Violence and social change in a border economy: War in the Maputo hinterland, 1984-1992

Journal of Southern African Studies

Volumn 24, Issue 1, 1998, Pages 37-60

  McGregor, JoAnn ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CIVIL WAR; MILITARY RESPONSE; POLITICAL MOVEMENT; REBELLION; RENAMO;

MOZAMBIQUE, MAPUTO;

EID: 0031870575     PISSN: 03057070     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/03057079808708566     Document Type: Review

References (177)

1. Cited in P. Nugent and A. I. Asiwaju (eds), 'Introduction: The Paradox of African Boundaries', in P. Nugent and A. I. Asiwaju, African Boundaries: Barriers, Conduits and Opportunities (Pinter, London, 1996), p. 11.
2. H. Englund, 'Brother Against Brother: The Moral Economy of War and Displacement in the Malawi-Mozambique Borderland' (PhD thesis, University of Manchester, 1995), chap. 7.
3. M. Chingono, The State, Violence and Development. The Political Economy of War in Mozambique, 1985-1992 (Avebury, Aldershot, 1996), pp. 101-108. Further literature on Mozambique's informal economy is discussed below.
4. A. Vines, Renamo. Terrorism in Mozambique (James Currey, London, 1991), pp. 17-35;
5. W. Minter, Apartheid's Contras. An Inquiry into the Roots of War in Angola and Mozambique (Zed Books, London, 1994), pp. 37-52;
6. C. Legum, The Battlefronts of Southern Africa (Africana, New York, 1988).
7. Discussed in Vines, Renamo, pp. 60-61.
8. R. Manhique, 'Impacto da Guerra em Matola-Rio' (paper for the workshop Historia Social da Guerra em Mosambique 1980-1992, Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, 1-3 December 1994), argues that most rebel attacks in Maputo's western suburbs were from the Matsequenha base (Namaacha); a minority were from Kwahle (Matutuíne).
9. Such studies include: C. Geffray, A Causa das Armas. Antropologia da Guerra Contemporânea em Moçambique (Porto, Edições Afrontamento, 1991);
10. J. Alexander, 'The Local State in Post-War Mozambique: Political Practice and Ideas about Authority', Africa, 67, 1 (1997), pp. 1-26;
11. K. B. Wilson, 'Cults of Violence and Counter-Violence in Mozambique', Journal of Southern African Studies, 18, 3 (1992), pp. 527-582.
12. The most comparable case study is that of O. Roesch, 'Renamo and the Peasantry in Southern Mozambique: A View from Gaza', Canadian Journal of African Studies, 26, 3 (1992), pp. 462-484.
13. Elisa Muianga shows how women captives living at Renamo bases were also important in the maintenance of linkages between Renamo and government areas, 'Mulheres e Guerra: Reintegração Social das Mulheres Regressadas das "Zonas da Renamo" no Distrito de Mandlakazi', Arquivo, 18 (1995), pp. 47-93.
14. On the distinction between 'destruction', 'tax' and 'control' zones, see: R. Gersony, Summary of Mozambican Refugee Accounts of Principally Conflict-Related Experience in Mozambique (US State Department, Washington, 1988), pp. 10-20;
15. A. Vines, Renamo, pp. 91-93.
16. According to Africa Watch, Renamo commanders have admitted that their campaign in the south was primarily destructive, Conspicuous Destruction: War, Famine and the Reform Process in Mozambique (Human Rights Watch, London, 1992), p. 127.
17. M. Hall, 'The Mozambique National Resistance (Renamo): A Study in the Destruction of an African Country', Africa, 60, 1 (1990), pp. 39-68;
18. Vines, Renamo, pp. 91-95;
19. Minter, Apartheid's Contras, pp. 211-217.
20. Roesch, 'Renamo and the Peasantry', p. 477.
21. Manhique, 'Impacto da Guerra'.
22. Minter, Apartheid's Contras, p. 213.
23. Grateful thanks to Alice Dinerman whose comments greatly improved this section.
24. The network of veterinary/agricultural functionaries and many employees within the district administrative offices, for example, became party officers, continued to work for the state and assumed party posts. Top level district positions were, however, new central appointments.
