200+ total killed (as of 2015)[5] 15,000 displaced (2016)[6]
The RENAMO insurgency was a guerrilla campaign by militants of the RENAMO party[7] and one of its splinter factions in Mozambique.[4] The insurgency was widely considered to be an aftershock of the Mozambican Civil War; it resulted in renewed tensions between RENAMO and Mozambique's ruling FRELIMO coalition over charges of state corruption and the disputed results of the 2014 general elections.[8][9]
A ceasefire was announced between the government and the rebels in September 2014. However, renewed tensions sparked violence in mid-2015.
On 1 August 2019, President Filipe Nyusi and RENAMO leader Ossufo Momade signed a peace agreement at RENAMO's remote military base in the Gorongosa mountains in order to bring an end to hostilities.[1][10] Most remaining RENAMO fighters afterward surrendered their weapons.[2] Another peace agreement was then signed by Nyusi and Momade in Maputo's Peace Square on 6 August 2019.[11] However, a splinter faction known as the "RENAMO Military Junta" (RMJ) continued its insurgency. By February 2021, most of the RMJ had surrendered, although a few holdouts remained in rural areas without launching further attacks.[4][3] RMJ ceased to exist in December 2021, when its last members surrendered.[12]
The Resistência Nacional Moçambicana (RENAMO) was formed in 1976 following Mozambican independence from Portugal and incorporated a number of diverse recruits brought together by their opposition to the country's new Marxist FRELIMO government, including disgruntled former colonial troops and deserters from the post-independence army and security forces.[13] They were welded into a cohesive fighting unit by the RhodesianCentral Intelligence Organisation and Special Air Service, and RENAMO's numbers had swelled to about 2,000 by late 1979.[13] Militants acted as scouts for Rhodesian military units carrying raids into Mozambique, launched attacks on major settlements, and sabotaged infrastructure from October 1979 onwards.[13] RENAMO's political wing also operated a radio station, the Voice of Free Africa, broadcasting anti-communist propaganda from Rhodesia.[13] The fighting escalated sharply between 1982 and 1984, during which RENAMO attacked and destroyed lines of communication, the road and rail network, and vital economic infrastructure.[14] It merged during this period with the Revolutionary Party of Mozambique (PRM), another anti-FRELIMO militant group, and received training and support from South Africa's apartheid government.[14] What began as a decidedly low-intensity conflict escalated into an effective insurgency, then a major civil war that killed up to a million Mozambicans and created a major refugee situation in southern Africa.[14] By the late 1980s, RENAMO controlled an estimated 25% of Mozambique's area, especially around the Manica, Sofala, and Zambezia provinces.[15]
The end of the Cold War and FRELIMO's acceding to RENAMO demands for multi-party democracy in 1990 ensured a ceasefire and bilateral negotiations sponsored by Western governments.[16] Both parties formally made peace with the Rome General Peace Accords on 4 October 1992.[17] Large numbers of combatants on both sides were demobilized accordingly.[18] An election held in 1994 returned approximately 33.7% of the votes for RENAMO's presidential candidate Afonso Dhlakama.[18] Dhlakama also carried 112 parliamentary seats and won a decisive majority in five of the country's eleven provinces.[18] The election results, which were closely monitored by the United Nations, were declared free and fair.[18]
During the second round of general elections scheduled for December 1999, in which FRELIMO secured a much narrower majority of the popular vote, RENAMO contested the electoral processes and alleged widespread voter fraud.[18][19] Throughout 2000 a number of pro-RENAMO demonstrations were held in major Mozambican cities such as Maputo and Beira.[19] The government ruled the demonstrations illegal, and security forces killed some of the protestors.[20] In Montepuez, this resulted in street clashes between protestors and the police which left a hundred dead.[19] Another eighty people died in police custody.[20] Some protestors began vandalizing state property and occupying official buildings, while a mob of FRELIMO supporters led by veterans of the civil war retaliated by destroying RENAMO's headquarters.[19] The tense political climate was further shaken when unidentified gunmen raided a police station in Nampula, killing five. FRELIMO claimed that RENAMO dissidents were responsible.[18] In January 2002 the government placed several RENAMO supporters on trial for armed insurrection.[18]
