João Paulo Borges Coelho
João Paulo Borges Coelho is a lecturer in the Department of History at Eduardo Mondlane University, Maputo. He is also editor of Arquivo, the journal of the Mozambican National Archive in Maputo, a specialist in military history and has acted as an academic adviser to the Mozambican Ministry of Defence.
A comparison of the events following Mozambique’s anti-colonial war in 1974 and its civil war in 1992 provides a thought-provoking case-study of the trade-offs between ‘remembering’ and ‘forgetting’, and between justice and reconciliation.
In the early 1970s, at the height of the wars it was waging against nationalist movements in Mozambique, Angola and Guinea-Bissau, Portugal lacked sufficient numbers of combatants to defend its colonial rule. As a consequence, it increasingly began to rely on the conscription of Africans to fight against the nationalist forces. This strategy was also encouraged by military counter-insurgency doctrines that aimed to increase indigenous involvement in order to transform the anti-colonial wars into local ones. Thousands of Mozambicans were integrated into the colonial army, often in units created along ethnic lines. By the end of the war in 1974, a situation was created in which Mozambicans were, in effect, fighting their own countrymen.
Following independence and the withdrawal of the Portuguese colonial army, the Frelimo nationalist guerrillas moved out of the ‘liberated zones’ under their control and seized the rest of the country. They saw themselves as winners of a long liberation war and were highly suspicious of other Mozambicans, particularly those in the cities, which were then unknown to the liberation movement. As Frelimo established a new administration to replace the colonial system, it made a broad appeal to its countrymen to staff it. The best guarantee of a position in the new political and military dispensation, however, was to have been part of the nationalist struggle.
A principle of ‘purification’ was adopted whereby Frelimo sought to establish a ‘pure army’ and ‘pure society’, untainted by the colonial past. This led to the direct marginalisation of thousands of Mozambicans who had been involved with the colonial regime. While some of these people were offered the chance to reintegrate into post-independence society, this was on condition that they publicly reveal their records as former colonial agents. This was ostensibly to ‘wipe clean’ their past and render them less vulnerable to blackmail or pressure of any kind. However, the effect of coming clean was often humiliation. ‘Collaborators’ were persecuted for their past and saw their careers and attempts to rebuild their lives blocked. As a result, many fled the country, with some subsequently offering their services when Renamo was formed by the Rhodesians in 1977.
These were the origins of a new armed conflict which would once again pit Mozambicans against each other. While this civil war was at least as brutal as its anti-colonial precedent, its outcome was different in that the 1992 peace accord avoided a ‘winner-takes-all’ scenario. The United Nations force which oversaw its implementation was sufficiently flexible and firm in its mandate to ensure that neither Frelimo nor Renamo gained an advantage which might prompt a resumption in fighting. A fortunate combination of local circumstances also ensured that the principle of ‘purification’ adopted by Frelimo following the colonial war would be replaced by a more conciliatory stance towards Renamo. With ‘reconciliation’, space was created for the coexistence of all political forces. This included new political parties, a variety of civil and religious groups as well as a more independent media, all of which publicly supported the new message of peace.
The manner in which demobilisation of the two armed forces and the formation of a new national army occurred also reinforced the dynamic of reconciliation. All government and Renamo soldiers went through the same phases of assembly, disarmament, registration and demobilisation. Unlike their government counterparts, Renamo combatants were ineligible for army pensions and lacked experience of urban life. Nonetheless, ex-combatants from both sides shared the hardships of reintegrating into civilian life, a challenge which reinforced reconciliation at all levels.
The new national army, the Mozambican Defence Force (FADM), also became a stabilising institution in post-war Mozambique. The Rome Accord explicitly called for equal representation of government and rebel forces in the FADM, from the leadership down to the rank-and-file. Joint training courses have engendered a sense of belonging to the same team. The equal benefits which both sides now receive in the FADM further serves to blur the differences between the former enemies. Evidence that the new army is shaping up as a genuinely national institution is given by a former Renamo supreme commander and now deputy chief-of-staff of the FADM, Mateus Ngonhamo, who said that his political affiliations are now subservient to his loyalty to the national army.
It would be wrong to deny that during the peace process the two parties at times reneged on their commitments, both to cover their backs in the case of ‘enemy’ duplicity and to retain certain military advantages from the past. However, with growing war weariness, this issue has become less and less important. In Mozambique today, the people remember the horrors of war and social stability is highly valued.