25. 'Colonato' refers to the late colonial Portuguese settlement schemes based on the development of irrigated agriculture in the river valleys. Whilst many local communities were displaced by their development, small areas within the colonato were set aside for selected African farmers and the chiefs who became relatively prosperous.
26. On the persistence of prior patterns of rural differentiation within the new institutions in the South, see K. Hermele, Land Struggles and Social Differentiation in Southern Mozambique. A Case Study of Chokwe, Limpopo, 1950-80 (Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, Uppsala, Research Report No. 82, 1988), pp. 27, 46;
27. Centro de Estudos Africanos, The Mozambican Miner. A Study in the Export of African Labour (University of Eduardo Mondlane, 1987), p. 152;
28. M. Bowen, '"Let's Build Agricultural Producer Cooperatives": Socialist Agricultural Development in Mozambique, 1975-1983' (PhD Thesis, University of Toronto, 1986).
29. Social categories barred from holding office are detailed in Ministry of Agriculture, Commissão Nacional das Aldeias Communais [CNAC], AC/133, Commissão Nacional de Estruturação do Partido, ref. 4/b/cap/78 and include traditional and religious leaders, polygamists, peasants not living from the fruits of their own labour and single mothers.
30. See: Geffray, A Causa;
31. M. Cahen, 'Check on Socialism in Mozambique - What Check? What Socialism?' Review of African Political Ecònomy, 57 (1993), pp. 46-57;
32. G. Clarence-Smith, 'The Roots of Mozambican Counter Revolution', Southern African Review of Books (April-May 1989).
33. See: A. Dinerman, 'In Search of Mozambique: The Imaginings of Christian Geffray in La Cause des Armes au Mozambique. Anthropologie d'une Guerre Civile', Journal of Southern African Studies, 20, 4 (1994), pp. 569-586;
34. B. O'Laughlin, 'Interpretations Matter: Evaluating the War in Mozambique', Southern Africa Report (January, 1992), pp. 23-33;
35. B. O'Laughlin, 'Through a Divided Glass: Dualism, Class and the Agrarian Question in Mozambique', Journal of Peasant Studies, 23, 4 (1996), pp. 1-39;
36. Rocsch, 'Renamo and the Peasantry';
37. Alexander, 'The Local State'.
38. Alexander, 'The Local State'.
39. On the decentralised nature of authority and resource tenure below the level of the chief (hosi) and the key role played by the munumzane (village head) and indhuna (subchief) see H. Junod, Life of a South African Tribe, Vol. 2, (London, 1927), p. 6
40. W. Felgate, The Tembe Thonga of Natal and Mozambique: An Ecological Approach (Department of African Studies, University of Natal, Durban, Occasional Paper 1, E. J. Krige (ed), 1982), pp. 28-42. The effect of Portuguese administration on the previous hierarchies of the Tembe royal family, the Matolo and Swazi chieftaincies of the districts is too complex for elaboration here.
41. Elsewhere in the country weak local administrations drew on chiefs in pragmatic quasi-official alliances both before and during the war, though this was not so in Matutuíne and Namaacha. Described for Manica by Alexander 'The Local State', pp. 4-5.
42. Roesch, 'Renamo and the Peasantry';
43. Hermele, Land Struggles;
44. O'Laughlin, 'Through a Divided Glass'.
45. Ministry of Agriculture, CNAC, AC/7, Adriano Sumbana, Relatório, 22 November 1978, Distrito de Matutuíne, Província de Maputo.
46. CNAC, AC/78, 'Estatísticas, Província de Maputo', Commissão Provincial das Aldeias Communais, 29 March 1982. Matutuíne and Namaacha were some of the least villagised districts of Maputo Province, and the Province itself was one of the least villagised in the country, J. P. B. Coelho, 'Protected Villages and Communal Villages in the Mozambican Province of Tete (1968-1992)' (PhD thesis, University of Bradford, 1993), p. 345.