The outbreak of violence in 2000 and the contested elections of 1999, as well as the appointment of new provincial governors, all of whom were known FRELIMO partisans, resulted in the continued breakdown of relations between the two formerly belligerent parties.[18]
Since then, support for RENAMO has waned in Mozambique elections. Afonso Dhlakama in October 2012 began retraining ageing veterans demanding "a new political order". This followed complaints that the political system was not sufficiently inclusive and that the proceeds of economic development were not being shared fairly.[21] RENAMO turned to arms once again, citing fears for the safety of its leader.[22][23]
Timeline
Resurgence (April 2013–August 2014)
Map of RENAMO presence in 2014
The activity of RENAMO resurged in April 2013, when armed clashes broke out with a RENAMO attack on a police station in Muxungue.[23]
RENAMO participated in two clashes in August 2013, resulting in the deaths of 36 Mozambique soldiers and policemen according to RENAMOs announcement; local media figures were put significantly lower in comparison, reporting just 2 deaths.[23]
On 21 October 2013 a government raid on the RENAMO base in Sofala Province resulted in one rebel death. [24]
In January 2014, 1 person was killed and five injured in a Muxungue ambush by RENAMO.[25] In early January 2014, additional six members of the Mozambican Defense and Security Force in Homoine district.[26]
RENAMO members were suspected of killing four policemen and wounding five others in Mozambique's district of Gorongosa in early March 2014.[27]
A "unilateral ceasefire", decreed by its leader Afonso Dhlakama, was announced by RENAMO on 7 May 2014.[28]
On 15 May 2014 two policemen were killed by RENAMO in the Morutane region of Mocuba district (Zambezia province).[9]
On 31 May 2014 and 1 June 2014 RENAMO claimed to have killed 20 soldiers in the Muxungue region.[29] On 2 June 2014 Antonio Muchanga (the spokesman of the organization) claimed that "As of today, there are no guarantees of movement".[28] RENAMO's explanation for scrapping the truce was a claim that the government was massing forces in the Sofala district of Gorongosa in order to assassinate Dhlakama, who was living in a base on the slopes of the Gorongosa mountain range.[28]
On 4 June 2014 the RENAMO rebel movement killed 3 people, attacking a convoy of vehicles on the main north-south highway.[22] Earlier that week 7 people were injured at the same location by RENAMO in similar circumstances.[28]
The government and the RENAMO rebels signed a ceasefire on 25 August 2014. This followed almost a year of negotiations and the government release of rebels captured in fighting in the week beforehand, coming into effect at 22:00 (CAT) on that day. Simon Macuiane, the rebels' chief negotiator, called it an "important step towards national reconciliation... and a durable peace." The ceasefire was seen as part of a wider attempt to bring peace to the country ahead of elections scheduled for October 2014.
On 5 September, Mozambican President Armando Guebuza signed a peace deal with ex-rebel leader Afonso Dhlakama, who emerged from two years in hiding to sign the deal in the capital, Maputo.
Following the September 2014 agreement, provincial elections were held in Mozambique on 15 October 2014 with their results sparking a renewed political crisis in the country - Renamo at first mocked the official election results, alleging that the results released by the provincial elections commissions are "adulterated" and do not reflect what really occurred at the polling stations.[30] In a consequent Beira conference, Renamo declared that it had won 139 seats in the seven northern and central provinces to just 34 for the ruling Frelimo Party and 14 for the Mozambique Democratic Movement.[30] It added that it would not accept any results which did not agree with its own count.[30] The official results of the provincial elections were completely different, resulting in a political crisis.
