Hall Young 1997 Confronting Leviathan

8/9/2019 Hall Young 1997 Confronting Leviathan

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MARGARET HALL

TOM YOUNG

onfronting

Leviathan

Mozambique since

Independence

OHIO UNIVERSITY PRESS

ATHENS, OHIO


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vi

reface and

Acknowledgements

patience is perhaps one of

the

first arts a publisher must master,

hristopher Hurst and Michael Dwyer have been almost saint-like

in the face of endless procrastinations and excuses. For that we

are grateful.

Finally, because much

of

the modem history

of

Mozambique

and southern Mrica generally remains extremely controversial, it

should perhaps be emphasised

that the

interpretation of events

offered here is entirely our own, and is likely to be contested by

many

of

those from whom we have learnt most.

London,

january

997

MARGARET HALL

TOM YOUN

CONTENTS

Preface and Acknowledgements

Abbreviations

Chapters

1 The Close .of Portuguese Rule

The Portuguese colonial order

Frelimo: armed struggle

and

internal crisis

The final phase, 1968-1974

Aldeamentos and liberated zones

2

Anything

Seemed

Possible :

The

Transition

to

Independence

The confused interregnum, April-September

974

Fighting the internal enemy

Dynamising Mozambique

Creating the new society

3

The Tum to Marxism

Frelimo s Marxism

Constructing the party-state

Politics

and

the state after the 3rd Conwess

Frelimo

and

Mozamqj,can

society

4. The Path to Development

Development: discourse

and

strategy

Building the socialist economy

The politics of economic transformation, 1977-1982

The Mozambican economy, 1977-1 982

5

The Revolution Falters

Origins

and

early development of Renamo

South African strategy

The

turning

point

The structure, organisation and

credo

of

Renamo

vii

pagev

ix

1

3

11

19

26

36

36

43

49

54

61

62

69

73

81

89

90

94

98

1 5

115

117

120

123

131


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viii

Contents

6

A Luta Continua : Frelimo Fights Back

138

The turn

to

the West

139

Nkomati nd after

146

Economic crisis

nd

reform

151

Back

to

the front?

156

7

Mozambique

at

War with Itself

164

Waging war

166

The war

of

the spirits

175

Explaining the conflict

180

Fragmentation nd disorganisation

185

8.

The

Retreat from Socialism

189

The fight goes on The regional nd international settings

190

Further economic reform

nd

Western aid

196

Political

nd

constitutional change the liberal option?

199

The beginning

of

the end dealing with Renamo

205

The

fin l

act

213

9

From Socialism to Liberal Capitalism?

217

Bibliography

235

Index

253

MAPS

Mozambique

Central Mozambique

etween pages 6 nd 7

etween pages

166

nd

167

TABLES

4 1

Sectoral Allocation

of

Investment 100

4.2 Global Social Product (GSP)

at

Constant 1980

.Prices 107

4.3 Balance

of

Payments

Current

Account 107

4.4 Agricultural Exports 108

9.1 Real Annual Growth Rates, 1987-90 228

AAM

ANC

BOSS

CAlL

CEA

CIA

CIO

CME

CNP

CONCP

COREMO

csu

DGS

DMI

F M

FICO

FPLM

Frelimo

FUMO

GDP

GDs

GEs

GEPs

GNP

GUMO

IMF

JSN

JVC

M NU

MFA

MIO

ABBREVIATIONS

Associacao Academica de

o ~ a m b i q u e

African National Congress

Bureau

of State Security (South Africa)

Lower Limpopo Complex

Centro

de Estudos Africanos

Central Intelligence Agency (USA)

Central Intelligence Organisation (Rhodesia)

Council for Mutual Economic Assistance

Commissao Nacional do Plano/National Planning

Commission

Conferencia das

O r g a n i z a ~ o e s

Nacionalistas das Col6nias

Portugueses

Comite Revolucionario

de

o ~ a m b i q u e

Christian Socialist Union (West Germany)

D i r e c ~ a o Geral de

S e g u r a n ~ a

Dep


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X

MNR

MONAMO

NATO

NESAM

NGO

OAU

OECD

OJM

OMM

ONUMOZ

PAIGC

PCN

PIDE

PPI

PRE

Renamo

SAAVM

SADCC

SADF

SAPs

SAS

SNASP

sse

TANU

TPDF

UDENAMO

UN

UN

AMI

UNEMO

Z Nl

ZANU

ZNA

blffeviations

Mozambique National R ~ s i s t a n c e

Movimento Nacionalista de M o ~ a m b i q u e

North Atlantic Treaty Organisation

Nucleus

of

Mozambican Secondary Students .