47. CNAC, AC/15, 'Relatório à Reunião Provincial das Aldeias Communais e Cooperatives Agrícola de Maputo', 15 November 1979;
48. CNAC, AC/17, 'Síntese da Visita do Director da CNAC à Maputo', 23 January 1979;
49. CNAC, AC/7, A. Sumbana, 'Relatório, Distrito de Bela Vista', 29 August 1978.
50. For discussion of the economic problems of concentrating settlement, see A. Y. Casal, 'A Crise da Produção Familiar e as Aldeias Comunais em Moçambique', Revista International de Estudos Africanos, 8, 9 (1988), pp. 157-191;
51. Coelho, 'Protected Villages', chap. 9.
52. The population of these villages was drawn mainly from communities forcibly displaced: from the Maputo Reserve (in the case of Tinonganine) or by the Pequenos Libombos dam (in the case of Mafuiane). On hunger in and flight from the new village of Tinonganine see Direcção Nacional da Habitação [DNH], Levantamento da Occupação de Tereno [LOT], August 1982 (report held in the National Institute of Physical Planning).
53. CNAC, AC/15, 'Relatório à Reunião Provincial das Aldeias Communais e Cooperativas Agrícolas de Maputo, Preparatória da Premiera Reunião Nacional das Aldeias Communais', 15 November 1979. See particularly report of group six.
54. CNAC, AC/267, includes the provincial level (Commissão Provincial das Aldeias Communais) body's defence against charges of deliberately blocking villagisation in a letter of 10 November 1982.
55. CNAC, AC/17, untitled report, 29 January 1979.
56. This section is based on a review of the CNAC documentation for Maputo Province, 1977-1983.
57. See for example: CNAC, AC/7, Departamento de Trabalho Ideologico do Partido, Relatório, 19 October 1978; CNAC, AC/7, untitled report on Matutuíne for 1978; CNAC, AC/17, 'Informação Suplementar sobre Aldeia Communal 3 de Fevereiro', 25 December, 1979;
58. CNAC, AC/15, 'Seminário Interdistrital das Aldeias Communais', 16-17 August 1979;
59. CNAC, AC/15, Relatório à Reunião Provincial das Aldeias Communais e Cooperativas Agrícolas de Maputo', 15 November 1979; CNAC, AC/7 contains several reports on Shembe activity in Chucha.
60. See: CNAC, AC/7, report dated 14 August 1978; CNAC, AC/15, report on interdistrict seminar, 16-17 August, 1979; CNAC, AC/17, 'Ofensiva de Reorganização da AC 3 de Fevereiro' 1979.
61. One case (in Magude District) refers to a régulo refusing to move into a communal village, though the dynamising group leaders are similarly accused (see CNAC, AC/15, report on interdistrict seminar, 16-17 August 1979); the second case (in Manhiça District) refers to a régulo distributing land, though some reports also accuse the village structures of charging for land, for having links with Ian Smith and for letting in witchdoctors (see the somewhat contradictory accounts in documents in CNAC, AC/17, on communal village 3 de Fevereiro).
62. Interview, district administrator, Bela Vista, 19 August 1994.
63. The régulos and their descendants in the two districts did not speak of playing a role in resistance: one fled the country at independence; one was employed in Maputo; several were said to have been so humiliated at their treatment that they become ill or died; some spoke of inactivity after removal from office. Some lower level chiefs, however, and especially those involved with or close to the new party or dynamising group leaders, recounted active involvement in resistance.
64. Interview, members of Shembe church, Chucha, 21 March 1995.
65. Interview, Shembe church leader (and subsequently Renamo political representative), Chucha, 21 March 1995. State action against independent churches was severe: the Shembe healer Muhanisse was sent for re-education in 1979 after gaining a reputation for attracting soldiers stationed at Boane; some Jehovah's Witness and Zionist leaders were also sent for re-education, interviews: Ndlebendle, 21 March 1995; Ngwenya, 17 March 1995. Others fled to Swaziland: summaries of 16 asylum interviews in Swaziland from 1981 show half the asylum seekers to have fled because of religious persecution, including leaders and congregation members of Zionist churches, Jehovah's witnesses and the Shembe church, Ministry of Interior, uncatalogued box, Swaziland National Archives.
