newitt 1995:570). Cf. also Austin (1994).
20
See Howell (1994), for an article outlining the components and significance of aid from the German
Democratic Republic. For the relationship between USSR/Russia and Mozambique, see Jinadu (1987), Weitz
(1992) and Vanneman (1990). Sitoe (2003:25) also argues that the refusal from the Soviet Union in 1982 to let
Mozambique join Comecon, influenced heavily Frelimo’s decision to reorient itself westwards after this and
subsequently approaching the Breton-Woods institutions that were to transform Mozambican economy and
society (see below). The same point about the economic burden of being barred access to Comecon, as well as
the financial burden of warfare, is also made by Alden (2001:15) in explaining Frelimo’s policy change.
21
Cf. e.g. the role of 'life president' Banda of Malawi who supported Renamo (Africa Watch 1992:132, Finnegan
1992:160f, Gonçalves 1998:7).

13
In analysing the dynamics of the war, three particular aspects of it stand out: It was waged
largely in rural areas, it revolved primarily around the control of civilian populations for
tactical reasons, and it was in comparative terms extremely violent. Renamo, in particular,
"...developed a reputation for the ritualistic use of violence aimed at instilling incapacitating
fear in rural communities" (A. Honwana 1998:1). If one develops this perspective, one may
add the civilian population to the list of involved parties, not merely in the sense of refugees
fleeing violence and war, but as strategic targets. However, how elucidating is a rigid three-
way analysis consisting of Renamo, FAM and an unwitting albeit involved civilian
population? A case in point blurring this distinction between civilians and soldiers are the
many children who were forcibly recruited to partake in the war.22 The gruesome methods of
recruitment of mostly boys by Renamo are widely documented, and followed a typical pattern
involving "...taking the boy back to his own village and forcing him to kill someone known to
him. The killing took place in such a way that the community knew that he had killed, thus
effectively closing the door to the child ever returning to his village" (Dodge 1991:57). As
pointed out above in outlining the various international actors, delimiting the war to two
distinct warring parties equals 'doing violence' to the complexity of the war. As Nordstrom
(1997) has demonstrated, the confusions and contradictions as to who are who and the
importance of life-saving scraps and pieces of information as to who is a good or a bad
soldier, more often than not constituted the reality of war for people, not necessarily
distinctive groups of enemies and protectors. How is one, then, to categorise the soldier who
protects a village only to loot and sack it himself, and (maybe part-time) renegade soldiers
who charge money to protect? FAM soldiers, after conquering a Renamo-held village,
rounding up and executing villagers on the notion that they were traitors? ZANLA guerrillas
away from their home base looting villages after having sacked the strongholds of local war-
lords profiting from the war? How clear-cut are the fronts when Renamo bands, only vaguely
under control of its leadership (be that local, Rhodesian, South African or other), don FAM
outfits when sacking villages to dissociate people from the state and Frelimo?

The complicating perspectives lined up above should have brought out some of the
background for the difficulty of applying the term ‘civil war’ to the Mozambican case and

22
Estimated numbers of Renamo's child-soldiers are fairly consensual: 8-10 000 (Dodge 1991:51), 8000 (Cohn
& Goodwin-Gill 1994:114) or 8945 Renamo and FAM 16 553 soldiers under the age of 18 (Máusse 1999:13).
Castanheira (1999) presents the war and post-war lives of child-soldiers in Mozambique portrayed mostly as
victims, but for a critical review of the concept of child-soldiers as purely victims, see e.g. A. Honwana (2000).
On the case of Mozambique, cf. also Gibbs (1994) and Thompson (1999).

14
thus also the difficulties of applying a rigid internalist analysis to the civil war in
Mozambique. However, an important reason for introducing these muddling perspectives as
to the changing, area-dependent and situational who are who and the flux of war is, as
Carolyn Nordstrom asks (1997:47); how do we speak of violence responsibly? As this
question also has profound importance for representation of conflicts, they are also important
for reviewing Collier’s analyses. And Mozambique is a case in point in this respect as its past
and analyses constitutes a heavily contested area, something which does not easily come to
the surface neither in Collier’s decontextualisation nor in the text of Sambanis (which Collier
draws on for the Mozambican cases), the latter seeking to draw out causes, contexts and
factors, to a certain extent. From this perspective, a review of Collier’s general assumptions
need not only be confronted with the analytical and empirical evidence from Mozambique
although this is perhaps the most illuminating way to assess Collier. It needs also to be seen in
relation to the country’s recent historiography and politics of representation as this has,
Nordstrom points out, a profound impact on different levels of analysis. Let us, therefore,
briefly reassess Mozambican historiography and history-writing as this is a heavily contested
area, mirroring, in some aspects the complexities (and stances) of the civil war itself.

I c Historiography, history and Mozambique

As has been outlined above, there has been written an abundance of scholarly and semi-
scholarly historical works on Mozambique. Quite a number hail the achievements and policies
of the dominant Frelimo party and the struggle for independence, or contain rosy political
biographies of leaders.23 Many of these texts fit a process of nation-building due to
sympathetic depictions of the causes of nationalism, and the reader is amply supplied with
slogan-like terms as 'the nation's struggle' or 'the rise of the popular power'. Many of these
works might be subsumed under the Bakhtinian term 'epic genre' (1981) through casting of
bold vs. cowardly characters and the narration and temporalisation of significant events
creating a ‘represented world’.
In the Mozambican context, this 'represented world' was the scholarly view of a nation
liberated from the menace of colonialism, now bravely fighting brainless enemies of the new
socialist state, portrayed as dupes of Ian Smith's regime and, later as pawns of the Apartheid
regional system of exploitation. This process of 'demonising' Renamo and its adherents by the
majority of scholars was commonplace from the 1970s until the late 1980s. Scholars produced

23
For uncritical early accounts of the liberation, see Egerö (1990), Isaacman (1978), Isaacman and Isaacman
(1981,1983), Munslow (1983) and Saul (1979). For biographies, see Christie (1988) and Munslow (1985).

15
a plethora of texts underlining Renamo's Rhodesian origins and support, the dynamics of
South African destabilisation and western Christian and right-wing logistical and fiscal
support for Renamo.24 In the 1980s, there were some far-reaching revisionists that saw the
civil war contrarily, as a ‘second war of liberation’, but most were academically dismissed as
being Renamo supporters.25 Though there were also some other scholars early on criticising
this view of Rhodesian origins and South African destabilization, most were disregarded and
to some degree marginalised within the academic debate.26 One of these, Michel Cahen, in a
comment to these early dynamics of history writing and analysis in Mozambique, has claimed
that many international observers until the GPA in 1992 mirrored Frelimo's image of Renamo
as armed bandits (Cahen 1995:119f). Not endorsing Michel Cahen's point fully, it is worth
noting that the diverse nature and explorations of the dynamics of Renamo’s popular support
did not constitute a main academic concern among most Africanists dealing with
Mozambique before the mid to late 1990s. Filho (1997) represents this more recent view on
the causes and dynamics of newer Mozambican history, stating that "…[c]onflicts between
the Mozambican peasantry and Frelimo’s modernist Marxism were the primary causes of the
civil war" (1997:192, italics removed).27 In recent years, several works, e.g. the pro-Renamo
work by Cabrita (2000) on the origins of Renamo and Frelimo and the civil war and the book
by Ncomo (2004) which seeks to reinterpret and review recent Frelimo history, have intended
to re-write the history of Mozambique which has, according to some, been dominated by
Frelimo. However, most of these works have found only very limited academic acceptance
and in the context of understanding the origins and dynamics of the civil war, do not seem to
challenge the main findings elaborated above.
Thus, the complexities and entangled nature of the war in Mozambique and, further, the large
degree to which the recent history of Mozambique is politicised also in academic circles,
makes it very questionable if we are confronted with a classic case of a ‘civil war’.

24
See e.g. Fauvet (1984), Metz (1986), Cammack (1988), Cliff and Noormahomed (1988), Gersony (1988),
Magaia (1988), Darch (1989), Minter (1989), Urdang (1989), AWEPA (1989), O'Laughlin (1992a,1992b),
Nilsson (1993), Sidaway (1993) and Austin (1994) for examples of this representation.
25
E.g. Hoile (1989,1994) and Clarence-Smith (1989). More explicitly politically motivated texts supporting
Renamo as Thomashausen (1983) and Wheeler (1985) were only marginally influential.
26
Cf. for example Geffray and Pedersen (1988), Geffray (1990) and Cahen (1989).
27
Cf. also for example Seibert (2003) for this newer approach stressing popular opposition to Frelimo’s policies
as important for understanding the dynamics of the civil war. The energetically (and sometimes emotionally
charged) debates on Mozambique's past and present is evident in several works. Cf. also Penvenne's branding of
these as ‘contentious’ (Penvenne 1998:231n1).

16
I d Collier’s theories and the Mozambican civil war
The above exploration of both recent Mozambican history, its readings and different phases of
interpretation strongly suggests that the case of Mozambique is not one where one may easily
locate ‘root causes’ to be fed into an analysis as the one Collier presents. If one is to situate
Collier within the historiography of the civil war, his theories of the, in a sense, ‘rational
belligerent actor’ bent on (and perhaps predisposed to?) maximising his returns would make
Collier at odds with the plethora of literature cited above which suggests there were other
motivations for Renamo than immediate gains. That is not to say that there were no economic
activities that run by Renamo during the civil war for personal gain or to feed its war
machine. Thus, one might argue that there existed, perhaps, the rudimentary aspects of what
Collier calls the ‘rebel groups as business organizations’ (Collier 2003:72). Renamo’s strategy
of having bush bases and the little or no pay soldiers received increasingly made them roam
the countryside after 1984/85 as support from Malawi and South Africa dwindled away to
loot and also to abduct a significant number of people to forcibly work agricultural plots, as
domestic servants, as carriers or, for women and girls, as sexual slaves (cf. e.g. Nordstrom
1997, Gersony 1988). However, this fact does not challenge the central point of the
international dimensions of Renamo origins and dynamics made above.
In attempting to read Collier in relation to Mozambique, the perhaps best place to start is with
his colleague Sambanis (2002) who provided an underlying document to Collier et al (2003).
Sambanis (2002) identifies two problematic features in the application to Mozambique of
Collier’s argument of both natural resources as the lure for struggle (as this was not central to
it) and the importance of a large percentage of unemployed men, two key components of
Collier’s model. Interestingly, Sambanis does not see this as challenging the model per se in
any significant way, but rather he seeks to accommodate for the fact that the economic
incentives from abroad may substitute for the apparently normal situation of natural resources,
testing Collier’s ‘primary commodity export/GDP’ argument against the Mozambican case:

Financial support from external actors can substitute for lootable

commodities in financing the onset of a rebellion. Looting of stores &
households, plus extortion can also help sustain a rebellion (Sambanis
2002:106).

This accommodation of the natural resources as translated into financial support from abroad
is perhaps problematic from a methodological point of view in that it states that one
component of data may, without any problems and decontextualised, be translated into
representing something else. However, Sambanis also acknowledged that perhaps there were

17
problems with representing the war in Mozambique as a civil war, even though he argues for
the validity of the overall argument of ‘material benefits’ as being important in the context of
testing Collier’s ‘GDP per capita’ argument (Sambanis 2002:106):

Poverty’s relationship to war is more complicated than that predicted by CH

[referring to the paper that was to become Collier et al 2003]. In phase 1
Renamo recruits were Frelimo’s victims of repression, not unemployed
men, while in phase 2 recruits were mostly poor peasants. But in both
phases many were coerced to join. Still, material benefits were a key
reason why the recruits stayed.

Faced with the above evidence of the extreme degree of violence and violent coercion with
which the war was carried out, and with its many actors (cf. Gersony 1988, Wilson 1992,
Nordstrom 1997 etc.), it seems an absurd argument to make that ‘material benefits’ were key
aspects as to why recruits continued to be a part of Renamo. This argument reduces the
complexities of violent interaction between many forces (where the Mozambican state is also
one of many) to a question of material incentives for fighting.
Further, Sambanis’ and Collier’s works do not take in the international and historical context
of the fighting in Mozambique and how this shaped and fuelled the civil war. Within the
context of scholarly debate on Mozambique, even critics of the interpretation of forcible
recruitment and the ritualistic use of violence, like Schafer (2001), argues for the need to
situate the experiences and motivations for joining and staying with Renamo within the
framework of distinct historical contexts. As Schafer says, “only in this way can we
understand the rationality of the participants themselves, which is the central element of any
peace process and post-war civil reconstruction” (Schafer 2001:237).
So where should we situate Collier and Sambanis within the framework of the above
discussion on endogenous and exogenous explanations of Renamo? The endogenous
explanations of Collier with the context-free and historyless modes of explanation makes it
tempting to situate such an analysis definitely within the endogenous end of the stratum of
Mozambicana research. Also, the conservative flair, of which Sambanis’ is also very vocal,
seems to support this. Sambanis, almost naïvely, states in a section where he lists ‘non-CH
variables’ (that is, variables not included in Collier’s model as outlined in Collier et al 2003)
that Frelimo had an inability to control the totality of Mozambique’s territory just after
independence, and that “[t]his inability was presumably magnified by Frelimo’s repression of
all those connected with [the] colonial regime, i.e. if members of the colonial security forces
were still in favour, they could have helped out (and in fact there very likely would not have

18
been a civil war)” (Sambanis 2002:108). This is revealing of much of the political thinking
implicit in the research project: A glance at the literature on Mozambique during the
liberation war reveals the ways in which the Portuguese army and its Mozambican recruits
waged its dirty war against civilians and how the Portuguese colonial regime was a
comparatively extremely exploitative and repressive colonial regime (as to some degree
outlined above). This makes the idea of having these ‘helping out’, in Sambanis’ parlance, not
only naïve in terms of structures of transition from colonialism to independence, but also
revealing in terms of the views of colonialism and the state in general.

The view of stability and/or frictionless transition seemingly being the preferred option under
any given regime is evident also in Collier’s work where he speaks of autocracies and
democracies, stating that autocracies do fare somewhat better in terms of dangers of civil war
in low-income countries. Writes Collier (2003:64) “[a]t low levels of per capita income,
political institutions tend to be less stable in democracies than in autocracies. The average
duration of a democratic political system in a low-income country is only nine years.” This
leads him to conclude that “At low income levels democracy may well be highly desirable for
many reasons, but it cannot honestly be promoted as the road to peace (Collier et
al.2003:65)”. This view translates well into a, at best, very conservative argument of the
protection and upholding of the state (any state - be it colonial, repressive or other) in any
circumstance. Also, his view implies that ‘civil wars’ never seem to be initiated by states, nor
that ‘rebel armies’ or ‘private armies’ (both depoliticizing terms for insurgents used by
Collier) may have very real grievances, which Collier to some degree acknowledges, but that
these grievances might be directed against the state. However, as such Collier’s stance is set
apart from the somewhat pro-Renamo internalist school of Mozambican studies (see also
above) with, firstly, those conservatively informed seeing the civil war as a righteous war
against oppressive communism (e.g. Wheeler 1985, Thomashausen 1983 and Hoile
1989,1994), thus, in their mind, providing legitimacy to Renamo. But secondly, it also
differentiates Collier from the more moderate internalists (e.g. Geffray 1990, Cahen 1989)
who state that the reasons for the intensification of the violent dynamics of the war were to be
found in the exploration of traditional structures, in the generational struggles, in Frelimo’s
anti-traditionalist stances etc. This disregard of the performance of the state, or put differently,
the regime within which ‘rebel armies’ are recruited or formed, also implicitly sets Collier

19
apart from the wide range of interpretations of Mozambican colonial past which his analysis
in large parts dismisses the importance of.28
Both ends of the Mozambican research stratum would oppose this dismissal if taken as a
disregard for the influence of colonial machinations on Mozambican independent society and,
thus, the shaping of the civil war. It is therefore interesting to look closer at Collier’s
definition of civil war which, unsurprisingly, is the classical (and heavily criticised)
conventional and formalistic definition: “Civil war occurs when an identifiable rebel
organization challenges the government militarily and the resulting violence results [sic!] in
more than 1,000 combat-related deaths [annually], with at least 5 percent on each side (Collier
2003:11)”, building on Singer and Small’s classic definition (see e.g. Singer and Small 1982).
This definition, extremely compatible with econometric and economic analyses and
approaches such as Collier’s, implies a Clausewitzian view of civil war, seeing it as an orderly
situation in which entities (as few and as strictly separated as possible) engage each other in
battle. Thus, this glosses over all the fuzzy edges, the multiple, changing and disorderly
identities and allegiances, the rhizomatic dynamics of warfare as has been pointed out by
several to be important aspects of the war in Mozambique (cf. e.g. Nordstrom 1997,2004 and
Bertelsen 2002). Hence, this Clausewitzian vision of an orderly war of units engaging each
other in battle is very far from the reality of many dirty wars and extremely far from the
realities of the war in Mozambique. It is evident that Collier does not recognise the problems
in arguing for simple divisions between civilians, state army and rebels. This tri-partite
division and the ways in which the data somehow exorcised from countries like Mozambique
is problematic as the civil war in Mozambique was very chaotic from this point of view.
Further, and this is a theoretical point adding to the methodological, and that is how does one
discern rebel from civilian, civilian from, in a Mozambican context, an FAM soldier? All
wars are dirty, but in the context of Mozambique the evidence is abundantly clear that the war
constituted such an upheaval, spread in such a way that the distinctions between rebel and
civilian as well as the frontlines become opaque.29

28
“This legacy of [colonial] institutions, as proxied by mortality rates among settlers, is highly significant in
accounting for differences in recent growth performance, but turns out to have no significant explanatory power
in relation to either the risk or the duration of conflict. While the colonial legacy presumably affects the risk of
conflict to some degree, the connection appears to be weaker than the influence on economic performance”
(Collier et al. 2003:66).
29
A further point occluding the formal clarity is the evidence that a ’carnival grotesque’ was the order of the
day in many contexts: Renamo men, perhaps forcibly recruited or defectors from FAM, donned outfits from
FAM to discredit the state while attacking villages. In retaliation, FAM troops sacked the village in belief that it
had supported Renamo and when doing so claimed to be Renamo soldiers and so on.