Renewed tensions and clashes (March 2015–May 2018)
In early March 2015, a leading legal expert in Mozambique, named Gilles Cistic, was murdered in central Maputo.[31] Cistac had previously endorsed a proposal by RENAMO to create semi-autonomous provinces, an issue upon which the ruling FRELIMO party is divided.[31] Following the murder, at a rally on 6 March 2015 RENAMO leader Afonso Dhlakama accused FRELIMO of committing the murder and threatened to bypass parliamentary debate and start ruling the autonomous provinces he claims for RENAMO.[31]
On 14 June 2015 Dhlakama's forces perpetrated an ambush on Mozambican troops, claiming to kill as many as 35 government soldiers, bringing the cease-fire to a halt.[32] According to the spokesperson for the General Command of the Mozambican police, Pedro Cossa, two policemen were wounded in the ambush, one of whom died on the way to the hospital.[32]
In December 2015, Dhlakama once again threatened to seize control of six northern and central provinces in March 2016: Sofala, Tete, Niassa, Manica, Zambezia, and Nampula.[33]
On 20 January 2016 the Secretary-General of RENAMO, Manuel Bissopo, was injured in a shootout, where his bodyguard died.[34]
The Mozambican government reopened peace talks with RENAMO in July 2016, only to cancel them in the wake of escalating violence and an impasse over the status of the six northern and central provinces, which Dhlakama insisted were under his party's control.[35] RENAMO responded by intensifying its guerrilla campaign, targeting police outposts and rail lines.[35] Rail traffic in Sofala Province was temporarily suspended due to the fighting.[35]
On 12 August 2016 RENAMO rebels launched a major attack in Morrumbala District, destroying a clinic and freeing some prisoners held at the local police station.[8] Mozambican security forces retaliated with raids on the party's Morrumbala headquarters and a suspected insurgent base camp.[8]
On the morning of 19 December 2016 six insurgents attacked the Inhazonia open prison in Báruè District and released 48 prisoners. RENAMO also attacked a health unit in the Honda administrative post, where its forces stole medical supplies.[36]
Around late December 2016, RENAMO announced that it had reached a truce with the FRELIMO government. On 3 January 2017 Dhlakama publicly stated that the truce had been extended for another two months. This allowed schools and roads closed due to the insurgency to be reopened.[37]
On 4 May 2017 Dhlakama announced that he had reached an agreement with the government to extend the truce indefinitely and that RENAMO militia forces would be vacating the government buildings that they had been occupying by the end of June.[38]
On 3 May 2018 Afonso Dhlakama, the longtime and influential leader of RENAMO, died after suffering a heart attack.[39] It is unknown if his ceasefire plan will go into effect. Due to Dhlakma's strong influence in the organization, it was also called into question if RENAMO could ever recover.[40] The next month on 14 June 2018 Ossufo Momade, the interim leader of RENAMO, went into hiding.[41]
Peace deal and rebel splintering
On 1 August 2019 President Filipe Nyusi and RENAMO leader Ossufo Momade signed a peace agreement bringing an end to the six-year conflict.[1][10] The signing of the peace took place at RENAMO's remote military base in the Gorongosa mountains.[10] After the agreement was signed, most RENAMO fighters surrendered their weapons.[2] Momade told the Associated Press that "we will no longer commit the mistakes of the past. […] We are for a humanized and dignified reintegration, and we want the international community to help make that a reality."[2] Nyusi and Momade signed another peace deal in Maputo's Peace Square on 6 August 2019.[11]
However, parts of RENAMO strongly disagreed with the deal. Led by General Mariano Nhongo, this faction was also opposed to Momade and refused to lay down arms. Calling itself the "RENAMO Military Junta" (RMJ), the group claimed to include 500 fighters and to control eleven bases. The RMJ demanded that the Mozambican government deal directly with them, circumventing Momade, and continued to launch attacks until this demand was met.[4] In the following years, the RMJ continued to operate in Sofala and Manica Provinces,[3] but one of its key leaders, Andre Matsangaissa Junior, surrendered to the government in late 2020.[42] By February 2021, most RMJ fighters and commanders had laid down weapons, and RMJ attacks had ceased.[3] Momade urged the few remaining RMJ holdouts (including Nhongo) to abandon the bush and rejoin RENAMO's main faction in March 2021.[42] In early May, unknown gunmen, believed to be supporters of the RMJ, shot at the residence of an administrative post head Americo Nfumane at Capirizanje, Moatize District. The attackers left a letter at the scene denouncing Momade. Nfumane was not injured in the attack.[43] In late May, three RMJ members surrendered to the government in Manica Province. They claimed that the RMJ had suffered mass desertions, citing the example of the splinter group's former stronghold at Gorongosa, which had been reduced to seven militants.[44]