66. Interview, Gumbe, 9 September 1994.
67. Interview, Manyahane, 4 March 1995.
68. Interview, Tinonganine, 24 February 1995.
69. The growth of the black market has been widely noted. See for example, P. Raikes, 'Food Policy and Production in Mozambique Since Independence', Review of African Political Economy, 29 (1984), pp. 95-107;
70. J. Hanlon, The Revolution Under Fire (Zed Books, London, 1984), pp. 110-114.
71. For a study of the importance of family and migrant networks, see G. Liesegang, 'A Guerra em Bango, Chongoene, Gaza, 1988-1992, e as Fugas e Regresse nas Redes de Parentesco e Trabalho Migratório', Arquivo, 18 (1995), pp. 5-17.
72. A Renamo-supporting régulo recalled: 'At independence, orders came ... that we should stop everything. They'd organise meetings and people would denounce the chief, saying "down with the chief, down with kanyi" [the ceremony marking the marula season], but there were contradictions at that time. Frelimo had said there is no chief and traditional rule is not recognized, but then during the drought the secretary would come asking me to pahla [propitiate the ancestors] for rain. We refused saying we had no power as chiefs ...' Interview, Madubula, 22 March 1995.
73. This summary does not do justice to the complexity of changing resource tenure.
74. Reviews of the extensive literature on migrant labour include: Centro de Estudos Africanos, The Mozambican Miner: A Study in the Export of Labour (University of Eduardo Mondlane, 1987);
75. J. Head, 'Migrant Mine Labour From Mozambique: Employment Prospects and Policy Options in the 1990s', Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 13, 1 (1995), pp. 93-120.
76. Felgate, The Tembe Thonga, pp. 74-78, documents the importance of remittances from domestic service in border communities of Matutuíne; on Mozambicans in the Swaziland workforce,
77. see J. McGregor, '"People Without Fathers": Mozambicans in Swaziland 1888-1993', Journal of Southern African Studies, 20, 4 (1994), pp. 545-567.
78. The ease of such incorporation in Swaziland should not, however, be exaggerated, as there were increasing constraints on adopting a Swazi identity associated with mounting political pressure to localise the workforce, see McGregor, '"People Without Fathers"'.
79. See Liesegang, 'A Guerra', on the establishment of migrant networks between coastal Gaza and Maputo from the 1930s, and their importance in the 1980s.
80. On state farms, see: B. Munslow, 'State Intervention in Agriculture: The Mozambican Experience', Journal of Modern African Studies, 22, 2 (1984);
81. O. Roesch, 'Peasants and Collective Agriculture';
82. A. Pitcher, 'Recreating Colonialism or Reconstructing the State? Privatisation and Politics in Mozambique', Journal of Southern African Studies, 22, 1 (1996), pp. 49-75.
83. Direcção Nacional da Habitação [DNH], Levantamento da Occupação de Tereno, March 1983, entries for: celula Machia; empresa estatal Salamanga (sede); bloco Massuane; unidade C; Ndlovine. See also: Ministry of Agriculture, 'Desenvolvimento Agrícola da Zona de Salamanga', undated report;
84. 'Relatório de Plano Territorial de Namaacha', June 1984, held in National Institute of Physical Planning.
85. On the mass departure of communities from drought affected Macuacua on the Swaziland border, see 'Informações Obtidas na Direcção de Apoio e Controle de Namaacha', 4 November 1983, held at National Institute for Physical Planning.
86. Interviews, Tinonganine, 24 February 1995; Pochane, 10 August 1994.
87. It is described as the 'principal activity' of Namaacha in CNAC, AC/17, 'Síntese da Visita do Director de CNAC à Maputo', 23 January 1979; for Matutuíne, see: DNH, LOT, entry for 'Bloco Massuane', and report by Responsável de Florestas dated 6 December 1983, p. 40 of untitled, undated report held at National Institute of Physical Planning, referring to the locality of Catuan.
