WHERE CRIME COMPOUNDS CONFLICT Understanding northern Mozambique’s vulnerabilities SIMONE HAYSOM October 2018 WHERE CRIME COMPOUNDS CONFLICT Understanding northern Mozambique’s vulnerabilities Simone Haysom October 2018 Cover photo: iStock/Katiekk2 Pemba, Mozambique: ranger with a gun looking at feet of elephants after poachers had killed the animals for illegal ivory trade © 2018 Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the Global Initiative. Please direct inquiries to: The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime WMO Building, 2nd Floor 7bis, Avenue de la Paix CH-1211 Geneva 1 Switzerland www.GlobalInitiative.net Contents Summary and key findings ..............................................................................................................................................1 Background .........................................................................................................................................................................................2 The militants and funding from the illicit economy .......................................................................................4 Methodology .....................................................................................................................................................................................5 Corrosion, grievance and opportunity: A detailed picture of illicit trade in the north ...........................................................................................6 Follow the money .....................................................................................................................................................................16 The extremist phenomenon: Recruitment and funding ..........................................................................16 Regional funding and extremist links .....................................................................................................................18 Conclusions ......................................................................................................................................................................................21 Acknowledgements ...............................................................................................................................................................23 Notes ..................................................................................................................................................................................................24 v Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime Where Crime Compounds Conflict Summary and key findings This report seeks to explain how the outbreak of violent conflict in northern Mozambique, driven by a group known locally as ‘Al Shabaab’, is linked to a large and dynamic illicit economy in the region. It asks not only whether, and how, the group derives funds from the smuggling of various types of contraband, but it also explains how the illicit economy itself has generated the conditions for this insurgent movement to emerge and how it may continue to fuel the phenomenon. Crucially, it argues that the state’s own efforts to quash the movement are undermined by its long-standing involvement in the illicit economy. Drawing on our own interviews and previous research in the region, the report shows how illicit trades – ranging from wildlife poaching and drug trafficking to artisanal mining and human smuggling – have fostered corruption and undermined state legitimacy, provided livelihoods and local investment where the licit economy has not, and kept borders porous and the coastline unmonitored. Political figures, the ruling party and their elite criminal associates have openly benefited from both the licit and illicit extraction of natural resources, while the local community has often been punished for their involvement in informal illicit economies and denied the benefits of formal investment and economic growth. Into this crucible of resentment, extremists have stepped, offering opportunities for study and capital, and mobilizing their recruits to challenge violently the existing power relations. One of the most disturbing realizations of the report is that the militant group is more economically and socially embedded than previously believed and may now rely on an organized collection of donations within northern Mozambique. The report concludes by tracing connections with similar developments in neighbouring Tanzania, arguing for a regional perspective on both the illicit economy and the extremist phenomenon. Key findings • The militants do not control any major contraband trade. Rather, the illicit economy as a whole provides varied opportunities and is a source of grievance. • Illicit trade has also fostered corruption in the north and, in this way, has played a vital role in the breakdown of law and order, which has allowed the insurgency to establish itself locally and across the region. • The militant group is more economically and socially embedded than currently believed and may now rely on an organized collection of donations from across all of northern Mozambique, including Nampula and other parts of the country. • The insurgency is also the product of a regional phenomenon of Islamic extremism, which links it to similar occurrences in Tanzania, Kenya, Somalia and Sudan. • Current efforts to limit smuggling and the free flow of people and goods in the region of Mocímboa da Praia and the Tanzanian border are not succeeding. • Given the factors that underlie conditions in the north, it is likely that the illicit economy and the insurgency will grow, and violence will increase. If so, it is possible that northern Mozambique will become a platform for launching assaults and furthering the aims of criminal networks across the wider region. 1 Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime Where Crime Compounds Conflict Background In September 2017, the Global Initiative (GI) conducted in-depth research into how criminal networks in east- and southern-African coastal regions were socially, economically and politically embedded. One of the clear conclusions from this work was the particular vulnerability of northern Mozambique. Our work revealed that, over time, a significant local heroin-trafficking economy had developed, largely off the radar, and that wildlife trafficking, human trafficking, illegal timber felling and gemstone smuggling were flourishing, facilitated by corruption and an attitude of indifference. Mocímboa da Praia emerged as a key node of criminal activity, with arms and people smuggling also taking place there. At the same time, it was clear that the large external investments in oil and gas exploitation near the Rovuma Valley in the north, and in ruby and other minerals and gems near Montepuez and Mueda, had escalated the growth of illegal trades, whether through drawing in foreign workers who found opportunities to link Mozambican resources with foreign consumers, or by masking the generation of illicit wealth under the cover of ‘boom times’. Map 1: Political violence in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique Source: Adapted from ACLED, https://www.acleddata.com/2018/07/21/mozambique-update/ 2 Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime Where Crime Compounds Conflict All of this has unfolded in an unstable political environment. Since the signing of peace accords in the early 1990s, security in northern Mozambique has remained fragile and the region continues to be vulnerable to political instability, with ongoing conflict between ruling party Frente de Libertação de Moçambique (FRELIMO) and rivals Resistência Nacional Moçambicana (RENAMO) periodically breaking out into violence.1 Tensions between the two parties flared up again in 2013 and continued to threaten an outbreak of violence until a peace agreement Since the signing was finalized.2 Other aspects of political instability appear to have strong links of peace accords in to the illicit economy. In October 2017, the Mayor of Nampula, Mahamudo the early 1990s, security Amurane, a respected political figure from a minor political party, the in northern Mozambique Democratic Movement of Mozambique (MDM), was assassinated. Amurane has remained fragile and was a known anti-graft campaigner, and allegations emerged that the killing the region continues to be was commissioned either by figures within Amurane’s own party who did not want their corrupt activities disrupted, or by the powerful families based in vulnerable to political Nampula, whose interests in the illicit economy the mayor threatened.3 instability. Just a few weeks after the research for this report had been completed, the obscure coastal town of Mocímboa da Praia in the province of Cabo Delgado became a site of violence. In early 2015, radical preachers had moved in to towns in the north of the province, taking control of existing mosques or establishing their own and preaching an anti-state ideology. By late 2015, they had begun to set up their first military cells. They are known to locals as ‘Al Shabaab’, and so this report makes use of the same name. They do not appear to have a link to the Somali extremist group of the same name. The group is also believed to have capitalized on long-standing feelings of marginalization of the predominantly Muslim Mwami ethnic group