20
Hence, Collier’s tri-partite division and his unproblematic use of the numbers emanating
thereof, is used throughout his text, and for example, in table 3.1 over the size of ‘rebel
organization’, in the slot on Mozambique (building on Sambanis (2003) and Weinstein and
Francisco (2002)), Collier states that in 1978-79, there were 2000 to 2500 Renamo soldiers.
This number is problematic. As for example Martin and Johnson (1986:10) states in their
analysis of the construction of Renamo, in 1978 there were ‘about 500’ Renamo soldiers in
operation. However, the point is not to split hairs regarding faulty numbers that may or may
not have been used, but the rather the uncritical use in itself which works to gloss over the
fact that in many contemporary wars distinctions between rebels, government soldiers and
civilians is difficult.30 A belief even harder to uphold is the conviction of the ability to
ascertain an exact number, and this gets harder and harder as the war in Mozambique is
fought on an ever-larger scale from the mid-1980s onward producing local dynamics of armed
groups, operating semi- or fully autonomously, relating variously to local populations etc. In
lieu of this, Collier’s view on rebellion and insurgents also become important in relation to the
Mozambican civil war: Collier calls rebel armies consistently ‘private armies’ (as in his
chapter ‘Recruiting a private army’), thus discrediting the armed rebellion of any popular
legitimacy it might have as it connotes a) an organisation privately initiated and controlled,
connoting for private gains as well b) being outside the populace and the state, used for own
ends. This reading of Collier as being ‘state-centric’ in his views of the questions of the
legitimacies of rebellion is supported by a closer look at the four points Collier would like to
make about the recruitment to these ‘private armies’.
Firstly, and contrary to much of what has been written about the need for especially guerrillas
to have at least if not some sort of popular support, then at least sympathy within a larger
civilian population, Collier argues that “…the actual numbers of people involved in rebel
activities are usually only a tiny proportion of the society (Collier et al 2003:68)”. From this
point, he uses the case of FARC in Colombia to state that they recruit less than 1 Colombian
in 2000, thus, inferring that rebel groups do not need, in fact, perhaps never really enjoys
popular support in their struggles. Secondly, Collier implies that the basis of recruitment for
‘private armies’ are uneducated, young males who easily fall prey to propaganda and gun

30
Other examples of different numbers may be given, and Collier (2003:55) and Martin and Johnson
(1986:12,19) operate with consistently different numbers: Collier’s numbers are for 1980-81 6000-10000 and
1984-85 20000, while Martin and Johnson’s for e.g. 1980 are between 500 and 2000. However, as they warn
when assessing the number to around 10000 at the end of 1981, this is based on a document prepared by a
Captain Eastwood, a former Rhodesian security officer reporting to the new Zimbabwean government, and they
assume that he might have given an inflated number to scare the new Zimbabwean government from plans to
assist Mozambique as it also specifically warned against committing troops to Mozambique (1986:346n33).

21
toting. But Collier does not stop there and ventures into psychological explanations for
explaining the violence of civil war (Collier et al 2003:68):

Social psychologists find that around 3 percent of the population has

psychopathic tendencies and actually enjoys violence against others
(Pinker 2002), and this is more than is needed to equip a rebel group.

Together with two additional points, the forced recruitment of many and the view of rebel
groups as seen as a context of relative safety in war, Collier has thus managed to construe an
analysis of the basis for the recruitment of a ‘private army’ based not on politically informed
popular support (of which there probably is none, according to Collier), but on easily gulled
psychopaths more or less press-ganged or recruited by way of propaganda into joining
motivated by their own sadistic desire to enact violence or turn to war due to greed. Collier,
thus, reduces any and all organised violent resistance to any regime or any rag-tag rebel group
to be devoid of political intent, purpose or rational thought. Outside prospects for personal
gain, that is. Within this approach there is no room for Mozambique’s extremely important
external dimensions to its civil war.31
This brings us again back to the point on greed discussed earlier: Collier argues for ‘greed’
being more important than ‘grievances’ in the analysis of civil war (see also Collier and
Hoeffler 2002). Thus, not only is Collier and others saying these dimensions are unimportant,
more importantly they are also deligitimizing that armed struggle is politically initiated and
even legitimate in any setting (or so it seems). This has implications also for how they would,
arguing from an economy and stability point of view, see how civil war is fuelled and that
‘perpetrators’ of civil war only have a charade, a mask of political agendas:

The perpetrators of civil war usually adopt the rhetoric that the war is a
necessary catalyst for social progress. Occasionally this is right, but more
typically the war is an economic and social disaster for the country.
Therefore, for those who care about development, civil war is a major
problem (Collier 2003:11).

This argument that ‘political grievances’ are unimportant because of the following logic is
often repeated: “However, for such grievances [that rebels often provide ‘a litany of’] to
explain rebellion they should be significantly worse than those of groups in other societies

31
As the Mozambican civil war may be seen as a cold war theatre, a pertinent question in lieu of the view of the
above is that, far from being rational actors and political shakers and movers, the strategists in Salisbury,
Pretoria, Moscow, Washington and elsewhere must be seen as greedy (and to varying degrees as psychopaths).

22
that resort to less violent political processes (Collier et al. 2003:66)”. From a non-economist’s
point of view, this may seem as economism ad absurdum as Collier apparently states that for
a grievance to be ‘valid’, in some sense, it needs to be objectively (within economic terms)
worse off than other groups. Collier, thus again effectively bars all explanations relating to
colonial history, to political sensitization to inequality leading to a rebellion, to cultural
processes and dynamics impinging on the forms political protest may take, to state repression
forming a response, to experienced racism translating into political action, to external political
influence transforming local political landscapes and thought (like Marxism or Leninism).

In this reduction to greed contained, in my view, some of the underlying assumptions on civil
war: Firstly, that the ‘perpetrators’ are very less likely to have a political motive (they are
devoid of convictions and only adopt rhetoric strategically), and we should therefore, both in
policy-making and in taking action in these contexts as well as in a scholarly analysis take
very little interest in the grievances put forward by these as grievances are unimportant to the
dynamics of the conflict. In this frame of mind, it seems hard to imagine a context in which
rebellion is even remotely understandable as a route to political change, as all violent
opposition seems in Collier’s neo-Hobbesian vision to entail a deterioration into ‘a warre of
all against all’. However, perhaps more problematic than barring a host of alternative general
visions of how civil wars and rebellions occur, develop and end, is the fact that his mixed bag
of policy, politics and macro analysis does seem to put very little emphasis on the particular
contexts of civil war and how these develop.

A final remark on the problems of applying Collier to Mozambique

We have now seen how Collier’s general theory of the roots and dynamics of civil war does
not relate well to grounded realties in and research on Mozambique. However, even though
not central to Collier’s work he seems to allow for the possibility of the scholarly explanation
of specific contexts as also being important in understanding the dynamics of civil war by
saying, as also cited in the introduction, that ”[e]ach war is distinctive, with its own particular
personalities, events, and antecedents “(Collier et al. 2003:54). So, let us follow and expand
Collier’s own general advice and be a bit myopic in focusing on one country that may occlude
the clarity of his universal sweep of the causes, stasis and ends of civil war. Let us, in his own
terms, see if the case of Mozambique, a country he includes in his analysis, is consistent with
his theory of how to break the conflict trap. When looking at the historiography of
Mozambique’s recent violent past in relation to Collier’s largely general endogenous and

23
wide-reaching econocentric explanations of civil war, perhaps one should also look to
alternative and recent explorations of the issue of civil war (and war) in general. Paul
Richards’s introduction (2005a) to a recent collection of essays on new wars (Richards 2005b)
offers an alternative reading of the emergence of new wars. Rather than forwarding the ideal
of a war as “…inherent ‘bad’ (the world ruled by instincts and base desire), and peace as an
ideal ‘good’ (the world ruled by principle and law)” (Richards 2005a:3), Richards argues for
the need to avoid seeing war as disease or as founded in deep-rooted desires of greed. Thus,
he argues for the need to re-contextualise war socially and politically, and warns against
resolving to causation relating to environmental or economic factors:

“[W]ar does not break out because conditions happen to be ‘right’, but
because it is organised. Someone has to resolve to embark on the high-risk
strategy of seizing power through mobilisation and violence. The venture
has to be planned. Fighters have to be trained, the weapons obtained (…)
Understanding the character, organization and beliefs of these groups, and
their impact on other groups supporting, resisting or victimised by their
activities, is an essential task for the analyst. In short, war is inescapably
sociological (Richards 2005a:4)”.

This vision is a long-shot from Collier’s army of greedy, unemployed, propaganda-ridden

(and, strangely enough, at the same time rationally calculating) army of young men in search
of profits and not politics.
In concluding this section on the historiography of Mozambique, an important conclusion is
that the war in Mozambique was instigated from abroad, albeit not by governments primarily
after economic gain, but predominantly by policies informed by both larger global geo-
political contexts of East versus West, but also more immediate concerns about the survival
and well-being of white, supremacist rule in Ian Smith’s Rhodesia and thereafter Apartheid
South Africa. As for the development of the war in Mozambique, Richards’ call for a re-
contextualization in terms of political, social, cultural and historical contexts is important.
This is because if we are to understand the dynamics of Renamo and its popular support, we
need to move away from Collier’s econocentrism. And the need for and salience of these
alternative non-economic and contextualizing foci in relation to the specific case of
Mozambique also becomes more evident when looking at the process of peace leading to the
General Peace Agreement in 1992 and peace revisited in 2005.

24
II The Mozambican peace process
II a War weariness, negotiations and peace
When consulting the literature regarding the peace process in Mozambique, it seems at least a
few of its features are stressed by most of the scholars: That the fact that the geopolitical
landscape changed with the fall of the East Bloc made ‘proxy wars’ - as the war in
Mozambique has also been called - less interesting to engage in for the one remaining
superpower, and that with the changes in South Africa external support for Renamo would
dwindle away. Also, the bare facts of the war meant that there were very few resources left to
plunder and live off for the range of different armed groups that operated within regionally
and locally very different dynamics. Further, some, as Sitoe (2003), has also argued for
important processes of political ‘modernisation’ within the Frelimo party throughout the
1980s resulting in moves towards “…liberalisation of the economy and the move towards
liberal politics (Sitoe 2003:30)”, which will also by further developed below.32
On the external side of the arguments forwarded by many, the provision of ‘good offices’ by
mediators has been pointed out (Hume 1994), and the significant role played by the
Mozambican Christian Council (MCC) by facilitating contacts between Frelimo and Renamo
prior to the Rome negotiations initiated on 8 July 1990 (Alden 2001:19ff). The providing of
contact by the MCC, the revisions within Frelimo of both the system of governance and the
view on Renamo, Renamo’s move towards an increasingly more coherent political
programme towards 1990, together with international support all contributed to the start of
negotiations in Rome. There also seems to be basic agreement on the positive role played by
the Santo Egidio grouping in Rome in during the 27 months of negotiation leading up to the
signing of the General Peace Agreement in 1992. This Italian lay Catholic charity was
established in 1968, and as an organization it has enjoyed good contacts with left-wing circles
in Italy.33 Also in Mozambique, Santo Egidio enjoyed long-standing relations, and it had
previously negotiated with Renamo for release of nuns and priests held hostage in 1982 (cf.
Salomons 2003:92).34 Santo Egidio was important as part of a four-member team of mediators
in Rome: Two of these, Andrea Riccardi and Matteo Zuppi were from Santo Egidio, one,
Mario Raffaelli was a member of the Italian parliament and former coordinator of Italian-

32
See also the chapter ‘Frelimo and the transition to multiparty politics’ (Manning 2002:121-139) for a detailed
analysis of this development.
33
It has variably been called Sant‘Egidio (e.g. Morozzo della Rocca and Riccardi 2003), Santo Egidio (e.g.
Cahen 2003), Saint Egidio (Weinstein 2002) and Santo Egídio (e.g. Zuppi 1995).
34
The kidnapping of foreign personnel (both aid workers, business men, diplomats and, in this case, nuns and
priests) were done regularly by Renamo to attract attention and/or for ransom-money (cf. e.g. Vines 1996).

25
African co-operation. The fourth member was the outspoken and influential Catholic
archbishop of Beira, Jaime Gonçalves to whom Santo Egidio also had strong relations.35 The
protracted rounds of talks were supported by the fact that the mediators, Santo Egidio, were
seen as more or less neutral by both Frelimo and Renamo. These, together with the patience
of the mediators, are both aspects forwarded by analysts for explaining the success of the
negotiations.
However, what escapes most of these macro-level analyses of the climate for negotiations and
peace with its focus on the institutional level, is the fact that popular war weariness meant that
there was a tremendous will for peace among ordinary Mozambicans.36 The nearly thirty
years of consecutive warfare (if including the war of liberation initiated in 1964) that many
parts of Mozambique had experienced, had taken its toll on people which meant that there
was limited popular ideological or political support for the continuation of war. This war
weariness is also, and perhaps more obvious, when looking at the wide range of local
reconciliatory efforts undertaken after the signing of the peace agreement: Alcinda Honwana
for one (cf. e.g. 1996,1999a,1999b) has explored extensively the efforts towards healing the
child soldiers, guerrillas and victims of war when they returned to their communities.37 These
popular efforts and practices towards confronting the war and violence, aiming to end it and
not allowing it to restart, should not be underestimated when assessing the construction of a
climate for peace and negotiations. This also, of course, has profound impact on the ways in
which one should look at peace-building efforts in a post-war context like Mozambique.
On the other hand, one may also raise critical questions to the, in some aspects, very ‘glossed
up’ versions of how traditional communities and traditional leaders practice reconciliatory
mechanisms as this oversimplifies the deep ambivalence to tradition and traditional practices
and political conflicts that also exist in post-war local communities in Mozambique. Alden
(2002:352) has dubbed the tendency of NGOs and some international organizations to
embrace of the role of traditional leaders and tradition in achieving ‘reconciliation’ as “…a
sort of ‘magic bullet’ belief in the healing power of traditional practices…” Alden proposes
that one needs to see these practices in more differentiated terms. I tend to agree with Alden
on some points and I have also been exploring the ambivalence with which the traditional
35
For insider accounts from Santo Egidio’s point of view, cf. Zuppi (1995), Morozzo della Rocca and Riccardi
(2003), Chartroux (1998). For a review of Rome mediation, cf. Morozzo della Rocca (1997), Venâncio and Chan
(1998b) or Mário (2004).
36
As documented by Nordstrom (1997), A. Honwana (1996,1999a,1999b), Bertelsen 2002) and others.
37
For the traditions of healing and reintegration efforts, cf. e.g. Marlin’s work (2001) on spirit possession,
violence and war and its practices in post-war Mozambique. For diverse approaches to the measures taken in
local, rural and urban communities regarding the social re-insertion of former combatants and other victims of
the war, see Igreja 2003,2004, Lundin 1998, Bertelsen 2002 and Nordstrom 1997.

26
sphere is (and has been) related to in Mozambique (Bertelsen 2002,2004a,2004b) in
connection with the fact that in particular contexts traditional leaders at times were instigators
and/or implicated in the acts of violence perpetrated. However, the extremely important
processes of reception of former combatants, including the reintegration with the social world
of the ancestral spirits, were of utmost importance to many of the former combatants, and in
these traditional authorities, practices and beliefs were crucial. Nevertheless, I agree fully with
Alden in his warning that there is a danger in a potentially simplifying embrace from the
international community of traditional practices in contexts of demobilisation and
reintegration. The danger is that this focus may translate (too) easily into being seen as an
inexpensive manner in which reintegration is achieved: “…[A] sort of utopian methodology
of reintegration becomes possible which is self-administering and entails virtually no costs for
the international community (Alden 2002:353)”. However, this does not, in my view,
undermine the central point about the war weariness of people and its importance for the
success of the Rome negotiations that had been preceded by several attempts at talks to
initiate negotiations, all of which had failed.38 But with the signing of the GPA, the political
revisions within Frelimo, and faced with a people weary of the war, hopes were high for a
successful transition from war to peace in Mozambique

II b The politics of peace

The general parliamentary and presidential elections of 1994 were milestones in
Mozambique’s transition from war to peace “…and marked the symbolic birth of
Mozambique as a liberal democracy (J. Honwana 2002:208)”. The elections were facilitated
by ONUMOZ as part of the organization’s commitment to implementation of the GPA, and
their role was to “…monitor the registration of voters and the conduct of the campaign, as
well as the casting and counting of votes in order to guarantee the validity of the outcome
(Alden 1995:111)”.39 In the run-up to the elections, three distinct phases might be discerned:
Voter registration, voter education and electoral campaigning. All of these made preparations
challenging, especially as post-war Mozambique experienced a severe lack of infrastructure in
terms of road, electricity, telecommunications (all the very targets of destructive warfare).
Also war had taken its non-material toll in that it created a very high rate of illiteracy which,

38
Among the earlier failed talks and initiatives, perhaps most important among these were the Nairobi talks in
August 1989 and later that failed for a number of reasons (cf. Vines 1996:120-128 for details of positions,
mediators and rounds).
39
Works on elections include Mazula (1995), Jacobson (1996), Haines & Wood (1995) and Cahen (2002).