88. Differences in returns for 1981 are described in DNH, LOT, entry for 'Bloco Massuane'.
89. CNAC, AC/7, 'Síntese da Visita do Camarada Director da Commissão Nacional das Aldeias Communais', 29 March 1979.
90. Personal communication from Gary Littlejohn.
91. These were mainly the homestead heads and dynamising groups.
92. The degree of local control may have been exaggerated to bring out the differences between the pre and post war periods.
93. South African trainers visited Matsequenha until 1988, and Renamo soldiers received salaries in Rand and supplies from across the border, Africa Watch, Conspicuous Destruction, p. 31. Other bases in northern Maputo province received weapons and ammunition up to at least March 1991 and commanders were taken for training (confidential document, supplied by Stephen Ellis).
94. On post Nkomati South African support see: Vines, Renamo, pp. 24-25;
95. Minter, Apartheid's Contras, pp. 136-140.
96. Renamo's bases in Matutuíne were at Kwahle, Dzabula, Mahau, Madubula and Mbvukute. The latter was apparently used only for intelligence until 1986.
97. Discussions of wartime villagisation include: Minter, Apartheid's Contras, pp. 269-272;
98. Coelho, 'Protected Villages', pp. 428-431;
99. J. Alexander, 'Terra e Autoridade Política no Pós-Guerra em Moçambique: O Caso da Província de Manica', Arquivo, 16 (1994), pp. 5-94;
100. Geffray, A Causa das Armas;
101. C. Darch, 'Are There Warlords in Provincial Mozambique? Questions on the Social Base of MNR Banditry', ROAPE, 45-46 (1989), pp. 34-39.
102. Interview, Mussongue, 9 March 1995. Huts were burnt, and another individual from Mussongue was said to have been thrown onto a fire and burnt at Manhoca. See also, interview, Huco, 18 March 1995.
103. Interviews: Nkulula, 7 September 1994; Gumbe, 9 September 1994; Macuacua, 26 August 1994; Matianine, 26 August 1994; Sessenta, 27 August 1994; Impaputo, 27 August 1994 and displaced people from Matsequenha, 17 February 1995.
104. Interview, returning refugee, Sessenta, 27 August 1994.
105. Interview, returnee, Sessenta, 27 August 1994.
106. Interview, elders, Gumbe, 8 August 1994.
107. Oral testimony from Renamo officers who served at the base. Captured civilians and local communities agree on the absence of a local rural population in the hills.
108. Interview, Zitundo, 13 March 1995.
109. Interview, Manyahane, 4 March 1995.
110. Interview, Jabisa, 6 September 1994.
111. Interview, Kwahle, 2 March 1995.
112. Interviews, returnees from Swaziland, Kwahle, 6 September 1994.
113. A civilian from Jabisa, close to Renamo's Kwahle base, for example, described how: 'Soldiers of Renamo came and the government came behind them. Luckily, Renamo did not kill and we were satisfied with the situation, but then the government came to try to recuperate us and Renamo started to kill those who looked as if they might move and the government came back to kill anyone remaining saying they were Renamo soldiers.' Interview, Jabisa, 6 September 1994.
114. In some communal villages, civilian testimonies do not reveal any prior warning of attacks.
115. The Portuguese term 'recuperate' is widely used. It gains its ideological weight from its original medical meaning which implies a natural process of recovery to a normal state. In the context of the war, it is used as a euphemism for the forcible relocation of populations to areas under government control. I have retained the term throughout this article.
116. Interview, Hindane, 1 March 1995.
117. Interview, Tinonganine, 24 February 1995.
118. Interview, Frelimo secretary (and 'brother' to Renamo representative), Hindane, 1 March 1995.
119. S. McKibben, 'Mozambican Victims of the Slave Trade' (manuscript prepared for Anti Slavery International, 1992);
120. McGregor, 'People without Fathers'.
121. Interview, Tinonganine, 15 August 1994.
122. Interviews, Tinonganine, 24 February 1995; Zitundo, 13 March 1995.
123. Interview, Renamo officer, Zitundo, 13 March 1995.
124. An influential former régulo from the Lubombo hills who ran from Mozambique in 1984 was later traced in Swaziland by Renamo soldiers from Matsequenha, but refused their request to propitiate ancestral spirits at the chiefly graves not far from the base. Relative of former chief, interviewed in Swaziland, 20 March 1993.
