From the MNR to RENAMO: Making Sense of an African Counter-Revolutionary Insurgency

Abstract

Mozambique has been crippled by wishful thinking, insurgency and subversion; the understanding of Mozambique has been crippled by shallow and partisan rhetoric which all too often has been allowed to pass for serious analysis. Writing on post-Independence Mozambique has been dominated by “red-feet” either in pursuit of revolutionary dreams that they cannot attain in their own societies or of the psychic rewards of “solidarity” campaigns.¹ Latterly the country has become a site for various right-wing outfits to act out their own fantasies of global counter-revolution. The people of Mozambique have been ill-served by these cliques of the Left and Right, especially in relation to the Renamo phenomenon. The Left has responded to the propaganda needs of the Mozambican state and presented Renamo as “just puppets” of somebody or other, preferably the South Africans. Marginally worse, in terms of dishonesty and opportunism, have been various right-wing groups who, from the safe haven of their “think-tanks”, have seen fit to portray mass murder and mutilation as a “struggle for freedom”.²

When you look at what is going on in this country, you wonder what is behind this war. It is still very difficult to determine what is behind it.

Melissa Wells

US Ambassador to Mozambique (Africa Report March/April 1989)