27
together with the challenge of creating a popular conviction that voting for parties makes
sense, posed great challenges for this work (Honwana 2002:207).40
For the United Nations, the work of holding the elections of 1994 almost derailed before the
details above could be implemented: For one, a multiparty conference in April 1993 that was
to discuss the electoral law in Mozambique “…collapsed in a hail of accusations… (Alden
1995:124)” when Renamo pulled out. However, in December 1993 a revised law was
eventually passed by the National Assembly after the UN’s representative Aldo Ajello
intervened. Also, as the UN was gradually becoming concerned about the failures in Angola,
a pressure for the creation of a ‘Government of national unity’ was attempted on the Frelimo
leadership.41 This attempt was also turned down by the Renamo leadership, and the election
process was to be one of Renamo versus Frelimo with a ‘winner takes it all’-approach. As
more than 5,2 million registered to vote in June 1994, the democratic process in this way
received massive popular support, and despite momentary setbacks (as Renamo pulling out of
the elections momentarily on the eve of elections), the voting itself went smoothly as did the
counting of votes.

In the Mozambican context, the two edited works by Brazão Mazula (1995,2002) captures
well the sense of the importance of the first elections. Mazula, who is rector of Mozambique’s
most prestigious university, Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, and a prominent participant in
Mozambican scholarly and political public discourses, was also the chairman of the
Mozambican national electoral commission (Portuguese CNE) in the challenging first multi-
party elections in 1994, a work he has been applauded for by Mozambican and international
observers alike. In both these works edited by Mazula, it is generally acknowledged that the
elections in 1994 were crucial for the development of a multi-party democracy in the
aftermath of the war. This interpretation is also shared by many international observers, for

40
It is important to bear in mind the lack of experience with liberal democratic practices that Mozambicans had
had. Rather, experiences and memories of exploitative colonial systems of registration as well as the ways in
which registration, election processes and elections themselves may be interpreted diversely and not
unequivocally as ‘transparent’ and ‘democratic’ measures, were more prominent than understanding the new
system. This lead to a refusal to register for the electorate in some areas in Mozambique, cf. e.g. West 2003 for
an exploration of this from the Mueda plateau in Cabo Delgado.
41
The UN’s failures in and experiences from Angola seems to have been ever-present in the UN’s dealings with
Mozambique, and for example Boutros-Boutros Ghali said in a speech to the UN Security Council in December
2002 that “…in light of recent experience in Angola, it [is] of critical importance that the elections should not
take place until all military aspects of the agreement [has] been fully implemented (quoted in Reed 1997:281-
282)”. Venâncio and Chan (1998c) spells out what they see as these three lessons that the UN learnt from the
Angolan case and attempted to avoid in Mozambique: To have a too small presence and organisation, to not deal
flexibly with timetables, and to not resolve military aspects before the elections, all of which were not done,
according to Venâncio and Chan, in Angola.

28
example Carrie Manning. She says that the elections of 1994 “…served as both the
centrepiece of the peace accord and the defining moment of the transition from war to peace
and from monoparty to multiparty system (Manning 2002:169)”. Also, the first texts on the
1994 elections were very positive to the elections in dubbing them overall ‘free and fair’, and
also many stated, as Haines and Wood 1995:8) that “…the election results can be seen as a
peace vote, or as a common saying went, ‘to let the grass under the elephants grow again’”.
The ‘peace vote’ view was not due only to the Catholic Church’s call for a vote of
‘reconciliation’ (cf. e.g. Morier-Genoud 1996b) prior to the elections to split the vote between
Frelimo and Renamo (i.e. Chissano as president and Renamo in the parliament vote), although
this was seen as important by many. 42 More significantly, it was due to the extremely high
level of electoral turnout of 87,9% (Manning 2001:172).

However, these readings of the elections have gradually given way to more sober analyses,
but it should be noted that there are some scholarly contributions to the analysis of
Mozambican recent political history that were very critical of also the elections of 1994. For
example, in keeping with their bleak outlook for Mozambican political transitions to a liberal
capitalist society, Hall and Young (1997:232ff) states that the elections were engineered,
monitored and paid for by outside actors, it was technically run more or less by UNDP, that
there was widespread voter apathy, that election campaigns were ‘lacklustre’, lifeless and
formalistic. Although Hall and Young’s assessment of the elections point out some negative
aspects which are important, they do not, it seems, give significant room (neither textually nor
analytically) for the potential positive or constructive effects or aspects that may be read into
the elections. Another recent example of this is the critical approach by de Tollenaere
(2002:233) who asks, rather rhetorically, whether the vote of 1994 may be seen as one cast for
peace when it so clearly divided regions and localities into being either Frelimo or Renamo.43
Further, de Tollenaere argues for the fact that analytically one needs to keep in mind that the
behaviour of the electorate is determined by multiple factors such as tpeace, civil war, local
history, poverty, illiteracy, ethnicity, clientelistic relationships, election campaigns,
performance and programmes of political parties, charisma of leaders etc. (de Tollenaere
2002:233). In keeping with de Tollenaere and others, we need to see the elections of 1994

42
As Manning notes: “…voters were said to have cast their ballots in a ‘vote for peace’ to have split their vote
between the two major rivals so as to guarantee an end to war. Because no exit polls or post-election voter
surveys were done, it is impossible to verify this assertion (Manning 2002:170”.
43
de Tollenaere claims that there were only 16 of 146 administrative districts in the provinces of Niassa,
Nampula and Zambézia in which the votes were divided (de Tollenaere 2002:234,247-249).

29
(and later elections) also as complex issues in which many dynamics and contexts interact in
ways which do not translate frictionless into a democratic practice. On the other hand, and this
is also held implicitly and explicitly by most observers, the elections of 1994 were of the
utmost importance in transforming Renamo into a political force and for the developments
towards a, at least formally, liberal multiparty democracy.44 The electoral success that
Renamo’s transformation from guerrilla movement to political party had experienced came as
much of a surprise to many who thought this rag-tag band of brutal guerrillas would have
little appeal to the Mozambican electorate. In fact, as table 1 demonstrates, Renamo has
continued to do well in both the election in 1999 and somewhat also in 2004.45

Table 1: Election results 1994, 1999 and 200446

Overall election results - Frelimo and Renamo only
Parliamentary Parl. Seats Parl. seats Percentage Perc. pres. Perc. pres.
seats 1994 1999 2004 presidential vote 1999 vote 2004
vote 1994
Frelimo 129 133 160 53,3 52,3 63,74
Renamo 112 117 90 33,7 47,7 31,74
47
TOTAL 241 (of 250) 250 250 87 100 95,4848

The fact that almost half the country voted for Renamo should imply, if not support for
Renamo, then at least opposition to Frelimo, and, thus, the state dominated by Frelimo in the
almost 20 years since independence in 1994. This opposition to the state and the state’s
policies and the voting for the opposition party implies that the policies of the state were not
in all parts of Mozambique and in all political segments seen as merely positive. While not
having space for going into the reasons for the votes for Renamo and the opposition at the
detriment of Frelimo, this fact should serve to argue against Collier who in his explicit
downplaying of the potentially very belligerent and draconian role of the state in (and prior to)
armed conflicts in constructing it as a neutral actor against, in Collier’s terms, the ‘private

44
This political transition was importantly preceded by formal changes to policy made by Frelimo in 1990 when
it adopted a multiparty system, the separation of party and state, freedom of press and the judiciary, and religious
freedom, all of which were adopted by the National Assembly in December 1990 (Bowen 2000:200).
45
The political and administrative system in Mozambique is currently undergoing political reforms in the sphere
of local governance within the holding of municipal elections in 1998 and 2003. Cf. Braathen 2003, Braathen
and Jørgensen 1998, Braathen and Orre 2001, and Orre 2001 for analyses of these processes.
46
Table based on Manning 2001:170 and Mozambique News Agency AIM Report no. 290, 6 January 2005.
47
In the elections of 1994, several other parties than Renamo and Frelimo participated in the elections, and most
notably União Democrática (UD) obtained some seats in the parliament as well as some presidential votes.
48
Raul Domingos, a former top Renamo politician, challenged Renamo with his party PDD and obtained 2,73%
of the votes. Yaqub Sibindy of the Islamist party PIMO obtained 0,91% and Carlos Reis of MBG 0,87.

30
army’ of rebel groups.49 It is difficult to perceive, based upon the Mozambican material, how
almost 50% of the population could vote for the party of opposition if this was constituted
solely of greed-ridden profiteers from the war and beyond.
This fact also seems to be, at some levels, acknowledged by the international community as it
supported the political opposition parties in Mozambique’s transition from war to peace. In
the case of Renamo’s transition from guerrilla movement to political party, a ‘trust fund’ was
created by the UN to support this. According to the UN Secretary-General “…it is essential to
have the necessary conditions to allow RENAMO to assume a proper role in the social and
political life of Mozambique (quoted in Chachiua and Malan 1998:unpag.)”. The recognition
of the conditions necessary for Renamo to be able to exist, may also be interpreted as a de
facto acknowledgement of there being political grievances in Mozambique that Renamo voice
and represent, not only representing personal drives for money. The vision of politics in
Mozambique as encompassing other issues than those pertaining to personal wealth was, thus,
an important component of the international community’s assistance to Mozambique’s
transition to peace. As such, one may say that the view on the politics of civil war also will
have implications for the analysis and potential intervention into and support of the peace
process and the difficult politics of peace in countries like Mozambique.
Contrary to Collier’s thesis on the perils of early elections in relation to the ending of civil
war, the Mozambican case this way strongly supports the opposite conclusion: The holding of
elections as quickly as organizationally possible after the signing of the GPA was not only
important for the formal introduction of multiparty democracy in Mozambique, even though it
was a significant event in that respect as well. Moreover, the aim of holding the elections was
an important prerequisite for initiating the negotiations leading to the signing of the GPA.
Thus, in an important sense, the elections must be seen as vitally integral to the peace process.
Contrarily, it is most likely that if the elections were postponed or if the question of elections
(and, thus, political representation for Renamo) would not have been included in the Rome
talks, Renamo (or parts thereof) would have seen it as perhaps a better option to continue the
waging of war. Also, the elections held gave Renamo’s sympathisers an opportunity to be
heard formally in political discourses, something which had not been the case before. In a
Mozambican case, therefore, it is futile to speak of the potential benefits a postponement

49
Grievances against the post-independence Mozambican state and its policies may be many: Abrahamsson and
Nilsson (1996) point to the rural experience of exclusion from goods and decision-making at the centre as well
as regional differences, Cahen (e.g. 1993) stresses forced villagisation programmes and the state being inimical
towards traditional social structures, Bowen (2000) explores what she sees as a Frelimo history of anti-peasant
state policies etc.

31
(more or less definite) of the holding of a general elections would have had as the elections
and the holding of these must be seen as wholly intrinsic to the peace process.
However, and this is very important, the peace process in Mozambique and the holding of the
first multiparty elections in 1994 did not rest simply on the shakers and movers on a macro
level, nor solely on the importance of good mediation: The peace process and situation of an
absence of war that Mozambique has experienced since 1992 has been supported by a popular
will among ordinary people to end it as well as a host of reconciliatory efforts locally. But
beside the organization of the elections, in which they undoubtedly were instrumental, how
well did ONUMOZ perform on different fields while in Mozambique?

II c ONUMOZ as a mixed experience50

When the last ONUMOZ contingents departed Mozambique in January

1995, they had overseen a remarkable transformation, from the ravages of
civil war to the implementation of democratic government and the creation
of a peaceful environment in which economic activity could once again
flourish. The strong commitment of the major participants to peace, along
with firm support from the international community, was the central
prerequisite that enabled the United Nations to help bring about this
dramatic transition.
Boutros Boutros-Ghali in United Nations (1995:3)

It has been said that many of the UN’s achievements in Mozambique

materialised despite, and not because of the UN’s supervision of the peace
process. ONUMOZ cannot be considered a model peacekeeping operation
when timetables slipped, the local parties delayed compliance, budgets
soared, parent UN agencies engaged in obstructionism, and UN resources
on the ground were underutilised.
Chachiua and Malan (1998:Unpaginated)

As peacekeeping operations are central to Collier’s vision of how the international community
may aid in transitions from war to peace, an assessment of the case of ONUMOZ is
worthwhile as this constitutes one of the largest involvements the UN has made of its kind. It
was also to be one of the most expensive operations the UN had ever undertaken some having
assessed the figures at USD 503 million for its two-year operation (Stephen 1995:59). As a
fairly large operation by the international community it is a special case, and as a case
represented by the UN establishment as a success, ONUMOZ merits special attention.

50
UNOMOZ is the official English language acronym for the United Nations Operation in Mozambique (Port.:
Organização das Nações Unidas para Moçambique.). However, since ONUMOZ is the most commonly used
acronym, this will be used here.

32
The signing of the GPA on October 4 1992 in Rome triggered a response from the UN which
had priorly merely been lightly involved in the peace negotiations. On October 13, the UN
passes Security Council Resolution 782 which welcomes the GPA, appoints Aldo Ajello as
Special Representative of the Secretary General (SRSG) and approves of military observers
that are to be sent to the country (Synge 1997). Resolution 782 was followed by the Security
Council Resolution 797 of December 16 1992, formally establishing The United Nations
Operation in Mozambique (Reed 1997:281). This was the formal start of what was to be the
UN’s heavy involvement in the new politics of peace, demobilisation and reconstruction in
Mozambique until the mandate for ONUMOZ expired December 9 1994.51
Boutros Boutros-Ghali’s rosy account above of how the UN fared in Mozambique is by no
means an exception to how UN insiders portray and analyse ONUMOZ performance in
Mozambique, and Cameron Hume (1995), US representative to the peace process prior to the
GPA, is another example of this rather self-congratulatory literature.52 This view also finds
resonance with Mozambican scholars who support its work. For one, and in keeping with the
many positive assessments of ONUMOZ’ performance, we find Venâncio (1998) who,
though acknowledging criticism against ONUMOZ, concludes that “…the operation achieved
what was an initially daunting mandate and played a central role in the establishment of long-
term peace and democratic rule in Mozambique (1998:98)”.

II d 1 GPA, ONUMOZ and a benevolent political climate

As an operation run by the UN, ONUMOZ was fairly sizeable both in terms of personnel,
time span and components: To simplify, one may say, using Reed (1997), that it consisted of
mainly 5 components through the period of 1992 to 1994. The first of these was what may be
termed the political component which set out to facilitate the creation of “…an environment
in which the election process and its outcome would be judged ‘free and fair’ by all parties
(Reed 1997:290)”. Attaining these goals proved to be difficult as there was substantial
mistrust between the parties which resulted in a relatively slow progress towards the elections
held in October 1994. The second component was the military and within this the UN may be
said to have had three areas of work, namely the deployment of ONUMOZ’ infantry units to
different regions for patrolling and peace-keeping, military observation and demobilization of
government and Renamo troops, and the training of the new army of Mozambique, FADM

51
The United Nations (1995) as well as giving the view from UN officialdom of how ONUMOZ fared, is also a
comprehensive collection of key ONUMOZ documents.
52
For a critique of Hume’s work, see for example T. Young (1999). But see also former ambassador to
Mozambique during ONUMOZ, Dennis C. Jett’s critical assessment of ONUMOZ (Jett 1995).

33
(Reed 1997). All three areas confronted problems: Banditry (in the case of the patrolling
infantry units), cease-fire violations (major and minor) and the very slow process of
demobilization that frustrated Renamo and government troops alike. Also, the training and
creation of the new army was hampered by delays in its creation and also by poor recruitment.
The third component of ONUMOZ, the police component, the so-called CIVPOL, was to
investigate and assess Mozambican national police performance, something achieved with
more ease in some of the government-controlled areas than those controlled by Renamo (Reed
1997). The fourth component, the humanitarian component consisted of both resettlement
schemes that dealt with the significant number of refugees both internally and externally as
well as mine clearance. The fifth aspect was the electoral component, dealing with the setting
up of electoral supervision bodies (as the two main bodies of organising the elections, CNE
and STAE) as well as securing voter registration, the adherence to campaigning procedures
etc. and the monitoring and organization of the running of the elections of 1994 (Reed 1997).
All five components are important to grasp the size and scope of ONUMOZ but in the
following, this text will only deal with certain aspects of the whole ONUMOZ operation that
highlights the civil war and its legacy in Mozambique and those that contribute to making
Mozambique a contrastive case vis-à-vis Collier’s visions of transition to peace. Especially,
therefore, the following will deal with the national context and political climate in which
ONUMOZ entered, as well as the issues of demobilization and disarmament and some further
dimensions of the 1994 elections.

