MOZAMBIQUE: A SUCCESSFUL CONFLICT RESOLUTION?

Mpazi Sinjela*

I. INTRODUCTION

The elections held in Mozambique on 27 October 1996 will be recorded in history as a major achievement that led to the end of many years of civil war. They put to an end a bitter civil conflict which had engulfed Mozambique since its decolonization from Portuguese rule in 1974. Mozambique was colonized by Portugal since the partitioning of Africa in 1885. However, Portuguese presence in Mozambique dates back to 1498 when Vasco da Gama, the Portuguese explorer, sailed around the Cape of Good Hope to the Far East. Starting from the sixteenth century onwards, the Portuguese explored the area now known as Mozambique. This early exploration paved the way for Mozambique's colonization in the nineteenth century. From the early 1950s through the 1960s, a strong current was sweeping through Africa. Independence movements were formed throughout the continent. They started to demand for the right to self-determination and independence. In the case of Mozambique, the initial resistance to the Portuguese rule was organized in several small groups. In 1962 these groups decided to merge and form the Frente de Liberaciao de Mozambique (Liberation Front of Mozambique - FRELIMO) under the leadership of Eduardo Mondlane. By the middle of the 1960s a large number of African colonies had gained their independence (some peacefully e.g. Zambia, and others through bloody struggle e.g. Mau Mau movement in Kenya under the leadership of Jomo Kenyatta). The Portuguese colonies took longer to gain their independence. Portugal regarded all her colonies as overseas provinces. She was not, therefore, prepared to grant them independence and waged fierce wars against the national liberation movements in Angola,

* LLB (Zambia), LLM, JSD (Yale), United Nations Office of Legal Affairs, New York. The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not in any way represent those of the United Nations. Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique. It was only after the overthrow of the government in Portugal in 1974, by young military officers, that the situation changed. The new government hastily withdrew from its colonial territories. There was no preparation for a formal transfer of power. The various political groups were left to wrestle for power and the winner took all. In Mozambique, FRELIMO emerged as the ruling power in 1974. By 1975, Mozambique had proclaimed its full independence. Samora Machel became its first President since Eduardo Mondlane, FRELIMO' first President, had been killed by a parcel bomb a few years before Mozambique gained her independence.

II. CIVIL WAR

The new government in Mozambique embraced Marxism as its national ideology. It also proclaimed its open support for other movements fighting for the right to self-determination and independence. In particular, it gave sanctuary to the Zimbabwe National Patriotic Front led by Robert Mugabe that was waging a liberation war against Ian Smith's rebel government in Rhodesia. It also allowed the African National Congress, that was fighting against the minority Apartheid regime in South Africa, to open and operate from bases in Mozambique. The rebel Rhodesian government, in return, devised a scheme to destabilise the government of Mozambique by rendering support to local Mozambican opposition groups. This policy led to the founding, in 1977, of a movement known as Resistencia National Mozambicana (Mozambican National Resistance - RENAMO) led by Alfonso Dhlakama. The movement was composed mainly of Mozambicans opposed to the Marxist policies of the government of Mozambique. From that year until the holding of elections in 1994, the government of Mozambique was engaged in a vicious civil war with RENAMO that left some 900,000 people dead.l Over one million people fled the country to live as refugees in neighbouring countries and another two million became internally displaced? The independence of Zimbabwe in 1980 made RENAMO turn to the Apartheid regime of South Africa for its main support. From then onwards RENAMO became even more violent in its tactics. The main economic

I Harry G. Gailey, "Mozambique's violent and prolonged civil war" (1994, on Microsoft Encarta (1995). 2 Chris Alden and Mark Simpson, "Mozambique: a Delicate Peace", Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. 31, p. 117 (1993).