Non-governmental organisation

Organisation of African Unity

Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development

r g a n i z a ~ a o da

Juventude

M o ~ a m b i c a n a O r g a n i s a t i o n of

Mozambican Youth

r g a n i z a ~ a o d s

Mulheres M o ~ a m b i c a n a s O r g a n i s a t i o n of

Mozambican

Women

United Nations Operation in Mozambique

Partido Mricano da Independencia da Guine

e

Cabo Verde

National Coalition Party

Polkia Internacional e de Defesa do Estado

Plano Prospectivo Indicativo

Programme

of Economic Rehabilitation

Resistencia Nacional M o ~ a m b i c a n a

Sociedade Agricola Algodoeira Voluntaria dos Mricanos

de M o ~ a m b i q u e

Southern Mrican

Development Coordination Conference

South Mrican Defence Forces

Structural adjustment programmes

Special Air Service

National Security Service

State Security Council (South Mrica)

Tanganyika Mrican NatiJ.)nal

Union

Tanzanian

People s Defence Force

National Democratic Union

of

Mozambique

United

Nations

National Union for Mozambican Independence

Uniao Nacional dos Estudentes de M o ~ a m b i q u e

Zimbabwe National Liberation Army

Zimbabwe Mrican National

Union

Zimbabwe National Army

THE LOSE OF PORTUGUESE RULE

In

every Mozambican military base in Cabo Delgado, one comes across

a huge

heap

of

earth shaped in

the form

of

Mozambique with

the

provinces

and

any other prominent features marked.

The

militants

are constantly given lectures by the commanders using these earthern

maps as visual aids so that the militant realises that

he

is fighting for

the liberation of the whole of Mozambique

up

to the

Limpopo

and

not just

for

Cabo Delgado. [ .. ]

There are quite a

few

who would be petty-bourgeois

but

who, instead,

have

merged

with

the

people s

struggle

and

are doing

a

lot

to

give

the

people

a

better

vision

concerning

the struggle. Commander Notre,

for instance, was leading his

men in an

exemplary

way We

stayed

in

the camp

he was

commanding

for more

than

3 weeks. He

never

missed

any opportunity to politicise the masses. A powerful orator,

he

would

daily explain any

phenomenon

so that it linked

up

with the essence

of liberation. t is Christmas Day, for instance,

1968.

There is no

church-service .. .Instea d we have a military parade and a flag-raising

ceremony .

1

Only a

third

as wide as it is long at

the

broadest point along its

northern river boundary with Tanzania (following the river Rovuma),

Mozambique

is bordered

by the Indian Ocean to

the

east and

enclosed inland by Zambia, Malawi, Zimbabwe and, in the south,

Swaziland and South Mrica. Almost

half

the country is less

than

200 metres above sea level, and it is crossed by some fifty rivers,

the

largest being the Zambezi,

the

Limpopo and the Save. These

three great rivers divide the country laterally into three broad

cultural

and

linguistic

bands .

To

the north of the

Zambezi live

matrilineal groups who have historic links with the Islamic in

fluences of the East

Mrican

coast. A diverse cultural border

zone

along the Zambezi valley itself divides the north from the patrilineal

I

Y T

Museveni, Fanon s Theory on Violence: its Verification in Liberated

Mozambique in N.M. Shamuyarira, (ed.), ssays on the

Liberation

o

Southern Africa

University of Dar es Salaam Studies in Political Science, no. 3, 1972.


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2 The Close of Portuguese ule

Shona-speakers (Manyika,

Ndau,

Teve),

who

are akin to the majority

in neighbouring Zimbabwe. Below

the

Save river the

Thonga

and

related peoples form part of a southern cultural world, linked to

the Swazi and the

peoples

of South Africa.

From the

arrival

of the

Portuguese navigator Vasco da

Gama

in

1498 till

the

late

nineteenth

century,

the

Portuguese presence

was mainly limited to forts

and

trading posts along the coast or

by the Zambezi river. The Portuguese took over Muslim trading

posts established

in the

fifteenth

century

at

Sena

and Tete to

deal

with the gold-producing

kingdom

of the

Monomotapa,

centred

on

what is now Zimbabwe,

and

also installed themselves at Sofala.

Settlement of the Zambezi area proceeded during the

seventeenth

century through a system of granting land concessions prazos) to

Portuguese

subjects,

who ran

them as feudal

landlords

under the

Portuguese

Crown. Mozambique was administered by the Gover

nor-General

of

Goa (India)

until

1752,

and

throughout the age

of sail communication (and

therefore

settlement) was easier to

reach

from

Goa

than

from distant Portugal.