What was to be the mandate of ONUMOZ was based on the GPA of 1992, and this GPA
consisted of five key points that were to be monitored, verified and to a certain degree
organised by ONUMOZ. The five points in the GPA were a) a definite date of ceasefire, b)
concentration of troops (Renamo and government forces) in designated assembly areas, c)
Withdrawal of foreign troops (Malawian and Zimbabwean), d) demobilisation of Renamo and
government combatants that were not to be included in the formation of a united national
force (later to become FADM), and e) formation of new political parties and monitoring and
conducting a general presidential and parliamentary election. Further, there was
attentiveness to Renamo’s grievances (for example, vis-à-vis the Frelimo-friendly
Mozambican police force) that ONUMOZ acted upon by stationing UN civilian police at
headquarters. This was, by no means, popular with the Mozambican authorities as it was seen
by some as covert support for Renamo as well as, and this is perhaps more important, an
intervention into the dealings and practices of Mozambique as a sovereign state.

34
Chachiua and Malan (1998) point to five important dimensions that entailed avoidance of
confrontation: a) The international and regional strategic surroundings indicated no more
support for war aims would be given, b) a will for peace was strong, c) the Mozambican
government was well enmeshed into a system of economic and financial dependency that
limited potential opposition greatly, d) ONUMOZ was lead pragmatically, and finally e) the
Mozambican government “…realised and succeeded in managing weaknesses and strengths
with maturity (1998:Unpag.)”. So, how did ONUMOZ perform?
In reviewing this, Wesley (1997) is more critical to the performance of the UN, and points out
especially that the process of deployment within the context of ONUMOZ was hampered
from the start by several problems, perhaps the most important of which was the extreme
difficulty for the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations to assemble a force necessary
for the mission. Says Wesley, this was due to the member states general ‘lack of interest’
(1997:88) in the conflict, and this translated into slow responses when asked to contribute to
the 7500 member peacekeeping force.53 The sluggishness entailed that the UN did not deploy
the troops before April 1993 and also that the UN failed to negotiate a so-called Status of
Forces Agreement before May 1993, something which Wesley states might have ended
disastrously: “These weaknesses in the deployment and design of the mission could have
proved disastrous for its ability to advance the peace process, by allowing a belligerent that
had been disposed to non-cooperation to take advantage of the absence of the Peace
Agreement’s insurance mechanism to advance its own interests (Wesley 1997:89)”.
However, as Wesley states, and finds support among other scholars, there was receptiveness
in Mozambique towards the GPA and peace process which “…allowed the UN to escape the
potentially disastrous weaknesses that could have plagued ONUMOZ because of its slow
deployment (Wesley 1997:89)”.54 Wesley argues, and this has implications for Collier’s point
on the necessity of military intervention at the helm of the UN, that the deployment of the
ONUMOZ troops in Mozambique was a success for a number of reasons. Perhaps the most
important is related to the belligerents’ intention: Comparing ONUMOZ to the largely failed
UNOSOM II operation in Somalia, Wesley points out that while the latter “…represented a
threat to the interests of the most powerful party to the conflict […] ONUMOZ’s [objectives]
were complementary with the Mozambican belligerents’ (Wesley 1997:94)”.

53
Reed remarks that the number of troops throughout the period vary, but that at its height ONUMOZ had 6843
military personnel and civilian police. The majority of the military personnel, deployed in different regions,
came from Bangladesh, Botswana, India, Italy, Portugal, Uruguay and Zambia (Reed 1997:286f).
54
For other critical approaches to UN's performance, cf. Synge (1997), Alden (1995) and Salomons (2003).

35
However, it is held that this ‘appropriateness of response’, as Wesley terms it, is important
when considering what by many has been seen as the relative success of ONUMOZ, at least at
the attainment of immediate goals, as they impact on the general idea that Collier holds of
military intervention. To put it crudely, a military intervention might not be successful; in fact
it might turn out disastrous, if not preceded by successful talks securing that troops are
deployed into a climate where these are seen as beneficial politically, economically and
strategically to the parties at war. Quite the contrary, a key ‘lesson learnt’ from the ONUMOZ
experience, however flawed the operation was, is the need to identify local contexts and
understanding local political dimensions. The negotiations in Rome prior to ONUMOZ,
where the two parties met and grievances (yes, grievances) were communicated was also, of
course, of utmost importance here.

II d 2 Demobilization and the perils of work half-finished

Demobilization, disarmament and the reintegration of combatants, a central feature of
Collier’s recommendations for transition to peace, was also an important part of ONUMOZ’
assignment in Mozambique, albeit not all successful. Several challenges met ONUMOZ
already at the initiation phase, and João Honwana in an interesting article (2002) assesses the
comparative strengths and weaknesses of the ONUMOZ component, pointing out that there
were “…vastly different levels of professionalism displayed by the different national
contingents” (2002:210). On the one hand, while the Botswana component was held in very
high regard, the Italian contingent, on the other hand, has consistently been accused of
“…repeatedly abusing young girls for sexual purposes (2002:210)”.55 This differentiation in
terms of performance, equipment and other issues makes generalization about the overall
performance of the ONUMOZ troops difficult as practices would vary greatly from area to
area in Mozambique as well.56 However, there is one important aspect that is pointed out by
quite many analysts regarding the performance of the ONUMOZ troops in relation to the goal
of demobilization: It was not able to fulfil fully its own mandate. Its mandate in this area is
pointed out by Alex Vines:

A ‘demobilized soldier’ was defined as an individual who, [in the UN’s own
terms] ‘was demobilized at the decision of the relevant command, and
handed over the weapons, ammunition, equipment, uniform and
documentation in his possession’ (Vines 1998b:192).

55
The sexual abuse by soldiers (within and within peace-keeping contexts) is, of course, not something novel.
For comments on the spread of AIDS and prostitution in ONUMOZ’ wake, cf. also Salomons 2003:107f).
56
The contingents from the different countries were assigned to different tasks in their regions and areas.

36
However, with only a smaller amount of the officially declared arms caches of Renamo
checked by ONUMOZ, failure in protecting warehouses in which seized guns were held and
its weak mandate, all contributed to a situation in which large amounts of arms were
unaccounted for in ONUMOZ’ aftermath (Vines 1998b). Ana Leão, in a recent study on small
arms in Mozambique (2004), also very strongly and vocally criticises its performance in terms
of disarmament. She points out the implications this lack of weapons control has had for the
current proliferation of arms in Southern Africa. Leão claims that the disarmament process by
ONUMOZ must be seen as flawed and the “…fact that that most UN documents include but a
few paragraphs on the disarmament process, as opposed to extensive debates on other aspects
of the mission, seems to indicate the dissatisfaction of the UN itself with this area of work
(Leão 2004:14)”.57 Overall, the demobilization and disarmament process was a difficult one
with demobilization, scheduled to take 6 months, taking in reality 16, “which led to insecurity
in and around cantonment sites” (Knight 2004:508).
The way in which this component was undertaken has lead for example Magudu and Mosse
(2003) to be very critical of ONUMOZ in relation to the demobilisation and disarmament.
They conclude that “[t]he process was run in a haphazard way. A handful of arms were
surrendered to the UN forces, but were moved around without consideration that the peace
building mission was not yet complete (Magudu and Mosse 2003:5)”. They also state that in
2003 there are a total of 10 million illicit assault rifles and other firearms in circulation that
are “…used by individuals for personal and criminal purposes (2003:5)“.58 This critique of the
failure of disarmament is also pointed out by Alex Vines (cf. e.g. Vines 1998b) and Salomons,
the latter pointing out that “[d]isarming ex-combatants in a setting where arms are freely
available among civilian and private militias is ineffective (Salomons 2003:109)”.59
On a Mozambican national political level, ONUMOZ may also be seen to have entailed very
problematic aspects even though many hold that, overall, Mozambique must be seen as a

57
It is important to note that ONUMOZ also used a number of NGOs in their work, also in the area of demining
and demilitarization. Barnes (1998a) assesses the importance of NGOs within the framework of ONUMOZ, and
comes to the conclusion that within some sectors, for example mine-clearance, NGOs may play an important
role while other areas, such as demobilization, should be a designated UN task and not left to NGOs who
somewhat lack capacity and professionalism. On the challenges of demining in Mozambique, cf. e.g. Vines and
Coelho (1995) and for a UNDP point of view on demining in Mozambique, cf. Venâncio (1995).
58
This view is also forwarded by J. Honwana, claiming that due to the failure of disarmament “…Mozambique
is awash with uncontrolled weapons that have been used for criminal activities both domestically and in
neighbouring countries (J. Honwana 2002:205)”.
59
The terms are important here as the term ’ex-combatant’ (‘antigo combatente’, in Portuguese) in a
Mozambican context is taken, almost exclusively to mean a demobilised soldier that fought in the War of
liberation that ended with Mozambican freedom in 1975, not a soldier from the civil war. However, as several
authors in the following sections use the term (and others) taking to mean specifically a demobilised soldier from
the civil war, the term ‘ex-combatant’ in this text will be used to denote this.

37
successful political and humanitarian operation for ONUMOZ. However, in relation to the
political dimensions of the ONUMOZ operation, Chachiua and Malan (1998) are again rather
critical. They claim that the overall peace process in Mozambique had as a central concern
related to demobilization and disarmament the creation of ‘peace and security’. This was not
achieved, they claim. Writes Chachiua and Malan (1998:Unpaginated): “…the neglect of
military and security issues has already [1998] had significant negative consequences for the
country and for the broader Southern African region”. At the outset of the ONUMOZ
operation, there was a sense that the military presence should be high profile and that this
would separate it from earlier operations by the UN. But confronted with the war-weariness,
the political will displayed by both parties (Frelimo and Renamo), the focus shifted from one
of disarmament to the electoral and political sector. Chachiua and Malan interpret this as
resulting from the view that the weapons of war wielded by the combatants would not be used
for violence and quotes Ajello in saying that “…the arms are the instruments of war, not its
cause” (Ajello, quoted in Chachiua and Malan 1998:unpag.).
Hence, ONUMOZ did not, despite disarmament being central to the operation initially,
prioritise heavily the collection and destruction of weapons in Mozambique: While the UN
assesses that 190,000 were collected these only amounted to very few of an estimated 1
million (Chachiua and Malan 1998) and 6 million (Leão 2004:15) arms in the country at the
time. And of the weapons collected, only a fraction were destroyed while quite a number of
these actually filtered into illegal hands (Chachiua and Malan 1998). This lead Chachiua and
Malan to conclude that due to ONUMOZ’ somewhat naïve view on guns (as neutral devices
without capacity to contribute to or generate upheaval, as Ajello may be interpreted as
saying), the operation achieved minimal results in terms of security and stability. In this
context, it seems easy to share Chachiua and Malan’s view on the short-sightedness of the UN
and the irony captured in the fact that “…when the UN Secretary-General reported that the
security situation was conducive to peaceful elections, there had already been a sharp increase
in general criminality, particularly in arms-related violent crimes (Chachiua and Malan
1998:unpag.)”. Leão comments the Mozambican security situation thus: “As ONUMOZ was
leaving the country whose security it was supposed to have guaranteed, crime rates in
Mozambique, particularly in urban centres, soared. War was not a problem anymore, but the
security of Mozambican citizens was again under threat” (Leão 2004:16).60

60
What is also interesting here is that the regional dynamics were created due to the combination of ONUMOZ
withdrawal and the number of weapons in Mozambique created a criminal, regional spillover effect (Leão

38
In reviewing the different factors that were important in the creation of the peace process and
the transition to peace in Mozambique, several seem important: The climate for peace
negotiations seemed to be ripe for the intervention of a party that had the trust of both Frelimo
and Renamo, Santo Egidio, towards the end of the 1980s. This was due to several issues but
some of the most significant were the moves towards multiparty democracy and economic
reform that the Mozambican government had undertaken towards the 1990s, thus taking some
of the force out of Renamo’s political objectives for continued warfare. Another was the
changed geopolitical landscape and the political economy of sub-Saharan Africa and southern
Africa where now the transformations of South Africa, on the one hand, and the end of what
one may term ‘Cold Wars by proxy’ ended with the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the
diminishing interest by right-wing groups and the USA in Renamo. And thirdly, the war-
weary people of Mozambique supported almost all efforts towards peace at the moment
towards signing the GPA. Harrison comments the force of this popular pressure thus:

[I]t remains the fact that the massive popular desire for an end to routine
violence made a return to war, should the ‘politics’ of conflict resolution
falter, every day a more remote possibility. In this sense, ‘the people’s
peace’ […] created a kind of ‘ratchet effect’ on political actors, Mozambican
and foreign, towards the end of the conflict (Harrison 1999c:407).

These factors were among the most important for the creation of negotiations and for the
introduction of the international community proper (after Santo Egidio) through UN’s
creation of ONUMOZ. As outlined above, ONUMOZ may be seen to have been a success to
some degrees as peace was not broken during its reign in Mozambique, and it did actually
achieve to help implement for example the electoral bodies that were needed for
Mozambique’s first elections in 1994. On the other hand, there were many and substantial
weaknesses both to its organisation and the implementation of its mandate, as evidenced
above by the demobilization and disarmament issue.

A final remark on the peace process and ONUMOZ

Did the transition to peace and the role of ONUMOZ work in accordance with Collier’s
assumptions? Yes and no. On the peacekeeping aspect of ONUMOZ, one may say that this
was significant to some extent, even though it is hard to argue that the war would have been
resumed if the peacekeeping troops had not been deployed. Thus, the role of the military in

2004:16). These regional criminal networks and the ways in which these are integral to Mozambican political
and economic developments, will be developed in the next section.

39
ending the conflict may be seen to be, perhaps, of some but not decisive importance. On the
other hand, and contrary to Collier’s sequencing of measures that should be undertaken in
post-conflict situations, it may not be overstated how important the holding of the first
elections in 1994 were to the implementation of peace. If, following Collier’s
recommendations, these would have been postponed to 1997/1999 (the fifth or sixth year of
peace), there is a very high likelihood that the trajectory of the Mozambican peace
negotiations would have been different. If suggested, Renamo would, perhaps, have pulled
out of the negotiations as political representation through elections was, for them, the only
feasible way towards a transformation from a guerrilla movement to a political force. For
Renamo, postponing the elections for a number of years would thus have been a catastrophe
and dangerous security-wise as this might have left the organisation and its positions
(militarily and organisationally) in a limbo. Also, from the view of the Mozambican
population, the holding of elections early was seen as extremely significant, and we may
conclude that in Mozambique the elections and the holding of these early were of the utmost
importance for the transition to peace. In this respect, ONUMOZ (and other important actors
within the international community) were instrumental in bringing this about organisationally.
On the other hand, the country’s dependence on ONUMOZ was not entirely beneficial.
Alden, for one illustrates this by pointing out that Mozambique almost became destabilised
when they pulled out, which exposes, he says, some of the dangers with such large operations
where countries may be fully dependant on it (Alden 1998:92). Also, in a sobering comment
he points out that perhaps there are limits to the role the international community may play in
these processes:

The fact that, on the eve of implementation of the final component of the
GPA, the temporary withdrawal by RENAMO from the elections threatened
to bring down the two-year effort is a crude testimonial to the fundamental
inability of the international community to control completely the resolution
of conflicts of this nature. In the end, the verdict on the protracted peace
process in this corner of southern Africa, conducted at an equally exorbitant
financial cost to the international community and extraordinarily political
cost to the Mozambican polity, can only be measured in terms of the
durability of peace in Mozambique (Alden 1998:94).

This view also finds resonance with Lundin and da Costa Gaspar (2003:318f) who recently
assessed the success of ONUMOZ as being somewhat limited:

There is no doubt that the presence of the UN through ONUMOZ

contributed to peace and stability and Mozambique. However, it is also

40
 important to emphasise that the determining factor behind the successful
peace-building was and is related to the strong will for peace among
ordinary citizens as well as the FRELIMO and RENAMO leadership. The
process of ‘disarming the minds’ of ordinary citizens was crucial for the
demilitarisation of the society – and it is still ongoing.

This view of the process of peace as ongoing and unended (and, thus, also the war as having
legacies) when violence and instability is still present, is also captured by Chachiua and
Malan (1998:unpag.) in their conclusion to a critical assessment of the ONUMOZ operation:
“When people continue to suffer from widespread insecurity, violence and instability during
and after a peace process, no mission can be regarded as an unqualified success.” Indeed. And
with this view in mind of peace-building as long-term processes which are dependant not only
on external military intervention or organisations, but dependant on the continued addressing
of the civil war and its effects, the dynamics surrounding the grievances that fuelled the
conflict, and the importance of the specific historical, political, social and cultural
circumstances within which both war is waged and peace is initiated, one must turn to a
review of how peace has fared in the long run. This is to where we now turn.

III Mozambique 2005: What kind of peace?

Mozambique over the last decade has emerged as an example of
successful reform, one that is perhaps less well known than others
discussed in this paper. The country emerged in 1992 from a long civil war,
which - together with bearing the costs of its frontline status in isolating the
apartheid government in South (…)After growing just 0.1 percent on
average over the previous decade, GDP grew at an average of 8.4
per cent annually from 1993 through 2001.
N. Stern, The World Bank (2002:63)

As the above quote by the World Bank’s chief’s economist illustrates, the Bank rarely allows
an opportunity to pass to promote the impressive progress the country has made. Also, in (not
so modest) clear terms it is also pointed out the roles the international community in general
and the World Bank in particular have played for these developments to have taken place.
And surely, economically speaking, there are a great number of economic figures that fit with
the image of a country successfully transformed from a destructive war-zone to a rapidly
growing economy.
As such Mozambique represents a case which fits well with Collier’s ideas of substantial aid
having created economic growth and wealth. In Collier’s terms, the rapid growth contributes
to a more stable, more secure country in which the option of civil war is then relegated to an
ever-decreasing possibility. However, there are other versions of the state of affairs in terms

41
of stability in Mozambique thirteen year after the GPA, and this section will critically assess
some of these. Particular focus will be put on what may be argued are three of the most
significant challenges to Mozambique’s post-war stability: The seemingly growing
importance (or at least acknowledgement) of criminal networks and their corruption-fuelled
black, grey and white economies and their relation to the higher echelons of power both
nationally and regionally. Secondly, a critical reassessment of the reintegration and
demobilisation by ONUMOZ will be made, and, finally, an exploration as to the problems of
distribution, both regionally and socially will be undertaken.