125. Interview, Macuacua, 26 August 1994.
126. Interviews, former soldiers and locals who stayed with Renamo, Madubula, 22 March 1995; Zitundo, 13 March 1995 and Kwahle, 2 March, 1995. The régulo himself denied this association in interview and was on the point of being recognised by the government in 1995. An educated former colonato producer and translator who fled Mozambique at independence accused of collaborating with PIDE, he moved to Kwazulu which is where he was said to have been recruited by Renamo. Of the other former régulos in the district, two were killed by Renamo (one in a road ambush and one taking belongings to a communal village), one died of old age in a communal village and one worked as a teacher in Maputo.
127. Interview, Lucas Michangula, Renamo administrator, Zitundo, 24 August 1994; interview, Dzabula, 4 March 1995; interview, Puza 11 March 1995.
128. Junod, South African Tribe, vol. 2, chap. 2 provides ethnographic detail on such traditions. Many local Renamo chiefs were also influential Zionist or Apostolic church leaders. As the Renamo administrator at Zitundo explained, 'Those churches know the role of the régulos and also participate in the ceremonies so there is no contradiction'. Interview, Lucas Michangula, Zitundo, 24 August 1994.
129. Civilian captives were also called upon in the elaboration of local tradition. The Renamo leadership, like elsewhere, was Ndau. See Roesch 'Renamo and the Peasantry'.
130. Interview, Manyahane, 4 March 1995.
131. Interview, Madubula, 22 March 1995.
132. Interview, former Renamo soldier, Zitundo, 13 March 1995.
133. Interview, Jabisa, 6 September 1994. Mozambican witchdoctors in Swaziland border villages were often the most renowned of their profession and some accumulated considerable wealth.
134. Interview, Kwahle, 6 September 1994.
135. Interviews, former refugees in Swaziland, 6 March 1995; 4 March 1995.
136. Interviews, former refugees in Swaziland, 6 March 1995. This operation was apparently stopped by the police.
137. Interview, former Renamo activist in Ndzevane, 6 January 1995.
138. See T. Brennan, 'Shattered Land, Fragile Asylum' (US Committee for Refugees, 1986);
139. Vines, Renamo, pp. 60-61.
140. One such was moved in 1985. In 1990-1991, regional authorities in Sitegi District in Swaziland were concerned about reports of a settlement of shacks used by Renamo at the foot of hills within Swaziland, probably by soldiers from the Mahau base.
141. Interview, Zilundo, 13 March 1995.
142. One said he was son to the former chiefs policeman. The other lacked the legitimacy to perform ceremonies at the chiefly graves when instructed to do so by Renamo at Zitundo after the Peace Accord.
143. Zionist and Apostolic churches flourished in the Renamo bases.
144. Former captive, Madubula, interviewed in Bela Vista, 20 March 1995.
145. On smugglers over Matutuíne's border with Kwazulu/Natal, see J. Golding and E. Koch, 'Webster reported smuggling network', Weekly Mail, 6-12 November 1992.
146. On linkages between ivory and drug smuggling networks and routes, see S. Ellis, 'Of Elephants and Men: Politics and Nature Conservation in South Africa', Journal of Southern African Studies, 20, 1 (1994), pp. 56-57.