In July 2021, RMJ leader Mariano Nhongo reaffirmed that he was ready for peace talks under the condition of excluding the RENAMO main faction. Despite his group's gradual demise, he also boasted "The military Junta still exists, and it will always exist".[45] In early October, government forces discovered and seized Nhongo's hideout in the Zove hamlet deep at Inhaminga.[46] On 11 October 2021 the RMJ leader was shot dead in a firefight with Mozambican security forces in Cheringoma District.[12] According to Bernadino Rafael, General Commander of the Mozambican police force, Nhongo's force had attacked a patrol in the bush at Njovo. He died alongside one of his main lieutenants, Wulawucama.[46] In December 2021, United Nations envoy Mirko Manzoni declared that the last remnant group of the RMJ, comprising 24 militants, had joined the "Demobilization, Disarmament and Reintegration" (DDR) program. The group had laid down its weapons at Murrupula, Nampula Province.[12]
United Nations response
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), up to 12,000 Mozambicans were driven into exile as a result of the insurgency between the years 2013 and 2016 respectively.[35] UNHCR is currently monitoring temporary camps established for Mozambican refugees in Malawi, although it has cited insufficient funds and food supplies as potentially serious problems.[47]
Related Research Articles
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The Mozambican Civil War was a civil war fought in Mozambique from 1977 to 1992. Like many regional African conflicts during the late twentieth century, the impetus for the Mozambican Civil War included local dynamics exacerbated greatly by the polarizing effects of Cold War politics. The war was fought between Mozambique's ruling Marxist Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO), the anti-communist insurgent forces of the Mozambican National Resistance (RENAMO), and a number of smaller factions such as the PRM, UNAMO, COREMO, UNIPOMO, and FUMO.
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Ivone Soares is a Mozambican politician. She is the deputy leader of Mozambican National Resistance and leads its parliamentary party in the Assembly of the Republic. Soares is also a member of the Pan-African Parliament where she is vice-president of youth. She was the target of an attempted assassination in September 2016.
General elections were held in Mozambique on 15 October 2019. During the leadup to the elections, assassinations and significant intimidation of prominent leaders of opposition parties and election observers were alleged. In addition, state resources, media, and aid for cyclone victims were also alleged to be used in favour of the ruling party (FRELIMO) and its candidates. Local elections observers, civil society organizations, the Commonwealth Observer Group, the European Union Election Observation Mission, and several national and international entities classified the elections as rigged. Nevertheless, the incumbent president Filipe Nyusi of FRELIMO was declared re-elected with 73% of the vote. The main opposition party RENAMO as well as the other oppositions parties involved in the elections contested the results, claiming there were numerous irregularities, and accusing FRELIMO of "massive electoral fraud", including hundreds of thousands of "ghost voters". As evidence for the international community, Ossufo Momade, the president of the main opposition party RENAMO, transported to Europe a box filled with vote ballots that had been marked in favor of the incumbent president Filipe Nyusi of FRELIMO before the commencement of voting. Despite these occurrences, the international community largely ignored any concerns of fraud, and gradually countries started recognizing the incumbent president Filipe Nyusi of FRELIMO as the winner of the elections.
Ossufo Momade is a Mozambican politician. He has served as president of the Mozambican National Resistance (RENAMO), the main opposition party of Mozambique, since January 17, 2019. He assumed the presidency of the party after the death of its leader Afonso Dhlakama in May 2018 on an interim basis until he was elected president of the party at an internal congress held at the beginning of the following year. On August 1, 2019, Momade agreed to renounce violence and signed a peace agreement with Mozambique President Filipe Nyusi at RENAMO's remote military base in the Gorongosa mountains. This agreement resulted in the last remaining members of the RENAMO insurgency surrendering their weapons. A second signing ceremony then took place in Mapotu's Peace Square, which result in Momade declaring that he and members of RENAMO would now focus on "maintaining peace and national reconciliation."