III a Aid and growth, or the erosion of the state

The declared successes have not yet produced tangible results for the
majority of the population. Rising unemployment and extremely high levels
of absolute poverty are producing, among other aspects, adverse social
effects and rising crime.
Prakash Ratilal, former governor, Bank of Mozambique61

Mozambique has had a tremendous rate of growth since the GPA, and has averaged 8.4%
annually from 1993 until the end of 2001, according to World Bank figures (Stern 2002:55).
Also, other economic indicators are showing signs of a country in rapid growth comparing
with other countries regionally: For example inflation averaged 3.3% in the period between
1993 and 1997 and Mozambique also enjoyed an increase in export growth, a significant
growth in private investment etc. (Stern 2002). The liberalization of the economy through for
example, the sale of over 1000 former state companies to the private sector (Pitcher 2002:126-
127) has also been celebrated by many as a positive achievement. The World Bank and other
international agencies, thus, present Mozambique as a success story also in the areas of aid
and economic development, and these and other reforms “…have made Mozambique a model
for the success of neo-liberal programs and won praise from the World Bank and Western
donors (Pitcher 2002:262)”.
In the same period from the signing of the GPA, international aid to the country has been
extremely significant, and aid accounts for almost 60% of the national budget in (Bertrand
2003:455n13) in 2002.62 However, the influx of overseas development aid (ODA) into

61
Cited by Hanlon 2004:748.
62
Yussuf Adam in a very interesting critical view of the pre-GPA aid flows of Portugal, USA, Sweden, the
USSR and its conditionality stresses its aid dependency: “From 1983 to 1987 aid grew by 263 per cent. The total
volume of aid increased from 249 million dollars in 1983 to 952 million dollars in 1989. The value of total
foreign aid received in 1989 amounted to nine times the total value of exports for the same year and to 66 per
cent of the Gross Domestic Product (Adam 1996:128)”.

42
Mozambique is not something novel, and some have pointed out that this has made
Mozambique’s economy ‘aid sick’ with, for example in 1988 71,7% percent of measured
GDP coming from external assistance (Plank 1993:411).63 The economist Marc Wuyts state,
for example, in a critical assessment of the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP),
implemented for the first time in 1987, that the two aspects of this, the fiscal restraints of
financial programming and the many decentralized project-based management practices
worked to create a negative dynamic (Wuyts 1996). This has, according to Wuyts, entailed
that “…aid dependence has become a new way of life which, increasingly, is built into the
very mechanisms through which the state operates (1996:746)”. This is also Hall and Young’s
position, writing that (1997:231):

There has been a general political fragmentation and loss of political

authority at every level which goes well beyond issues of corruption and
dependence. It includes the abandonment of an ideological cohesion that,
whatever its difficulties, gave the ruling group a certain coherence. And the
vacuum has not been replaced by any public discussion but by the
unquestioning acceptance that IMF/World Bank strategies are the only
possibilities there are. Thus, the strategies of the Mozambican state have
been reduced to little more than mediating the demands of donors and its
domestic constituencies.

This bleak vision of Mozambican politics and how this has become ‘aid sick’, to borrow the
economic term, not only relates to IMF and the World Bank, but also to NGOs. Bowen makes
(2002:196f) a related point on the role of NGOs. She points out that the combination of, as
she sees it, a Mozambican state weakened by privatization schemes and strict budget regimes,
necessitates an influx of NGOs. Building on Joseph Hanlon, she makes the point that these
may be seen as, in an un-coordinated fashion, “…undermining the credibility of the
Mozambican government by insisting that foreign representatives control the entire operations
(Bowen 2000:196)”. However, and this is in opposition to the almost purely negative effects
of NGOs identified by Hall and Young (1997:230), Bowen argues that there are also
arguments for the potentially beneficial effects of NGO activity. She underlines that they may
be seen as strengthening democratic culture and civil society as well as supporting peasants
who are subjected to anti-peasant biases and financial constraints, although remaining
sceptical as to the NGOs directly beneficial impact (Bowen 2000:196). Critics of aid’s
relation to (non-)development on a general level include Kanbur (2000) who claim that ‘aid

63
To illustrate, the figures for ODA in percent of the GDP is as follows: 1987 (43,7%), 1988 (81,2%), 1989
(70,2%), 1990 (71,7%) and 1991 (69,2%) (Plank 1993:408).

43
has failed in Africa’ generally. Pointing to Mozambique, Kanbur writes that “…the failure of
very high levels of aid in Mozambique is discussed quite openly now (Kanbur 2000:411)”.
Without drawing any conclusions yet as to aid and its significance in Mozambique, we may
already conclude that in Mozambique we have a situation in which aid and development both
are present and structuring its economy and influencing its polity heavily. As such, the case of
Mozambique represents an almost pristine example for testing Collier’s ideas of the
importance of aid immediately after peace has ‘broken out’. This section will, therefore, first
present Collier’s view on the importance of aid in post-war reconstruction and stabilisation.
Second, it will go into details on some of the larger developments of aid and development
initiatives during the last decade or so, and this will be contrasted with some of the recent case
studies on the impact (or lack thereof) of these initiatives. As a large number of Mozambicans
are still living in rural areas and being mostly peasants, a significant amount of the focus will
be on this sector.64 Two-thirds of the rural population are, further, deemed to be living in
absolute poverty (Cramer and Pontara 1998:10). Case studies that will be contributing to this
assessment of aid’s influence and its correlation, if any, to Collier’s analysis are for example
recent works by Galli (2003), Pitcher (2003), Bowen (2000) and Sheldon (2002).
Critics of the World Bank and their dealings in Mozambique claim that the situation, in purely
economic terms, is not as good as it might be perceived when glancing at Stern’s portrayal
above. An outspoken critic of IMF and World Bank policies in Mozambique, Joseph Hanlon
cites UNDP’s Mozambican National Human Development Report 2001 which shows that
“…in the four years 1997-2001 ‘real GDP per capita’ for the country as a whole fell from
USD198 to USD 177 and for the poorest province, Zambézia, it fell from USD 106 to USD
78 (Hanlon 2004:748)”. IMF enforced heavy cuts relating to the public sector, and the manner
in which the reduction of wages among those employed in this sector was undertaken, has
been argued to pave the way for corruption. Says Hanlon (quoted in Harrison 1999a:544):
“Curbs on government spending forced savage cuts in civil service wages; the United Nations
now [1997] estimates that two-thirds of Mozambican government employees are living below
the poverty line.” Harrison argues further that if corruption is something that should be
targeted, one needs to reconsider the present state of economic liberalisation (1999a).
West and Myers (1996) complement Hanlon’s criticism in pointing to other effects of both
state farm practices and the SAP in Mozambique (PRE): “Since structural adjustment with the
PRE in 1987, the chaotic alienation of land, including land grabbing and speculation, has

64
85,88% are estimated as living in mud-and-dagga huts, according to Diário de Moçambique 14.10.99.

44
grown dramatically. As of January 1994, over 20 million hectares have been granted in
concessions – including agriculture, mining, timber, wildlife, and tourism” (West and Myers
1996:29).
Another important part of the structural adjustment and liberalization politics that
Mozambique has been subjected to is the process of privatization of state-owned enterprises.
This has informed Minter (1994) to assess the role of the World Bank and the donors in a
critical light in general but especially in relation to the erosion of local capacity. Writes
Minter: “Large inflows of foreign aid, accompanied by expensive foreign personnel, staved
off total collapse but rarely operated to build Mozambican capacity. The life-support package
even eroded Mozambique’s capacity to chart an effective development policy (Minter
1994:274)”.65 The political underpinnings of privatization is also the focus of Castel-Branco,
Cramer and Hailu (2001) who claim that privatization in Mozambique was ‘bedevilled by a
lack of transparency’, using the examples of the privatization of large state farms. Rather than
the pure mechanisms of the market, they note that politics is integral to every part of
privatization: “As a result, the ‘technical’ agenda of privatization – the drive to increase
economic efficiency – is nearly always captured and transformed by powerful actors (state,
private, and foreign). The resulting private sector is as much the product of politics as of
‘pure’ market forces (2001:1)”.
West and Myers’ and Minter’s criticism of both the state farms and the new liberalization
schemes is supported by a major recent work by Bowen (2000) exploring broadly the
struggles of Mozambican peasants in colonial and post-colonial settings. As a case study of
Mozambican peasants and how their situation has not been ameliorated in the face of neither
state-enacted nor market-oriented approaches agricultural policies, Bowen concludes that both
“[t]he colonial and the postcolonial Mozambican state enforced policies inimical to the
peasantry (2000:4)”. Also, through her work, Bowen assesses the SAPs in Mozambique as
being a very mixed blessing, but in her positioning herself within the field of researchers on
this, she is more close to the harsh critics of Joseph Hanlon (cf. e.g. 1996), John Saul (1993)
and David Plank (cf. e.g. 1993). These critics argue for a recolonization of Mozambique by

65
It is also significant that the alleged erosion of state structures and public services in relation to crises to some
extent was a willed development, at least from USAID’s point of view. Says USAID’s head in Maputo, Julius
Schlottauer, in the late 1980s: “…[I]t has never been the USA’s political and aid-related intention to go in and
strengthen Mozambican public administration by helping to establish a national, state organization to counteract
emergencies. Quite the opposite; the faster such attempts erode, the easier it will be for private interests and non-
governmental organizations to assume responsibility for the distribution of emergency aid and to reach targeted
groups (quoted in Minter 1994:280n32)”.

45
the way in which “…policy has been dictated from the outside (Bowen 2000:187)”.66 In
support of this stance, Bowen argues for the failure of the World Bank and the IMF on three
important aspects, namely the ongoing war in Mozambique, the weak infrastructure and
marketing networks that must be understood historically, and, thirdly, a poorly developed
agricultural extension service (Bowen 2000:193ff). Bowen concludes that the SAPs in sum
“…has increased the hardships of ordinary Mozambicans at least as much as it has resulted in
economic advance (Bowen 2000:202).” Bowen bases this conclusion on what she identifies
as, in the urban areas, a dramatic fall in living standards and political instability, while in the
rural areas she alleges that further and more detailed empirical research on the effects of the
SAP is needed, but that one may say that “…rural misery has increased notably” and that the
land privatization and “…divestiture of state enterprises that has taken place has not primarily
benefited peasant farmers or even Mozambican agriculturalists (Bowen 2000:202).”
Besides peasants, others have also argued out that privatization and turn towards the market as
being detrimental women. Turshen (2001:67), for one, argues that in a post-war context and in
a context of increasing privatization, the traditional channels for women to access land
become barred. Sheldon, in a recent and comprehensive study of women and work in
Mozambique (2002), supports Turshen’s conclusions and acknowledges the negative impact
that SAP made on women’s lives (2002:230ff). However, at the same time, Sheldon points
out that the socialist policies of Frelimo where women were given more access to work
outside the traditional spheres, the destructive civil war and the following liberalization, all
have contributed to a differentiated image of women and work in Mozambique. And one in
which women are not mere agency-less victims of larger forces: “Women took the initiative
in finding new sources of income, demonstrating further how their decisions affected the
society as a whole. (…) While poverty was pervasive, women found areas of success and new
opportunity in work and family life (Sheldon 2002:256)”. In contrast perhaps more to Turshen
than to Sheldon, Chingono argues (1994,1996), somewhat provocatively, that the war and
what he sees as the subsequent de-traditionalisation entailed by violent upheaval, together
with the market this generated, in a sense liberated women. He concludes that we should go
from seeing women as victims to agents of change and development in Mozambique.67

66
However, Bowen also moderates the extent to which she stresses the outside influence in viewing that there
are divisions within Frelimo between those who support an extensive withdrawal of the state from almost all
matters economic and more moderately inclined politicians who are against, in Jorge Rebelo’s words ‘this
‘capitalism of the jungle’ (Rebelo quoted in Bowen 2000:199). Bowen argues that the dominant position of the
former group “…facilitated the domination of private capital and foreign investment (ibid.)”.
67
Cf. also Espling (1999) as a case study of women’s livelihood strategies in the processes of change
Mozambique is undergoing.

46
Be that as it may, there are also researchers claiming that the privatization schemes initiated
and strengthened by the market orientation and the changes brought on by privatization have
neither necessarily been uniformly detrimental to the peasantry, the poor, women and the
Mozambican economy, nor may be seen as producing necessarily a more disintegrated and
deligitimised state. Pitcher’s work is a case in point here (cf. Pitcher 2002 especially). Going
through for example the very diverse examples of the liberalisation of both cotton production
and the cashew industry has produced different results with the case of the cashew industry
having important elements of both ‘tragedy and travesty’, as she puts its (2002:228ff).68
However, in relation to the case of cotton, Pitcher argues that this has brought opportunities
for partnerships, as well as it has made government officials active in mediation and
redefinition of their own roles vis-à-vis business interests (Pitcher 2002:234f). This makes
Pitcher conclude that both the image of ‘recolonization’ (see above) by foreign (neo-)colonial
capital is misleading, as is the image of a state as withdrawing and being disintegrating.
Rather, she portrays the Mozambican state as playing contrastive and sometimes
contradictory roles in these processes, making the label ‘intermediary state’ the most apt term
to use (Pitcher 2002:235).69 Also others argue that the privatization of the Mozambican
economy and the transformation of the state apparatus have been successful: Addison and de
Sousa (1999:170f), for one, argue that the selling off of hundreds of large state-owned
enterprises since the late 1980s has stimulated foreign investment. Also, there are many other
macro economic or modelling approaches to Mozambique which assesses the developments
of Mozambique in, more or less, largely positive terms while recognising important
development challenges and, at times, prescribing different policies for the confrontation of
these (cf. e.g. Tarp et al. 2002, Arndt et al 2000).
Two other aspects need also to be mentioned here. One, that there is no space to go into here,
is that the pandemic of HIV/AIDS in Mozambique (as in too many other countries in sub-
Saharan Africa) is threatening not only the country’s social systems that were, in some places,
violently transformed by the civil war, and now are faced with challenges of AIDS orphans
and ‘lost’ generations. Further, this will also necessarily impact on the economic growth rates,

68
The case of how the Mozambican cashew industry was transformed (or rather, put out of business) by the
ideas of privatization is also something explored by many others. For a historically informed review of the Indo-
Mozambican relations regarding the cashew industry, cf. Leite 2000. For a critique of the IMF and their policies
on the cashew industry, cf. also Jeter 2001, McMillan et al 2003 and Hanlon 2000.
69
Cramer and Pontara argues (1998) for rural-rural migration and rural wage work as among the options for
alleviating rural poverty, arguing that focusing on smallholder agriculture has failed. This position has been
heavily criticised, Pitcher pointing out that a dichotomy of wage labour versus land or companies versus
smallholders obscures Mozambican complexity (1999). But see also the reply by Cramer and Pontara (1999).

47
the structures and dynamics of production and therefore also the ways in which the
Mozambican economy will look depending on measures taken (and which are feasible) in the
face of this challenge (cf. e.g. Arndt 2002 for some scenarios vis-à-vis the Mozambican
economy). The other is that the significance of capital investments in Mozambique in relation
to larger recent industrial projects, so-called ‘mega projects’, may be seriously questioned. 70
The immediate background to this point is that through these projects, most notably the Mozal
aluminium smelter for which construction started in 1998, Mozambique has for 1999 been
pushed to the sixth place on the list of foreign direct investments (FDI) to Mozambique
(Andersson 2001). Andersson points out in his report (2001) to the Mozambican Ministry of
Planning and Finance, The impact of the mega projects on the Moçambican economy, that
these projects will indeed have large macroeconomic effects. However, although being
positive to the mega projects as a whole, Andersson points out that there are several
indications that the impact is limited: “Their impact on national income and balance of
payment is considerable smaller [than the impact on GDP and trade balance] however, due to
the offsetting effect of financing flows, debt service payments, and profit repatriation
(Andersson 2001:1)”. In his conclusion about the mixed blessings of these mega projects,
Andersson soberly assesses that “[t]he effect on growth of national income – the payoff to the
people of Mozambique – is less spectacular, due to the large debt service obligations and
repatriation of profits. Overall, national income is expected to be just 7% higher in 2010 as a
consequence of all these projects (Andersson 2001:16)”.
Hence, in assessing the impact and role of aid in Mozambique, the privatization of enterprises
and new industrial projects, one might say that two images are competing for prominence:
One is of peace and the development of projects, privatization and investments aiding and
benefiting Mozambique and Mozambique’s poor, the peasants. The other is an image of
recolonization entailing an erosion of the state and the state’s powers and politics, and a non-
substantial or non-existent experienced increase in living standards and conditions for the vast
majority of Mozambicans. Perhaps we need to turn to the sphere of Mozambican politics,
economy and society to answer which image is the most truthful?