Over

time

the

prazos

developed

into virtually independent kingdo ms sustai ned by slave

armies, with ruling families of

mixed

Mro-Goan-Portuguesedescent

and

thoroughly Mricanised

culture.

2

In the middle decades of the nineteenth century, however, the

de

fado

power

over

the

entire area of

what is now

Mozambique

south of the Zambezi was not the Portuguese, but rather the regi

ments

of Soshangane,

an

Nguni warlord.

Soshangane s

Gaza em

pire, a product of the Nguni

expansion northwards from

Natal,

was initially centred on the middle Save and grew in

strength

from the 1830s onwards.

Other Bantu

peoples were incorporated

into a Zulu-type kingdom based on age regiments, whose authority

extended

a little to

the south

of

the

Limpopo. Existing

Portuguese

settlements were reduced to a position

of

tribute-paying vassalage.

But

assimilation operated fully only at the heart

of

the empire,

which after

Soshangane s

death

in

1856

was weakened

by internal

dissension. Imperfectly incorporated and subject

peoples

later

broke away.

In

1889 Gungunyana,

the

last Gaza king, also the last

great

independent Bantu monarch

in

southern Mrica, shifted his

capital to a site near the Limpopo. In 1895, under pressure from

European

competitors

to show effective

occupation

of

the

land

they claimed,

the

Portuguese found a pretext for war.

3

-

Gungunyana, who died in 1906 in exile in

the

Azores, remained

2

On

the

prazos

see M.D.D. Newitt,

Portuguese Settlement on the Zambesi,

London,

1973.

3

J.D. Omer-Cooper, The Zulu Aftermath, Harlow, 1966, pp. 57-61.

T_he Portuguese colonial order

3

a powerful symbol ofresistance

in

the south, particularly

in

Gaza

province, the area from which many of the national leadership

ofthe Mozambique Liberation

Front

(Frelimo) arose

in the

1960s.

(A grandfather of Samora Machel,

independent

Mozambique s

first Presid ent, was one of the commanders of

Gungunyana s

army.

Frelimo s first preside nt, Eduardo Mondlane, was tightlipped about

Gungunyana: his own people,

the Chepe

of

Inhambane,

suffered

at

his hands.)

Although

white cavalry were to

the

forefront in

the

final battle in the conquest of Gaza,

the

Portuguese increasingly

relied on Mrican allies

who

thereby profited from the opportunity

to loot,

and

wreak revenge on, traditional enemies; this prolonged

the bitterness of these campaigns and resistance to

them.

4

The

Gaza wars were over by 1887, but elsewhere Portuguese

pacification . of the interior was long and bloody, entailing almost

annual military campaigns from 1894 onwards. Other figures and

centres

of resistance have local

resonance

elsewhere, and resistance

continued into the twentieth century, most seriously with the Barue

revolt of 1917, coordinated by spirit

mediums,

which involved a

wide coalition of forces centred on the Zambezi valley.

The Portuguese colonial order

Once a degree

of

military control was established in

an

area, ad

ministrative functions were

granted

to concession companies. The

Companhia de

o ~ a m b i q u e

(1891) covered the area of present-day

Manica

and

Sofala provinces

and

a small part of

northern

Gaza,

while the Companhia

do

Nyassa (1891) covered Niassa and

Cabo

Delgado. Other companies, of which the

most

important was the

Companhia

da

Zambezia (1892), were granted rights over extensive

areas

of

Zambezia

and

Tete. Only

the Nampula area

and

most

of

the

(now) southernmost provinces

of

Gaza,

Inhambane

and

Maputo were retained within the direct administration

of

the

colonial state. Portugal revoked the northernmost concessions in

1929,

but

the last

of

these charters south of the Zambezi did not

lapse till1941. Only subsequently was Mozambique brought under

a single unified system of administration. A native

forced

labour

system (chibalo) then operated on the Portuguese-run plantations,

as well as

in

urban areas and for public works, and

was

avoidable

4

R

Pelissier, Angola, Mozambique. Des guerres interminables

et

leurs facteurs

internes , Herodote, 46 (1987), pp. 83-107.

5

See

A

Isaacman,

The Tradition

of

Resistance

in

Mozammque: anti-colonial activity

in

the a m b e ~ i Valley 1850-1921, London, 1976. For the earlier history of Mozambique

see

M

Newitt, A History of Mozammque, London, 1995.

Documents

Hall Young 1997 Confronting Leviathan