High turnout in many rural zones: but few registering in the south | CIP Mozambique Elections
File photo / AFonso Dhakama
More than two decades since the end of civil war in Mozambique, peace-building is on the verge of crumbling. The country is in the throes of a worsening civil conflict that can be traced back to 2012.
While the conflict did not affect SA directly, it could spill over into Malawi or Zimbabwe, both of which were already affected by an influx of refugees, Gustavo de Carvalho, a senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria, said on Thursday.
For many years Mozambique was the darling of peace-building. It was considered a case study in post-conflict stability, had a high economic growth rate and had staged peaceful elections.
However, amid growing social inequalities, tensions erupted between the governing Frelimo party and its old foe, Renamo, which operates as both an armed insurgent group and an elected opposition party.
Frelimo and Renamo fought a bloody civil war between 1976 and 1992 that claimed 1-million lives.
Carvalho, who was speaking at a discussion organised by the Institute for Security Studies, said it was critical that Mozambique got back on the road towards peace-building by addressing the root causes of conflicts so that they did not recur.
“We have seen in the Mozambique case that how underprioritising addressing certain root causes from all sides … from government, to a certain degree civil society and external actors — including donors — had an impact on sustaining peace-building,” he said.
Peace agreements were often created to stop the conflict but did not take into account the ensuing processes and what happened after the conflict ended.
Donor countries recently suspended support to Mozambique over disclosures that the government hid $1.4bn in debt. Much of the money was used on a fleet of naval vessels, increasing the country’s national debt by about 35%.
Justin Pearce from Cambridge University’s department of politics and international studies said the conflict in Mozambique was in many ways defined by the narrative of the Frelimo elite, had enriched itself at the expense of the rest of the country.
Starting off as low-level insurgency in 2013, the attacks by Renamo escalated towards the end of 2015, forcing thousands to flee to Malawi and Zimbabwe. There was a brief truce in 2014, during elections.
Pearce said Renamo had begun gathering its former solders, some of whom were in their late 30s or 40s.
“[It] indicates that they were all former soldiers from the previous war demobilised in 1992 … it is really a peculiar phenomenon … because when we talk in most African countries it is about youth mobilisation,” he said.
While Renamo demands kept shifting, Pearce said it had three main demands: electoral reform, changes to military appointments and provincial autonomy.
On the issue of provincial autonomy, Pearce explained that provincial government was appointed by national government, irrespective of the fact that Renamo had a majority in the northern parts of the country.
Pearce said that while increasing numbers of citizens had become sympathetic towards Renamo, the conflict was one of an elite power struggle stretching back to the Rome Accord, which brought peace to the country.
He said that while it would be wrong to call it a popular uprising, what Renamo had achieved would not be possible without popular support.
The situation was an odd because Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama was able to maintain an armed force even as political options are taken away from him.
If Dhlakama was assassinated, it would hit the movement to the point that it would be easier for the government to achieve a victory through military means. But Pearce stressed that Renamo had tapped into real grievances and those issue would still be there.
By: Perciles Anetos
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