70
These mega projects have received much publicity as they are seen by some as amounting to a
reindustrialisation. They include, among others, Mozal aluminium smelter, the natural gas projects in Temane
and Pande, the Chibuto sand project and the Moma sand project (Millennium Institute 2003:17).

48
III b Stability and success? Thirteen years after the GPA?

III b 1 Crime, corruption and criminal networks

These days, one popular way to launder such cash [from drug money
gained from trading in and from Mozambique] is by developing the tourist
industry. This industry can bring in substantial business revenues, but in
the case of Mozambique, it was entirely destroyed during the country’s war.
In developing tourist resorts and infrastructure, illicit drug money is
laundered in a way that provides jobs, services, and infrastructure for
Mozambicans. The profiteering allows some dangerously unequal access
to power and politics, which in turn shapes formal development.
Nordstrom (2004:137)

Nordstrom’s grim analysis of the muddled economic waters in the wake of war in
Mozambique is an argument supporting the not so unequivocally beneficial side of economic
development, as Collier and others seem to argue for post-conflict situations. Rather,
Nordstrom’s is an analysis in which there is a fusion of white, black and grey economies in
Mozambique also shaping political practices. This chapter will seek to delve into this grim
image of crime and corruption in Mozambique, and will also seek to draw out some
consequences and implications this might have for the view of peace, stability and economic
growth, an image oft professed by the international community.
Understanding crime and violence in Mozambique leads us to, as also in the case of the civil
war, across Mozambique’s borders and backwards in time. Leão (2004), for one, links the
proliferation of guns and crime in Southern Africa and its relation to Mozambique to the war
as more or less directly resulting from the largely failed disarmament measures undertaken by
ONUMOZ, as was discussed above. This negative trend only worsened post-GPA and
towards the end of the 1990s, the situation worsened in relation to arms and crime, as Knight
writes: “By 1998, Mozambique constituted the single largest source of small arms to the
South African domestic market (Knight 2004:501)”. Thus, to understand the current situation
of crime, violence and arms in Mozambique we need to look, as Bayart (Bayart et al. 1999)
does, the regional crime networks. In this context, Mozambique is an important both transit
and trading country within the larger framework of South African influence over these areas,
when it comes to illicit goods: “Mozambique today has effectively become a free trade area
for businessmen and smugglers of every description. Since the country produces little for
export and has only a small domestic market, it is essentially an entrepôt for onward trade

49
(Ellis 1999:63)”.71 Ellis goes on to argue that significant in this network of trade in which
illegal and legal goods are intertwined are former South African military intelligence
operatives who “…have influence with Mozambican politicians and officials and who are
able to use Mozambique as a centre for offshore transactions involving South Africa itself
(Ellis 1999:63)”. If Ellis is correct, one may see that aspects of the belligerent networks of old
with its sometimes strong relations with the military establishment in South Africa have been
transformed into networks of trade operating in its grey, white and black economies. Research
into these relations and transformations are undoubtedly challenging and most is as of yet
unexplored. However, Ellis and others argue convincingly that there are significant
continuities in this area. Although some will argue that this is a marginal problem, recent
developments in Mozambique may support that there is, indeed, strong relations between
illegal trade and crime and the business establishment of Mozambique and high-ranking
politicians and the upper echelons of bureaucratic officialdom and national institutions.
These relations received a lot of attention recently with the assassination of Mozambique’s
premier investigative journalist, Carlos Cardoso, by a hail of bullets 22 November 2000.
Cardoso had, prior to his death, been scrutinizing several issues in which embezzlement of
state funds in relation to privatization of state banks had links to high-ranking politicians
(allegedly also to former president Joaquim Chissano’s son, businessman Nyimpine
Chissano) and the business community (see Fauvet and Mosse 2003:295-328 especially for a
summary of the Cardoso’s investigative journalistic efforts during his last period).72 Related
to this, it is important to note that the once Marxist-Leninist rhetoric of Frelimo that was, if
not staunchly promoted, then oriented towards among the party elite, has given way to what
some would, cynically, call a situation in which Frelimo members emerge as “born again
private sector entrepreneurs” (Bernstein, quoted in Bowen 2000:198). Only with this massive,
and very dynamic, ideological and practico-political reorientation on behalf of the Frelimo
political elite Frelimo, fuelled by external pressure from IMF and the World Bank on the one
hand, and, alas, for some the prospects of short-term material gain, it is possible to understand
the emergence of the current political and economic situation.73

71
The strong and tight relations to South Africa are significant in this respect as, according to Ellis, ”South
Africa has become Africa’s capital of organized crime, with a total criminal turnover reckoned at some R. 41.1
billion [approx. USD 7 billion] per year (Ellis 1999:50)”.
72
Also Bertrand (2003:455) notes relations between crime and the state: “Mais cette corruption cache un
processus plus dangeroux, qui consiste dans la pénétration de l’appareil d’État par des resaux criminels”.
73
Hall and Young (1997:230) seems to support the links between aid, privatization and the rise of corruption in
Mozambique: “The conjunction of difficult economic circumstances with the legitimation of private gain has
exposed officials to temptations, while privatisation in its various guises has offered great rewards.”

50
Michel Cahen, a French historian with a long-term interest in Mozambique, is also very
concerned about the current state of affairs regarding crime and says (2000b:123n27): “Le
banditisme urbain est extrêmement inquiétant au Mozambique, mais toutes les études, tous les
témoignages montrent que ‘les syndicats du crime’ qui sévissent sont en liaison avec la police,
voire formés des policiers.” Thus, if we are to follow Cahen and others, the relation between
crime and law enforcement is not necessarily one of opposition in present-day Mozambique
as the crime networks and webs of corruption are far-reaching, in control of substantial
amounts of resources, and influencing high-ranking officials in different sectors, as
exemplified by the Cardoso case.74 The above readings also resound with Ellis’ research,
claiming that “[s]enior politicians and intelligence officers in Mozambique are widely
regarded as having interests in smuggling concerns, including the drug trade”.75 Says Ellis:

[there exists] a highly elaborate trade, cars stolen in South Africa are often
exported via Mozambique to points further north as far as Nairobi as a form
of easily transportable wealth for the settlement of payments agreed
particularly in the course of drug transactions, although they have also
been traced as far a field as Turkey and New Zealand (Ellis 1999:65).

This bleak view of the current state of affairs is compounded by Joseph Hanlon, who recently
(2004) claimed that also the legal system is seriously flawed by these developments: “The
legal system has collapsed and court rulings are available to the highest bidder. Money
laundering is common, and Mozambique has become an important drug warehousing and
transit centre, with senior figures involved (Hanlon 2004:747)”.76
However, for Hanlon perhaps one of the most frightening aspects of this system in which the
state and higher-ranking party cadres are implicated is the lack of action taken when crimes
are committed. Hanlon cites as example the case of the murder of António Siba-Siba
Macuacua in connection to the privatization of Banco Popular de Moçambique (BPD), in
which Siba-Siba was acting head.77 Through the process of privatisation of the bank, an IMF
prerequisite for receiving aid, USD 400 million disappeared from the banking system, and

74
A survey from 20001 by Ética Moçambique, a Mozambican NGO, in which 1200 Mozambicans were
interviewed showed that 45% of Mozambicans had paid bribes during the last 6 months (Hanlon 2004:755).
75
“Mozambique is the southern African transit point for South African hashish, South Asian heroin, and South
American cocaine destined for South African and European markets, and it is a significant producer of cannabis
for local trade and methaqualone for export to South Africa (McMullin 2004:632)”.
76
Harrison in an interesting article (Harrison 1999a) also explores the link between the civil war and its
disaggregation of the one-party state in Mozambique with the onslaught of economic liberalisation and structural
adjustment as being important contexts for understanding corruption in Mozambique.
77
For a thorough assessment of the whole case of Siba-Siba and Carlos Cardoso, see also Fauvet and Mosse
(2003) for a very critical approach relating the two murders to the state of corruption in Mozambique and the
higher echelons of power.

51
Siba-Siba was murdered when he started to explore the loans given (and not repaid) and the
money flows in connection to this process. In contrast to Cardoso, “…Siba-Siba was not well-
known internationally or in the donor community; there has been no international campaign
about his assassination and there has been little investigation of his murder. With one
exception, there has been no investigation of the thefts of nearly USD 400 million from the
banking system” (Hanlon 2004:752). Hanlon goes on to argue that the international donor
agencies at conferences and meetings at important intervals from 2000 on have systematically
ignored the cases of corruption, the bad loans and the murder of Siba-Siba (2004:753ff). It is
within this analytical framework the Mozambican state, the party of Frelimo and officialdom
are, albeit only parts, seen to be implicated in an opaque yet profitable system of corruption
and crime that a critique against the donor community in general and the World Bank
specifically must be understood. For, if the critics are correct, all is not well in the state of
post-conflict Mozambique, even though the economy continues to grow. However, although
corruption does exist in Mozambique and crime is rampant, and this seems now widely
acknowledged among at least the most critical researchers of Mozambican developments,
some, for example Hanlon (2004) argues that in analysing corruption and crime one needs
also to look at the effects that aid and donor agencies have on these dynamics.78
Thus, even though Mozambique is a success story, some see the lack of a process similar to
South Africa as a threat to long-term peace. Commenting on the fact that there has been no
inquiry into the war crimes of the civil war, J. Honwana asks: “It can be argued, therefore,
that justice is the price to pay for peace. This raises a critical question: in the long run, can
there be peace without justice? (J. Honwana 2002:211)”. This is an important question and J.
Honwana’s concern for the relations between peace and stability and justice, is complemented
by a recent work on the relations between ‘the rule of law’, policing practices and democracy
in Mozambique by Bruce Baker (2003). Reviewing the police departments’ relations to the
public, Baker underlines the gravity of the situation: “At present, the conduct of the
Mozambican police is not consistently subject to the law, nor are they adequately accountable,
accessible, impartial, representative or transparent (Baker 2003:155)”. This lack of trust in the
police is also a democratic problem, and as Baker points out (2003:155), the high level of
organised crime and corruption in Mozambique, may perhaps contribute to “…impede
progress at other levels of democracy”.

78
However, some scholars still remain doubtful as to how high into the government establishments of Frelimo,
Renamo and the bureaucracy relations to the crime and drug-trafficking networks are. Harrison (1999b:325)
writes: “…[t]here has not been, to date, any clear link between illicit drug trafficking and high-ranking members
of the Frelimo state elite.”

52
The extent of organised crime, the levels of corruption and the black and grey economies and
how they are implicated with both regional criminal networks and, to at least some extent, the
Mozambican political and bureaucratic elites, makes an argument easier for the
transformations of the violence of the civil war to a situation of unlawfulness, crime and
violence in peacetime. And, indeed, away from the high politics and macro-economic
indicators, there are signs of powerful dynamics of extra-state justice being developed as
corruption of the police, for instance, makes public beatings (or public or clandestine killings)
of alleged criminals more common than before due to the lack of trust the public has in the
police for the execution of justice (Baker 2003).79
This section has argued for the transformation of Mozambican society after 1992 in a way in
which may be read as a transformation of violence through the integration of the differently
shaded economies, through the important nexus of Mozambique as part of an international
drug and illegal goods trade, and through the corruption thoroughly embedded, for various
reasons, at different levels of the Mozambican society. These predicaments about the ‘non-
innocence’ of economic growth, corruption, (violent) crime and the lack of trust in the police
and justice system seriously challenge the image of a country once at war and now at peace
and experiencing progress. Rather, it contributes to an argument of seeing war and peace not
as absolute categories that may be discerned (as with Collier’s formalist definition of civil
war), but rather as continuities with many overlapping practices, institutions, networks and
systems of patronage. As Nordstrom writes of these transitions in general: “Wartime
economic relationships follow markets into peace. Wartime profiteers emerge as peacetime
economic and political leaders. Markets aren’t as free as democratic ideals would have them
(Nordstrom 2004:201).” With parts of the elites of Mozambique, this seems indeed to have
been the case also here. But how about the other end of the stratum, the former combatants?

III b 2 Reintegration of combatants: Tension and incompletion

All in all, 92 890 combatants were demobilised in the period between late 1993 and early
1997 when UNDP (who took over from ONUMOZ the demobilization schemes) paid its last
subsidy, and of these 70 910 were registered as government soldiers and 21 980 as Renamo

79
The fact that trust in police is eroding while extra-state justice is on the rise, is hard to assess purely
statistically as the officials crime statistics are based on the same police records and are subsequently not apt as
sources for crime and, thus, indicators of public safety (Baker 2003). On the dwindling trust in the police in
Mozambique, see also Seleti (2000) for an interesting criminological exploration of the use of the public sphere
in Mozambique as a site of public cultural protest against police brutality and, thus, amounting to a critique of
police brutality and ineptness in the face of growing crime.

53
soldiers (Lundin et al. 2000:182). The costs of the reintegration and demobilization schemes
are somewhat hard to assess as parts were paid by the Mozambican government, but Coelho
and Vines (quoted in Lundin et al. 2000:186f) estimate the total cost to be around USD 95
million or somewhat more than USD 1000 per demobilised soldier. Hence, by all means it
was a large undertaking with over 90 000 guerrillas and soldiers (Alden 2002:342) and the
demobilization phase was seen by ONUMOZ to be the most dangerous and difficult phase of
the operation as there was great uncertainty as to numbers as well as political reluctance to
give up positions and important units etc. (United Nations 1995). A first step towards this was
the setting up a so-called Cease-fire Commission which, in addition to verifying the ceasefire
agreed to and the clearing of landmines, also saw to the “…establishing procedures for the
cantonment, assembly and demobilization of Government and RENAMO soldiers (United
Nations 1995:38)”. Further, assembly areas were equipped with blankets, provisions, health
care, cooking equipment, civilian clothing etc. by a civilian team, the Technical Unit, aiding
the military observers. After initial problems of agreeing to assembly areas, the first 35 were
filling up with soldiers by the end of 1993 (ibid.:39f). From January to August of 1994 (when
the last assembly area was emptied), there was a number of serious and violent incidents at
these areas due to the long period of time these were there. At the end of demobilization in
November 1994, it accounted for 57 540 government and 20 538 Renamo soldiers (ibid.:41).

Assessing this aspect of ONUMOZ, several studies from Mozambique stress the successful
nature of demobilisation and the ways in which former combatants have been reintegrated
into Mozambican local communities and their social life. Dolan and Schafer (1997) in their
conclusion to their study on the reintegration of ex-soldiers in the provinces of Manica and
Sofala claim: "[I]n many respects the demobilised soldiers are socially and economically
reintegrated and as such do not pose an immediate threat to their local communities"
(1997:ix). Another recent assessment (Lundin et al. 2000) also stresses the success of the
costly schemes for ex-combatants in the years following the ONUMOZ period and beyond.80
Typically of these positive assessments, Lundin et al. writes (2000:187):

The primary objectives of the reintegration support programmes were to

guarantee a minimum cash income, encourage the demobilized to stay in
the district he or she chose, and ‘keep them quiet’ – contributing to the
‘pacification’. From that perspective the programmes have been successful.

80
For an overview of schemes and subsidies on a regional level, cf. Lundin et al. 2000:182.

54
That there exists an image of success is also pointed out by Alden (2002) in an article
reassessing the reintegration efforts by the international community and the dynamics
pertaining to ex-combatants in the Mozambican society. Alden stresses that in and around
1997, when funds for former combatants and the different initiatives more or less ended, all
final impact assessments were positive:

These found unanimously that former combatants had been fully

reintegrated into society, citing as evidence perceptions on the part of both
demobilized soldiers and society in general that the reintegration had been
successful, as well as the absence of significant and sustained violence
during the post-election period (Alden 2002:345).

However, Lundin (2000) differentiates in its assessment of the reintegration process, and
distinguishes between rural and urban areas, where in the rural areas social reintegration was
more successful. Further, Lundin argues that social reintegration went better than economic
reintegration because of poor economic opportunities, among other things. Also Alden (2002,
see also 2001) and others point out that the societal reintegration of former combatants did not
go entirely smoothly everywhere. Alden (2002) represents a more sober, critical and timely
analysis of the demobilization aspect of ONUMOZ as well as a broadening of the view of
through an assessment of questions that generally are agreed upon to be a success in
Mozambique.81
A strong critical voice, McMullin challenges the image often proposed of Mozambique being
a success story in terms of re-integration of former combatants, and claims that the UN, after
ONUMOZ was established, went for a minimum solution in regards to integration schemes
initiated in 1994: “The RSS [Reintegration Support Scheme] supported the minimalist goal of
providing financial support to combatants over a fixed period of time, enough to ‘pay them
and scatter them’ over a relatively short period to remove them from the conflict situation
(McMullin 2004:628)”. Albeit this strategy worked in the sense that former combatants were
scattered and received payment for 24 months after being demobilized, the employment
components of the DRP (Demobilization and Reintegration Programme) were neither entirely
successful nor always very oriented towards future employment possibilities.82 This has made
McMullin point out that though 70% of those enrolled initially got work afterwards, it is
doubtful that many of these retained their work after 6 months (McMullin 2004:629). But

81
Stephen (1995) is an example of an early and very critical approach to how the process went, forecasting a
belligerent future for Mozambique.
82
”Training programmes were legendary in Mozambique more for their dark comedy than for their success. For
example, some combatants trained as electricians in villages without electricity (McMullin 2004:629)”.

