RENAMO

From the early 1960s to the mid-1970s, Portugal fought a series of bitter counter-insurgency conflicts against independence movements in its three primary African colonies—Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau. In Mozambique, the armed struggle against colonial rule was spearheaded by the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO), which was initially formed in exile in neighbouring Tanzania.[19] FRELIMO recruited from Mozambican migrant workers and intellectuals living abroad, where they had been exposed to the emerging popularity of anti-colonial and nationalist causes overseas.[19][20] Its political programme was anti-colonial in nature, but also anti-traditionalist; FRELIMO leaders planned to wrest social and political power from the Portuguese administration, as well as on the grassroots level from local tribal authorities.[21] The party also envisioned a radical restructuring of post-colonial Mozambican society in accordance with the principles of scientific socialism.[21] In September 1964, FRELIMO initiated an armed insurgency.[19] Its decision to take up arms was influenced by a number of internal and external factors, namely the recent successes of indigenous anti-colonial guerrilla movements in French Indochina and French Algeria, as well as encouragement from contemporary African statesmen such as Ahmed Ben Bella, Gamal Abdel Nasser, and Julius Nyerere.[19] FRELIMO insurgents initially received training primarily in North Africa and the Middle East in countries such as Algeria, with the Soviet Union and People's Republic of China providing military equipment.[19] FRELIMO established a permanent foothold in underdeveloped northern Mozambique and began expanding its operations southwards, reaching the central provinces by 1973.[21] Portugal responded with increasingly large scale search and destroy operations and strengthening military and intelligence ties to the neighbouring states of Rhodesia and South Africa, then ruled by white minority governments sympathetic to the colonial regime.[22] FRELIMO, in turn, forged an informal alliance with a Rhodesian insurgent movement, the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA).[22] ZANLA insurgents were permitted to infiltrate Rhodesian territory from FRELIMO-held areas of Mozambique, inexorably linking the Mozambican conflict to the Rhodesian Bush War.[22]

The 1974 Carnation Revolution and the collapse of Portugal's right-wing Estado Novo government plunged Lisbon into turmoil and brought to power a military junta known as the Armed Forces Movement.[23] The Portuguese junta was committed to divesting itself of the colonies and ending the increasingly costly African wars.[23] The resulting confusion among the metropole's military forces in Mozambique allowed FRELIMO to wrest control of large sections of the territory from the Portuguese.[24] In the absence of Portuguese repression, a number of new Mozambican political parties, including some formed by FRELIMO splinter factions, appeared and began campaigning for support.[24] Portugal announced it would initiate a political transition in Mozambique simultaneously with multi-party elections prior to independence, but FRELIMO condemned the proposal.[21] The party's leadership, headed by Samora Machel, countered that it was the sole legitimate representative of the Mozambican people, and demanded it be permitted to take power directly, without multi-party elections.[21] In early September 1974, Portugal announced it would comply with FRELIMO's request.[24] Portuguese officials promised that after nine months, the positions of local government would be handed to FRELIMO appointees, and no elections would be held.[24]

The decision to effect a direct transfer of power to FRELIMO, without a local referendum or elections, was greeted with trepidation by South Africa and Rhodesia.[25] It also resulted in an exodus of Portuguese settlers, FRELIMO dissidents, and indigenous troops who had served with Portuguese auxiliary units, including the elite Flechas, fearing retribution under the new regime.[4] Many of the new exiles fled to Rhodesia, where they were recruited as assets by the Rhodesian Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO).[4] The most prominent anti-FRELIMO exile in Rhodesia was Orlando Cristina, a former member of the colonial security services in Mozambique who had served as a regional liaison with the Rhodesian government.[4] Cristina set up a Portuguese-language radio broadcasting station, known as Voz da Africa Livre, which broadcast anti-communist and anti-FRELIMO messages into Mozambique.[4] Cristina's broadcasts called attention to human rights violations committed by FRELIMO, including the detention of party dissidents, and accused FRELIMO of betraying Mozambican nationalism by pandering to the Marxist ideology of the Soviet Union.[4] The CIO hoped to use Voz da Africa Livre to recruit disaffected Mozambicans for an anti-FRELIMO paramilitary force.[4] One such recruit was André Matsangaissa, a former FRELIMO official who had been imprisoned by the party in a re-education camp following the transfer of power; Matsangaissa had subsequently escaped to Rhodesia and was familiar with Cristina's broadcasts.[4] Matsangaissa met with Cristina and argued that hostile radio messages alone could not change the political situation in Mozambique; armed struggle was necessary.[4] Shortly thereafter, the CIO recruited Matsangaissa as the leader for its new anti-FRELIMO force.[4] The militants received guerrilla training from the CIO and were infiltrated back into Mozambique, where they conducted surveillance of ZANLA movements at the Rhodesians' behest.[4] In February 1977, the unit demonstrated its ability to carry out autonomous operations when it stormed a FRELIMO re-education camp in Sofala Province, freeing the detainees there.[4] During a meeting at Cristina's home in May 1977, the unit's leadership formally adopted the title Resistência Nacional Moçambicana (RENAMO).[4]