The Revolutionary Party of Mozambique was an armed rebel group in northern Mozambique during the Mozambican Civil War. Founded by Amos Sumane in 1974 or 1976, the PRM was strongly opposed to Mozambique's FRELIMO government and its communist ideology. The party waged a low-level insurgency in the provinces of Zambezia, Tete and Niassa from 1977. Sumane was captured in 1980 and executed by the Mozambican government in 1981. The PRM's leadership passed to Gimo Phiri under whom the party merged with another rebel group, RENAMO, in 1982.
The Maputo Accord, officially the Maputo Accord for Peace and National Reconciliation, is a peace agreement between the Government of Mozambique and Renamo, signed on 6 August 2019, with the aim of bringing definitive peace to Mozambique. The agreement was signed by the President of the Republic of Mozambique, Filipe Nyusi, and the leader of Renamo, Ossufo Momade, in Maputo, and was the result of years of negotiations. It was preceded by the signing of the Agreement on the Definitive Cessation of Military Hostilities, on 1 August 2019, in Gorongosa.
The following is a timeline of events during the Mozambican Civil War as well as subsequent RENAMO insurgency (2013–2021).
In the Mozambican Civil War, Operation Leopard was a military operation by the FPLM in southern Manica Province which culminated in the capture of RENAMO’s stronghold in the Sitatonga 2 Mountain. Following the offensive FPLM was unable to maintain their full control over the area captured and RENAMO continued to remain active around Sitatonga 2.
The Gorongosa Offensive was a military operation by the People's Republic of Mozambique beginning in January 1980 aimed at destroying the RENAMO bases around the Gorongosa area which were increasingly threatening roads, towns, communication lines, FPLM troops and more. The Gorongosa Offensive was the first major military offensive launched by the FPLM during the war.
↑ NSNBC. "With Renamo, both being represented in parliament and having relaunched its armed insurgency, the party is both increasing its political and military campaigns, in what analysts describe as an attempt to cast the country into a new civil war up the October 2014 parliamentary and presidential elections." "Mozambique: Renamo starts killing in Inhambane after reopening Base". nsnbc international. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 29 June 2014.
1 2 3 4 Minter, William (1994). Apartheid's Contras: An Inquiry into the Roots of War in Angola and Mozambique. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press. pp.33–34. ISBN978-1-4392-1618-7.
1 2 3 Emerson, Stephen A. (2014). The battle for Mozambique: the Frelimo-Renamo struggle, 1977-1992. Helion and Company. pp.24, 89–93. ISBN978-1-909384-92-7.
↑ Bekoe, Dorina (2008). Implementing Peace Agreements: Lessons from Mozambique, Angola, and Liberia. Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan. p.35. ISBN978-0-230-60259-5.
↑ Finnegan, William (1993). A Complicated War: The Harrowing of Mozambique. Los Angeles: University of California Press. pp.245–248. ISBN978-0-520-08266-3.
↑ Moore, S. K. (2014). Military Chaplains as Agents of Peace: Religious Leader Engagement in Conflict and Post-Conflict Environments. Lanham: Lexington Books. p.84. ISBN978-0-7391-9771-4.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Pélissier, René (2003). Murison, Katherine; Holman, Catriona; Canton, Helen; Thomas, Andrew; Preston, Ian (eds.). Regional Surveys of the World: Africa South of the Sahara 2003. Abingdon-on-Thames: Europa Publications (Routledge). pp.704–705. ISBN1-85743-131-6.
1 2 3 4 Nhema, Alfred (2008). The Resolution of African Conflicts: The Management of Conflict Resolution and Post-Conflict Reconstruction. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press. pp.169–174. ISBN978-0-8214-1808-6.
1 2 Doxtader, Eric; Villa-Vicencio, Charles (2003). Through Fire with Water: The Roots of Division and the Potential for Reconciliation in Africa. Claremont, Cape Town: New Africa Books. p.308. ISBN978-1-59221-084-8.
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Mozambique 
RENAMO (until 2019)