55
perhaps more importantly, McMullin sees that there are two major challenges that needs to be
addressed if Mozambique is to achieve 'long-term security': First, middle and high ranking
officers among the former combatants’ involvement in serious organized crime networks with
political contacts, represent a serious problem which “…threaten the stability of the state itself
(McMullin 2004:639)”. This is especially evident when taken into consideration the amount
of weaponry and the trafficking of drugs in the country, as demonstrated in the sections
above. Secondly, the continued and harsh politicization of policies and practices of
reintegration has created disgruntled groups, for example those paramilitary groups that for
some or other reason were not included in reintegration programme has “…contributed to
instability within local communities, and rival groups have clashed, sometimes violently
during election periods (McMullin 2004:633)”.83 Also, segments of demobilised Renamo
soldiers experience themselves to be excluded from certain pension benefits, and this has been
a hotly contested topic in Mozambican politics ever since the GPA. McMullin comments that
“…keeping a contentious issue alive further polarizes an already fragile political divide and
revives in ex-combatants a collective grievance that could prove dangerous (McMullin
2004:634)”. Finally, the continuing threats, both from within the party and from former
Renamo generals and commanders to ‘go back to war’ is a constant reminder that the option
of violence is seen as, if not viable in practice, then as important rhetorically. And as
McMullin remarks (2004:634): "A high level of organized criminal activity combined with a
widespread disenchantment with government is not a recipe for stability."
In a sense furthering McMullin, Alden (2002) discerns between different perceptions of what
reintegration means in different contexts, and he argues that for international organisations
and donors, there seems to be functional or instrumental view on this: “For the international
community, the fact that massive and ongoing disruption by ex-combatants was avoided
(despite selected riots in the assembly areas during the ONUMOZ mission and, briefly,
organized protests in 1995) rendered the issue a moot one. Reintegration from this perspective
was akin to achieving ‘negative peace’ or the absence of outright conflict (Alden 2002:351)”.
This, Alden contrasts to a ‘deeper understanding’ of reintegration “…one which embraced the

83
For some details of these clashes, cf. Berman 1996. The numbers vary of these paramilitary groups that have
not been included in the reintegration programme and the benefits this entailed. As the war was waged in a way
that included the so-called civilian population to such a large degree, there existed very many groups with non-
Frelimo or non-Renamo relations, and these included, for example, the fascinating peasant resistance army called
Naparama that was active in the north central areas during some time in the late 1980s numbering a few
thousand (cf. e.g. Nordstrom 1997:57-62, Wilson 1992, Cahen 2002). Other groups roved around looting, rather
in the sense of Collier’s idea of a ‘private army’, and affiliated with both Renamo and Frelimo at different times.

56
normative requirements of ‘social peace’ as well as concerns for political representativity and
economic stability (Alden 2002:351)”.84
The large expenditure involved in the ONUMOZ operation has lead some to claim that peace
was bought with USD 800 000 spent each day in Mozambique (Alden 2002:354).85 This view
may be supported by another facet of this, namely the trust fund established in May 1993 by
the international community aimed at facilitating Renamo’s transition into a political party
(cf. e.g. J. Honwana 2002). This fund dispersed money to Renamo and it may be interpreted
cynically, as João Honwana suggests, that the international community and with the consent
of the UN and Mozambican government “…bought RENAMO out of a military option (J.
Honwana 2002:211)” or in Alden’s words (2002:354): “…the picture painted of the efficacy
of international intervention is that of a generous banker with the acumen of a ‘political fixer’
and the light hand of an auditor”.86 The dangers of a strategy of ‘paying off’ former
combatants are evident: Receiving money because one has been a former combatant may be
seen not only as unjust in relation to the very hard distinctions between combatant and non-
combatant (discussed above and one which Collier and also Sambanis seem oblivious to) as
all groups suffered during the war, and, thus, may very well lead to feelings of being treated
unjustly (on behalf of those not receiving) and experiences of being rewarded (on behalf of
those receiving). Paradoxically, support to former combatants may therefore create new
tensions within local communities. Further, the ‘paying off’ option also, almost inevitably,
may lead to a perpetuation of war-time identities and may, directly or indirectly, hinder or
hamper the processes of reintegration in traditional terms locally.87

84
The importance of traditional authority and cultural perceptions of healing has not been given any significant
and coherent treatment in this text as it has been more concerned with the institutional and macro-level dynamics
of war and peace in Mozambique. However, it should be noted also in the context of reintegration that the
importance of these are widely acknowledged (cf. A. Honwana 1999a,1999b,1996, Igreja 2003,2004, Dolan and
Schafer 1997, Bertelsen 2002).
85
McMullin (2004:635) also asserts that the Reintegration and Support Scheme under ONUMOZ also ‘bought
peace’ prior to and after the elections of 1994.
86
In some ways mirroring Collier’s points on ‘private armies’ (in Collier’s parlance) being also money-making
enterprises, in a critical review of UN peacekeeping operations Wesley points out that money and resources were
central concerns for Renamo and that “[b]y the time the ONUMOZ force deployed this provision [of subsidies
and resources] translated into a blatant demand for financial incentives from the international community for its
co-operation with the peace process (Wesley 1997:86)”. One of the trust funds that were created to help Renamo
“…secure accommodations, transport, and communications facilities to reorganize itself as a political party
(Reed 1997:285)” meant that Renamo by October 31 1994 had received more than USD 17,7 million (Ibid.).
Hall and Young (1997:232), and others, allege that the money Renamo officially received through these funds
were supplemented by money received “behind the scenes”.
87
Regarding war time identities, West (2000) has a slightly different angle on this which is not often dealt with
in the mainstream of literature on post-war integration and the contested role of the universal applicability of the
much used term PTSD (see also Englund 1998, Gibbs 1994). West argues that the roles as soldiers for Frelimo
that some Mozambican women had during the liberation war proved to be less traumatic than in the moment of
reintegration into a yet again male-centred social and political framework. Thus, “…it is precisely in the moment

57
Many scholars were also concerned in the early and intermediate period after the GPA for the
stability threat posed by demobilised soldiers, and Monteiro (1999:31-32) points out that the
circumstances for demobilised soldiers were not optimal, to put it mildly:

Most of the former military went to their regions of origin, with 18 month
severance pay without any real prospects of economic reintegration, given
the protracted economic crisis facing the country. This factor, together with
the fact that the technical training provided failed to reach the majority of
the soldiers, constitutes probably the single most important on-going threat
to the democratic process and stability in the country.

This point about the far from smooth transition to peace is also made by other scholars who
do not recognise that reintegration and demobilisation of ex-combatants post-war went well in
Mozambique after 1992. Knight (2004), for instance, citing Kees Kingma and Weiss-Fagen,
claims that in Mozambique “…former combatants were disposed to make their living through
banditry after demobilization” (2004:502).88 This view is supported by Chachiua
(2000:unpag.) who argues that the ‘impunity of law enforcement agencies’ and the
‘widespread availability of weapons’ threatens the stability of the country, and that this
contributes to a future in which insecurity and crime might be the order of the day:

Socio-economic conditions have made returning refugees, displaced

persons and demobilised soldiers a ready reserve of criminals if there is no
other alternative source of livelihood. On top of this social foundation for
instability, is the fact that security policies throughout the 1990s have failed
to respond to the actual security needs of the people. Regime security
needs of the former warring parties’ political security concerns have shaped
the security policies at the expense of the security of the people.89

What is interesting about Chachiua’s view is that he links the current crimes rates with the
legacies of war both in terms of weaponry and personnel (demobilised soldiers), but also in
terms of policy. In arguing for a policy failure, he also indirectly challenges the glossy image
so often perpetuated by the UN and others of a stable country that has been reconstructed, and
of the police and the military (FADM) as reformed and operative. This is significant also in
relation to Collier’s thesis on the force of change that the military intervention and later
reconstructive efforts may contribute to.

of post-war ‘reintegration’ that these women have been most troubled by their wartime experiences (West
2000:191)”. Hence, the politics of peace creates specific problems and dynamics of trauma management related
to the kind of war that was waged and the political implications for, in this respect, the gender roles involved.
88
However, not all support this view, and Lundin (2000:206) argue specifically that the image of the dangers in
Mozambique of little employment, availability of weapons and demobilized soldiers have been exaggerated.
89
Chachiua 2000: unpaginated.

58
But there are also significant efforts to organise these ex-combatants post-war, most
importantly through the organisation AMODEG90, the association for demobilised soldiers of
the civil war from both Renamo and Frelimo (Schafer 1998). Schafer, for one, presents
AMODEG as largely a positive contribution to Mozambican post-war politics but stresses that
one should be careful in celebrating organisations such as these, as some do, as they may not
be seen as totally independent from the state. AMODEG as a potentially unifying organisation
of at times disgruntled former combatants is also pointed to by J. Honwana (2002). He is
more concerned than many observers about the dangers in not according special treatment to
former combatants, as has been the Mozambican stance in giving “…as much or little support
as any other vulnerable group (J. Honwana 2002:213)”. He also goes further in warning of the
possibility of future destabilising potential in the former combatants (ibid.):

The danger of this approach [of not according special treatment to ex-
combatants] stems from the fact that that the war veterans have the
motivation, the institutional instruments, and the ability to mobilize forces
and seriously challenge their former leaders, to the extent of resorting to
large-scale armed violence. Recent developments in Zimbabwe provide
Mozambican authorities with ample early warning with regard to the ability
of war veterans to destabilize an apparently strong government.

Although the contexts for and composition of war veterans in Zimbabwe and Mozambique
differ greatly, the warning by J. Honwana should be taken seriously, especially when
considering the number of arms existing in Mozambique. Further, any analysis of the
reintegration and demobilization of former soldiers must, in Mozambique as elsewhere, take
into account both the potential continuities in the form of identity practices, the political
context with its continuities in rhetoric of war (as Renamo, for example, sometimes does – see
below) and the socio-political and economic context into which the former combatants are
inserted. As such, there is a need for, rather than self-congratulatory accounts of a job well
done on behalf of ONUMOZ and the international society, to have a persistent focus on the
continued importance (and the potential volatility) of former combatants. Honwana’s warning
also serves as an indicator that redistribution efforts have not been taken far enough in
Mozambique to accord social stability, both in the social and regional terms of redistribution.

90
Associação Moçambicana dos Desmobilizados de Guerra.

59
III b 3 Regional differences, poverty and political division
Cahen (2000b:130) claims that there are tendencies in Mozambique towards regionalization
and ‘ethnification’, but that in Frelimo’s perception of the national politics of national unity,
this should be understood as Frelimo as being necessary for the holding together of the
nation.91 But Cahen goes further than this and claims that Mozambique is a country without a
nation because nationalism, as a project and a manner in which to structure a state, does not
correspond to what he sees as the ‘African socio-cultural realities’ (Cahen 1996).92 This
tension, then, between a nationalism which professes national unity in Mozambique, and
regionalism is brought out at regular intervals especially by attempts by the Renamo
opposition to capitalize politically on this.
Indeed, the national unity of Mozambique, although jealously guarded by Frelimo, may not be
as thorough and deep as what is sometimes thought. An illuminating event in this respect took
place in January 2000, when Renamo threatened to move its headquarters from the capital
Maputo to Beira in Sofala province in the centre of the country. Rahil Khan, a senior member
of Renamo and head of the list for Maputo city in the elections, stated that the move came as a
result of popular pressure from populations form the central and northern areas.93 The event is
significant because it alludes to a number of issues, including the dissolution of the unity of
the nation (from a Frelimo perspective) or the formalisation of a nation never factually united
(from a Renamo perspective), with Renamo ruling ‘its own provinces’, and moves to establish
a form of ‘home rule’, to invoke an Irish nationalist term. Further, it highlights the fact that
the capital lies in the very south of the country, while Renamo’s new headquarters in Beira
would be in the heartland of Renamo support in the central and Northern provinces, with a
proximity to the war-time strongholds of Maringúe and Casa Banana.94
However, academically, the point that Mozambique is in reality partitioned finds little support
except for Bayart, in a grandiose sweep of the entire African continent, proclaim that:
“Angola, Mozambique and […] Chad and Uganda are de facto partitioned into several

91
“Voilà pourquoi, pour raisons patrimoniales, certes, mais aussi, mentales, il est proprement inconcevable pour
le Frelimo de perdre le pouvoir, puisque cela signifierait la disparition du pays” (Cahen 2000b:130)..
92
However, it should be noted that Cahen (cf. e.g. Cahen 2000a) is sceptical towards analyses that argue for a
southern dominance of Frelimo, and says it neither had a southern bias nor is built on the basis of the former
kingdom of Gaza, as is sometimes alleged.
93
Very few indications of a de facto move exist, and because Dhlakama later played it down, the 'move' it is seen
by many as merely a threat. Cf. Panafrican News Agency 21.01.00.
94
The rump of the Renamo army, nicknamed 'Ma-Bayoneta' (Bayonette), is allegedly still kept under
Dhlakama's control in Maringúe, Sofala province. In assessments its size varies from 50 to 500, but the
important aspect is that the state's monopoly of armed forces/instruments of legitimate violence thereby is
fractured if not broken. In light of this, the threat seems more credible (e-Mail and Guardian 05.06.98 and
i'Afrika News Network 24.01.98).

60
sovereign zones even if the fiction of their judicial integrity is piously upheld” (1993:256).
Nonetheless, the move (actual or threatened) evoked strong condemnations from Frelimo
circles as well as international bodies and observers, but it lucidly demonstrates some of the
forces of discontent that Renamo endeavours to exploit for political purposes, perhaps
contributing to civil unrest in doing so.95 J. Honwana also points to the potentially dangerous
rhetorics of division and says Mozambican citizens have been subject to “…intense and
frequent calls to their ethnic, religious, and regional loyalties (J. Honwana 2002:212)”. In
Cahen’s mind, Honwana’s analysis of the perils of division must be understood in the context
of Frelimo being necessary guardians for the nation.96
A problem related to this, is that the economic growth that Mozambique has been
experiencing after the GPA, has been regionally focused on the South. This has been
supported by a number of statistical studies, and for example Datt (Datt et al 2000:iii) writes:
“The degree of regional variation of poverty within the country is striking. Poverty levels are
highest in Sofala, Tete, and Inhambane Provinces, where over 80% of the population lives
below the poverty line, and lowest in Maputo city (although, with a headcount of 48 percent,
poverty is still high in the capital city)”. Bowen argues that this regional difference is a
tendency with colonial roots, but one which Frelimo’s policies of rapid development
prolonged as the areas of investment, with its focus on commercial land (or land easily
exploited for commercial use) effectively mirrored those same geographical areas of the
colonial capital investments (Bowen 2000:188). This process of mirroring colonial capital’s
southern investments and geographical foci, Bowen states, was further entrenched during the
1990s when “…Portuguese, British, and South African private capital also has shown a
decided preference for these same areas, thereby further deepening the uneven development
of Mozambique (Bowen 2000:188f)”. Bowen also argues that Mozambique’s SAP’s focus on
large-scale agricultural enterprises in Maputo, Gaza and the Beira corridor in Sofala further
strengthened these regional imbalances (Bowen 2000:190).
This unequal division of resources is, hence, not only a fact contained in the donor agencies
statistical units or in the Mozambican government’s policy papers. Rather, this unequal

95
The regional divisions have, of course, been tapped into politically often (and sometimes to good effect) by
Renamo also before the 1999 elections. For example, in February 1995 Renamo announced it was going to move
its national headquarters to Quelimane although lack of funds officially prevented this (Vines 1996:162).
96
The fragile, or at least potentially fragile composition of Mozambique as a state, is also recognised and
addressed by other Mozambican scholars. See for example the interesting collection by José Magode (1996)
exploring questions of unity, nation, ethnicity and the state in Mozambique, the work by Medeiros (cf. e.g. 1997)
and Carlos Serra’s work on ethnicity and regionalism in Mozambique (2000). Firmino (2002) in a recent major
work on the question of the use and practices of Portuguese and what he terms ‘autochthon’ languages in
Mozambique, explores also what these language uses entail for politics and the nation-state (or lack thereof).

61
distribution has meant that, in the minds of Mozambican non-Southerners and some observers
(e.g. J. Honwana 2002:213), that the view of a Southern bias of the government and of the
country as a whole has increased. The pattern of the country’s few heavy investments in mega
projects (which were commented above) in the South of the country may, thus, be construed
by regionally informed politicians and non-Southerners alike, as very unfortunate and to be
yet another example of Southern bias. This is, clearly, unfortunate for a country that has, as
Cahen and many others have pointed out, at times been subject to strong regionalist and anti-
national unity tendencies, especially at election periods as exemplified by Renamo’s move of
headquarters to Beira during the elections of 1999. It remains to be seen how the facts about
the comparatively better off Southern part and also the faster urban than rural growth will play
into the politics of peace and, perhaps, contribute to regionalist or anti-statist tendencies.

III c Provisional notes one the elections of 2004

The recent parliamentary and presidential elections in Mozambique in December 2004 were
won by an overwhelming Frelimo majority (see table 1), and was celebrated by Frelimo as a
success and as a result of their hard work for peace, prosperity and growth. Renamo, as it has
done in both national elections of 1994 and 1999 and local elections of 1998 and 2003,
challenged the legality of these and claimed fraud. Renamo’s complaints were, thus, not
something new to Mozambican politics. However, perhaps more interesting was the downbeat
tone of international observers this time around: They pointed to the tremendous drop in
turnout of voters ranging from 35% of potential votes (AIM Report 290) to Joseph Hanlon’s
assessment of 43% (Mozambique Political Process Bulletin no. 31) while in 1994 and 1999
the turnout was 85% of registered voters and 62,75 respectively.97 Be that as it may, the low
turnout caused enormous concern about popular support of political processes, thirteen years
after the signing of the GPA. And the turnout was dramatically lower than both in 1994 and
1999. Had the Mozambican electorate lost faith in the democratic processes? It is far too early
to tell, but here I will only summarise some preliminary points about the elections and what
this may indicate of political processes in Mozambique.