RENAMO unified with another rebel group, the Revolutionary Party of Mozambique (PRM) in 1982. As result of this merger, the rebel group was able to expand its operations in northern Mozambique, particularly in Zambezia Province.[26][27] In 1984 the South African and Mozambican governments signed the Nkomati Accord,[28] in which the South African National Party minority regime promised to stop sponsoring RENAMO operations if the Mozambican government expelled exiled members of the African National Congress (ANC) residing there. This was consistent with the Total National Strategy pursued by the National Party regime, utilizing threats of military reprisals to force Mozambique into subjugation under the Afrikaner nationalists hegemonial ambitions in the region.[29] In 1988, RENAMO experienced its only major split during the civil war, when former PRM commander Gimo Phiri broke off and founded an independent insurgent group known as Mozambican National Union (UNAMO).[30]

While the Mozambican government did shut down the local ANC offices and its operations in accordance with the Nkomati Accord, the National Party government of South Africa continued funnelling financial and military resources to RENAMO.[31][32] A permanent peace accord was reached only in 1992, monitored by the United Nations Operation in Mozambique (UNOMOZ) until its finalisation in 1994. This process went on simultaneously to the negotiations between the National Party minority government and the ANC about the termination of Apartheid policies and the transformation to a democratic dispensation in South Africa. The South African National Intelligence Service initiated the Operation Bush Talk, which was designed to phase out the National Party's longstanding substantial support to RENAMO and allow their proxy to accommodate to the new regional realities.[33]

The peace accord led to the disarmament of RENAMO, to the integration of some of its fighters into the Mozambican army and to its transformation into a regular political party. It is now the main opposition party in Mozambique. At the legislative elections on 1 and 2 December 2004, the party was the main part of the Renamo-UE electoral alliance, that won 29.7% of the popular vote and 90 out of 250 seats. The presidential candidate of this alliance, Afonso Dhlakama, won 31.7% of the popular vote.

Raul Domingos, negotiator at the Rome General Peace Accords and RENAMO's leader in parliament from 1994 to 1999, was expelled from the party in 2000, and in 2003, founded the Party for Peace, Democracy, and Development.

RENAMO forces attacked an army base in Zimbabwe near Mukosa on 17 June 1987, killing seven soldiers and wounding 19. RENAMO attacked the Katiyo Tea Estate, destroying valuable property, in July and killed three men in Rushinga in August.[34] On 30 November, RENAMO militants burned down 13 houses.[35]

Between December 1987 and 21 January 1988 RENAMO performed 101 attacks near the Mozambique-Zimbabwe border.[35] Following the end of the Mozambican Civil War, RENAMO remained linked to a Zimbabwean militant group, Chimwenje.[36]

Apart from their primary supporters, initially the Rhodesian Central Intelligence Organisation until 1979[37] and afterwards, the South African Directorate of Special Tasks (DST),[38] RENAMO also enjoyed some level of international recognition, support and funding. Chester Crocker, then the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs in the US State Department, viewed RENAMO as "African Khmer Rouge". While RENAMO styled itself as "anti-communist", its brutal conduct and lack of political legitimacy made the organisation unsuitable as a partner, since it jeopardised the State Department attempts to gain rapport with the FRELIMO government and the Mozambican population, in order to increase the Western Bloc's influence on the region.[39][40] Contrary to that stance stood the active engagement of the far-right Heritage Foundation for the cause of RENAMO.[41]

West German academic Andre Thomashausen and his mentor Werner Kaltefleiter served as vital links between West German right-wing conservative, anti-socialist political circles and RENAMO. Thomashausen is alleged to have had close links to both the West German and apartheid South African intelligence services, while being officially employed as a professor at the University of South Africa and in various managerial positions (in particular for West German corporations engaged in the apartheid economy) since 1982, when he moved to South Africa and immediately was granted citizenship by the National Party minority government. Thomashausen acted as a confidante and an advisor to the RENAMO leadership.[42][43][44][45][46] A related network of West German RENAMO lobbyists evolved around Bavarian Prime Minister and leader of the conservative CSU party Franz Josef Strauss. The provincial leader engaged in his own far right foreign policy in support of apartheid and anti-socialist paramilitary forces in Southern Africa, thereby undermining the official Détente foreign policy of the West German federal government.[47][48][49]

RENAMO conduct has frequently been described by western authors as amounting to terrorism, especially since it usually involved attacks against defenseless civilians. The forcible recruitment of kidnapped villagers, including underage children, formed RENAMO's main modus operandi to increase its membership. This often included the murder of close relatives of the kidnapped persons, so that they had no way of returning to their communities.The organisation also engaged in brutal publicly staged ritual killings of perceived traitors and dissidents.[50][51][52]

On 5 September 2014 Dhlakama and president Guebuza signed a peace deal in an effort to end the two-year period of instability. The deal included integration of RENAMO forces into the army and a reform of the election oversight commission.[65][66] However, after RENAMO's refusal to accept the 2014 presidential elections, problems in the implementation of the peace deal and after continued efforts by government forces to disarm RENAMO met resistance, Dhlakama broke off the peace process in August 2015. Since then there have been renewed clashes between government and RENAMO forces. Dhlakama claims there have been two attempts by the government to assassinate him.[67][68]

In May 2017, RENAMO agreed to extend their truce indefinitely.[69]

• Cabrita, João M. (2000). Mozambique: The Tortuous Road to Democracy. London: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-349-42432-0.
• Emerson, Stephen A. (2014). The Battle for Mozambique: The Frelimo–Renamo Struggle, 1977–1992. Solihull, Pinetown: Helion & Company, 30° South Publishers. ISBN 978-1-909384-92-7.