97
AIM Report 290 comments on the difficulties of assessing a correct number of voters: “The CNE gave the
overall turnout in these elections at 36.3 percent. But that is on an inflated voters' roll - inflated because of
duplication of names, and the lack of a system for removing the names of voters who have died. The CNE voters'
roll contains the names of over 9.1 million voters - which is absurd since, according to the National Statistics
Institute (INE), the total number of citizens of voting age (18 and above), as of August 2004, was only 9.1
million” (AIM Report no. 290). Joseph Hanlon also comments these numbers and says: “It really is impossible to
know how many genuine live registered voters there are. The following choices are available: 11, 10.6, 10.4,
10.1, 9.8, 9.1, 8, 7.7, 7.6, 7.5 and 6.4 million (Mozambique Bulletin 31)”, before assessing that there are 7,6
million voters in Mozambique.

62
In a recent assessment of the elections, Joseph Hanlon (Hanlon 2005:Unpag.) recently
assessed the supervision and organization of the elections thus:

Chaos, incompetence, secrecy and arrogance on the part of the National

Election Commission (CNE) are all shown in the ruling last month of the
Constitutional Council and in internal CNE documents released by
Renamo. Numbers don't add up, results were changed without explanation,
crimes were not investigated or prosecuted, and instructions from the
Constitutional Council were ignored.

Hanlon is not alone in being sceptical. There seems to be a general view among observers that
the technical administration of the elections through the body of CNE specifically, and the
ways in which these handled challenges on transparency issues, do not bode well for the
prospects of a liberal democracy. The Carter Center (2005:Unpag.), for one, writes:

The Carter Center recognises the overall results and congratulates the
elected Frelimo President Armando Emílio Guebuza. However, the Center
concludes the National Elections Commission (CNE) has not administered
a fair and transparent election in parts of Mozambique.

Additionally, it is well-documented that were severe irregularities in the counting processes of

the elections. One example of this is given by a secret document from CNE that was released
by frustrated Renamo members (both Frelimo and Renamo have members in CNE) in
connection to Renamo’s official complaint about the election to the Constitutional Council.
This document, which CNE has declined to comment, reveals that more than 5.5% of all
polling stations were not included in the final count, according to both the Constitutional
Council and the National Election Commission. This means the ballots of nearly 200,000
people were not counted (Hanlon 2005). Given Frelimo’s landslide victory these figures may
not amount to large shifts in seats in the parliament, and far less pose a threat to Frelimo
governance for five new years. However, an election characterised by a landslide victory by
Frelimo could also be interpreted by analysts sympathetic to the present government in
Mozambique as a popular support for it. Be that as it may, the very low level of turnout and
the chaotic manners in which the CNE has conducted the elections means that the 2004
elections do not support the prospects for a future benevolent democratic process in
Mozambique. This is despite a steady and very strong rate of economic growth and the
international community’s continued praise, and despite having organised two prior
presidential and parliamentary elections (as well as municipal elections). So, why the ‘mess’,
to use Hanlon’s words now, and what does this entail for the future?

63
Many aspects could be forwarded to explain the low turnout but perhaps the obvious is the
lack of the dividends of peace, as also demonstrated above with the facts of poorly
redistributed economic growth both socially, regionally and along the urban-rural divide. As
one peasant said to me during a recent fieldwork (November 2004) outside Chimoio in the
central province of Manica: “Development means everything is getting more expensive while
we get the same pay, that is, none.” Perhaps, then, the international community fails to
facilitate the creation of trust in political processes and in a distribution of growth as a peace
dividend which would mean a general support of and rallying around also elections. Because
it is not the case that the war is over, forgotten and not referred to; a glance at how politics is
voiced and how politicians refer to the war as arguments for their support is enough to
illustrate this. It is also too early to conclude about the impact of elections in relation to the
rhetoric of the politicians. But one may also argue that there is voter fatigue in relation to the
continued domination of two political parties, (dead)locked in belligerent and backward
looking rhetorical practices, the two parties thus ending up as being experienced as
exploitative machinations manipulating the electorate for support (Bertelsen 2004b). Also, at
local levels the war is still very important for processes of reintegration, conflict over land,
cosmological issues related to health and welfare etc. This may, perhaps, indicate that the
support of the international community is not enough to ‘build peace’ in Mozambique, or that
the measures taken this far have been insufficient, contraproductive or/and only partially
successful.

Does the case of Mozambique's low turnout mean Collier is right when he is asserting that
elections are potentially destabilising, and that the workings of democracy in low-income
countries are dangerous as he more or less directly implies? Says Collier (Collier 2003:65):

Thus, at higher income levels democracy indeed reduces the risk of civil
war but, “one size fits all” simply is not applicable. At low income levels
democracy may well be highly desirable for many reasons, but it cannot
honestly be promoted as the road to peace. Historically, political institutions
in low-income democracies are characterised by relatively high levels of
instability, and this has probably tended to increase their risk of civil war.

No, the evidence from Mozambique and the last elections does not suggest this, at least not as
clearly as Collier states as above. As multiparty democracy was institutionalised in
Mozambique through the GPA in 1992 and the first elections in 1994, Mozambique has
enjoyed democratic developments through two additional general elections combined with the

64
beneficial rapid economic growth (in Collier’s mind). Further, as also developed in different
sections above, the holding of democratic elections and the institutionalization of democracy
was integral to the peace process itself. Also, the elections in themselves and the democratic
system of which they are part may not be seen to be so much the problem, as the social and
political developments after the GPA with non-transparent privatization, a lack of
redistribution, a rampant corruption etc. These tendencies with the non-transparent economic
growth at its centre perhaps, more than democracy as a system, suggest new and potentially
threatening frictions in Mozambique.
Informed by this, another aspect of the low turnout may be said to suggest that there are signs
that segments of the elite in Mozambique connected with (or integral to) the Frelimo regime is
willing to go to great extra-judicial lengths to secure its electoral power base, also in the
context of the running of the elections. Further, the very vague and non-confrontational way
in which the Mozambican election process has been met with by the international community
(the EU and the Carter Center are somewhat exceptions to this) demonstrates perhaps that
there is an interdependency between donors in need of a success story (as Mozambique is
often portrayed as) and the Frelimo elite which sees that they are dependant on donor support
for both upholding own positions and to have the leverage to implement policies. It is,
admittedly, far too early to pass judgement on the 2004 elections, although in general one may
then say that the elections of 2004 were not unequivocally a success.

Conclusive notes: Dark clouds, not ‘Heart of darkness’ anew

In assessing critically the social, economic, political and security situation in a country like
Mozambique, especially with reference to crime and corruption, the legacies of the civil war
and the challenges of redistribution of wealth, it may seem facile to conclude with Bayart’s
view that borders on the neo-apocalyptic and Afropessimist. Bayart states in the conclusion to
The criminalization of the state in Africa (Bayart et al. 1999): “There is a strong possibility
that sub-Saharan Africa is returning to the ‘heart of darkness (Bayart 1999:114)’”. Bayart
means this not in a neo-traditional or neo-primitivist sense (as expounded by for example, the
neo-primitivist Kaplan (1994) but rather in terms of the new economies of extraction where
foreigners en liaison with African partners enrich both parties by networks of extortion,
predation and corruption. As the above sections in this chapter has endeavoured to capture,
there are indeed dark clouds on the horizon that do not bode well for the prospects for peace
and stability in Mozambique, rather than the ascent of a thoroughly criminalised state in
Bayart’s mind amounting to a ‘heart of darkness’ recreated in Mozambique. However, these

65
dark clouds may not be viewed well when adopting the cycloptic gaze of figures of economic
growth that both the World Bank and also Collier adopt. This conflict of images, between one
of growth, prosperity and peace on the one hand, and the destructive forces on the other, is,
even if perhaps overstated somewhat, captured well by Hanlon’s harsh analysis of the
situation in present-day Mozambique where he identifies an unhealthy, to say the least,
interdependency between a Mozambican elite and the donor community (Hanlon 2004:760):

There are two very different images of Mozambique. One is of rapid GDP
growth and growing exports and of transparent and clear management of
donor money. The other is of worsening poverty in rural areas and of state
capture, with a predatory elite that robs banks and non-donor resources,
smuggles and kills, and maintains a corrupt justice system. A symbiotic
relationship has grown up between the Mozambican predatory elite and the
donors to maintain the myth of the Mozambican success story.

Hanlon’s analysis may be overly pessimistic and in lumping all donors together into a
composite whole, all donor agencies may not be so complicit with the ‘predatory elite’ as he
claims. As yet another critical voice, the French historian Michel Cahen, points out, for one,
the Nordic countries are not part of the machinery of the international community upholding
the image of a Mozambican success story without significant flaws.98 However, it must be
asserted that there are serious cracks in the image of Mozambique as a success story and that
the prospects for peace and prosperity are not all bright. This view is also brought forth by
Mia Couto, the famous Mozambican novelist and a very critical voice in Mozambican affairs,
who summarises the state of affairs in the country, linking crime, corruption, politics and the
murder of Cardoso in a recent interview:

There was no threat to Cardoso from the government institutions but they
have privatised the function of repression so the threats come from gangs
and bandits - but they are hired by someone. It is not so different from the
99
rest of the world, from places like Russia.

98
In having first asserted that the image of success story is upheld by the international community, Cahen
(2000b:113n5, italics in original) writes: “Les rares “bémols” viennent, en général, des pays scandinaves”.
99
Mia Couto quoted from an interview by Duncan Campbell in The Guardian 090205.

66
Essay conclusion
This essay has attempted to be a bibliographic journey along Mozambique’s very bumpy road
from the outset of civil war to the elections of 2004 contrasting throughout the text aspects
and main approaches in Collier’s ideas with the case of Mozambique. Contrasting Collier to
the Mozambican case has been as his approaches direct our attention to the extremely under-
focused dirty and bloody civil wars in south, which is a very commendable project. However,
I have not set out to do a complete testing of Collier’s assumptions and ideas but have limited
myself to some specific areas which were

-the role of the military in ending the conflict;

-the role of aid for political compromise and for post-conflict economic growth;
-the significance of post-conflict elections in 1994.

Rather than commenting these in detail again, as has been done substantially above, I will
instead make some remarks on, firstly, the approach to civil war as a conflict of interest by
Collier as evidenced by his terminology in relation to both Mozambique and in general before
secondly, summarising some central findings about Mozambique contrasting strongly with
Collier’s approach.

A recent approach that has critically assessed the ‘greed approach’ to civil war is Richards
(2005b). He points out that the language used for describing parts in a conflict within a
‘greed, not grievance’ approach serves to depoliticize conflicts as it literally frames these
(non-state) actors as ‘criminals’, ‘bandits’, ‘drug barons’ etc. Writes Richards (2005b:10):

If Southern conflict is apolitical it is not diplomacy but international policing

that is needed. Closing down bank accounts and supply trails, imposing
sanctions [against] regimes, and naming and shaming the diamond
merchants, drug dealers and gun runners is better than tedious
negotiations with politically illiterate and self-styled ‘rebels’.

This process of what one might call ‘apoliticization’ entailed by, in this context, Collier’s
terming of rebel armies as ‘private armies’ lead by cynical, scrupulous and greedy leaders is
dangerously simplifying in general terms as it glosses over, in fact, erases social, political and
historical contexts of not only the emergence and sustenance of conflicts: It also depoliticizes
peace. Peace and peace-making is not so much about addressing actual grievances be they

67
economical, political or other, that might have instigated civil war, but rather about re-
charging the machinery of economic production so as to secure economic growth which will,
as if reaching out an Adams-like invisible hand, re-structure and re-build society peace-like.
Also, if insurgents as Renamo are viewed as only fuelled by their own greed (or, as rational
(unemployed) actors opportunistically going to war), it will also be difficult to understand
Renamo's transformation to a political party and the present (and past) political grievances
they put forward. Thus, a critique may be raised against Collier's assumptions at a level of
politics as greed is of the primary importance (to the exclusion of others) if one is to
understand the dynamics of the politics of opposition in Mozambique working at other levels
than those of greed and opportunism. This point I have also endeavoured to demonstrate at
length through the contextualization of the civil war in Mozambique and demonstrating that it
is very hard, bordering to impossible, to argue for greed being the driving force of Renamo
throughout the civil war.
Overall, Collier’s approach hold little explanatory power when applied to both the civil war in
Mozambique, the peace process prior to and following the GPA in 1992, the first general
election in 1994, as well as a reassessment of the state of Mozambican politics and society in
2005. Especially Collier’s ideas that are informed by the view of the apolitical nature of
conflict (greed, not grievance) means that the views on postponing elections and, thus,
political representation after a conflict find little support in the Mozambican material. In fact,
rather the opposite point of view is held by the large majority of Mozambicanists: Differing in
analyses of the causes of the civil war in Mozambique, almost all scholars retrospectively
agree that the 1994 elections were necessary for creating a sense of representation and that a
non-election scenario at that time would be very dangerous.
Thus, one may say that ONUMOZ’ support for the elections and the international
community’s financial support for the process (or the ‘buying of peace’ as some call it), was a
success in contributing to Mozambique’s first multiparty elections. In this sense, especially
the financial support and aid that have been flowing steadily into Mozambique throughout the
1990s contributing to fiscal stability, may be seen as successful in supporting overall political
stability. Also, the role of ONUMOZ in relation to its role as peacekeepers may be said to
have contributed to this in the short-term although questions may be raised regarding its long-
terms effects. Contrarily, informed by the state of affairs in 2005, one may argue that
ONUMOZ’ work was not entirely successful on a number of issues: The implicit view that
when war was over, the guns would disappear, be put away unused, fall into disrepair or be
put to good use, was clearly a mistake as the enormous amount of illegal guns in Southern

68
Africa and its soaring crime rate both testify to. The failures of ONUMOZ (and the immediate
projects following it run mostly by NGOs) in terms of the inadequacy of the reintegration
schemes, especially when viewed over a long-term period, is evident when looking at
indications of how many of these are seemingly implicated in illegal activities or being
unemployed. Further, critically assessing Mozambique in 2005 one may say it is a country
with a crime-fuelled economy that has relations to the higher echelons of judicial, policial and
political power, contributing to the fact that the country is a regional hub of money-laundering
and a drug-smuggling clearinghouse. It seems evident that the current level of crime,
corruption and cleptocratic practices has received too little attention by the international
community and that, in the interest of preserving the image of Mozambique as a success story
of aid, economic growth and peace after war, there is little will to occlude this image.
Shortly after the inception of Armanda Guebuza as president of Mozambique after his victory
in the 2004 elections he vowed to execute a zero-tolerance approach vis-à-vis the deixar
andar attitude (‘let it go’ – a common Mozambican way to speak of corruption) that many
associated with former president Joaquim Chissano’s regime. What this promise will translate
into remains to be seen. However, with such a low level of electoral participation as seen in
the last elections, such a high crime rate etc., in short, so many dark clouds gathering on the
horizon, it seems evident that a single-minded focus on the post-war benefits of economic
growth is not enough to bring a lasting peace, a sense of participation and distribution of the
riches of growth to the forefront of political practices and in people’s minds. Chris Alden
points out this problem well in his lamentation of the ways in which the Mozambican state
(and state of affairs) itself may be seen as subjected to international and local elites outside
the state:

With donor money servicing the debt, international consultants designing

government policies, international NGOs or private firms providing
personnel to oversee the implementation of policies, international
development agencies providing cash to run the national elections and,
finally, everyone from foreign investors to a tiny local elite as the primary
beneficiaries of these developments, one is left to wonder what is the role
for ordinary Mozambicans in their own country?
Chris Alden (2001:99)

To be fair, the problems of redistribution of economic growth and political architecture in

post-conflict situations are, of course, also very significant and central to Collier’s approach.
Hence, Collier would probably, if questioned about the state of affairs in Mozambique,
probably point at many of the same aspects that have been critically examined in this essay.

69
However, summing up one of the main divergences between Collier’s approach and my own
is that Collier’s argument for the non-significance of all other contexts than economic has
been the most problematic, not to say impossible, to apply to the Mozambican conflict and
post-conflict situation. If anything, this essay has attempted to be a sustained argument for the
significance of specific contexts if one is to understand the onset and dynamics of civil wars,
the transition to and requirements for peace and the nature and developments of post-conflict
societies. Furtherr, it has thus attempted to challenge Collier’s policy recommendations by
showing the severe problems entailed by supplying general and readily applicable policy
advice on how and when to intervene, the temporal sequencing of aid, peacekeeping and
democratic reform etc. Against the advice of a collierian model, the holding of general
elections early was of primary importance for ending the civil war in Mozambique. However,
this experience may not be easily generalised into a new universally applicable approach of
necessarily holding the elections early in transitions to peace in all conflicts in low-income
countries. Rather, the essay argues for the significance of knowledge about the specificities of
local, regional and international contexts, historical settings, cultural practices, social systems
instead of the myopic focus on economy in approaching the matters of civil war in poor
countries.

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