147. Ellis, 'Of Elephants';
148. Ros Reeve and Steve Ellis, 'An Insider's Account of the South African Security Forces' Role in the Ivory Trade', Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 13, 2 (1995), p. 227;
149. Minter, Apartheid's Contras, p. 137;
150. Vines, Renamo Terrorism, pp. 89, 98.
151. Though most hunting of this small elephant population was probably done by Renamo with locals, the Mozambican government also became involved in the illegal ivory trade by registering ivory from other parts of Africa as being of Mozambican origin after the CITES agreement introduced national ceilings for ivory in the late 1980s, Ellis, 'Of Elephants', p. 63. In the years immediately following the war, government army commanders stationed close to the Matutuíne/Namaacha border were widely said to run a network of hunters, though they largely supplied the Maputo meat market with small game.
152. J. C. Hatton, B. Chande, K. Serodio and A. Jujumen, 'A Status Quo Assessment of the Maputo Transfrontier Conservation Area' (IUCN, 1995), p. 8.
153. Captives held at Matutuíne's Renamo bases recalled being given dried elephant meat to eat. Interview, former captive, Bela Vista, 20 March 1995.
154. This was not the case in Namaacha, where the water scarce hills sustained little game.
155. Interview, group of fishermen, Zitundo, 24 August 1994.
156. Interview, Pochane, 10 August 1994.
157. He came back into the country before the war's end on invitation from Renamo who gave him access to palm trees formerly owned by a local. Interview, Zitundo, 10 March 1995.
158. In 1990, a new battalion was stationed in Matutuíne, effectively preventing further attacks on the district town, and the government began to make military advances.
159. Matutuíne's district records for 1989 show that the 1980 population of 66,000 was reduced to 26,260, of which 5,264 were at the district seat and a further 2,245 close-by where soldiers were stationed at the villages of Pedereira and Madhuva; 11,784 were at the administrative posts of Catuan, 6,180 at the post of Machungulo (though many of the latter sought refuge on Inhaca island). The small tourist town on the Kwazulu/Natal border, Ponta do Ouro fell to Renamo in 1991, was subsequently retaken by the government, but thereafter had only a military presence.
160. Attacks on the larger communal villages and other government centres often resulted in more than 50 deaths. Road and rail massacres are documented in Vines, Renamo, p. 98,
161. and Africa Watch, Conspicuous Destruction, pp. 50-56.
162. The arrival of the war disrupted the charcoal trade on a new scale from that wrought by Operation Production in 1983, described above.
163. A full understanding of the trade's wartime dynamics would require a detailed knowledge of the shifting geography of security in all relevant districts of the Maputo hinterland (i.e. Matola, Boane, Manhiça, Moamba as well as Namaacha and Matutuíne). In 1986 it was estimated that 45 per cent of Maputo's supply came from Boane, Namaacha and Matutuíne, E. Mansur, 'Levantamento do Abastecimento de Lenha e Carvão na Cidade de Maputo' (FAO MOZ/82/009, 1986).
164. Interviews with charcoal burners at: Porto Enrique, 5 September 1994; Alto Enchisa, 2 September 1994; Changalane, 3 September 1994.
165. Interviews, chefe de posto, Catuan, 21 March 1995; chefe de posto, Changalane, 26 March 1996.
166. Interview, Alto Enchisa, 2 September 1994.
167. Interviews: Alto Enchisa, 2 September 1994; Mazimunyama, 2 September 1994; refugees returning to Changalane, 3 September 1994.
168. J. McGregor, 'Staking their Claims: Land Disputes in Southern Mozambique' (University of Wisconsin-Madison, Land Tenure Centre paper 158, 1997).
169. O. Roesch, 'Rural Mozambique and Frelimo's Fourth Congress Policies: The Situation in the Baixo Limpopo', Review of African Political Economy, 41 (1988), pp. 73-91.
170. Africa Watch, Conspicuous Destruction, pp. 56-57.
171. Mozambican cloth, for example, could be sold or exchanged over the borders for bags, cosmetics, underwear and clothing; when paraffin was cheap in Mozambique, women carried it over the Swazi border for sale. See J. McGregor, B. Harrell-Bond and R. Mazur, 'Mozambicans in Swaziland: Livelihood and Integration' (report prepared for the World Food Programme and the European Community, 1991), pp. 32-33; chap. 4.
172. Men complained that women stood at an advantage in wartime trading, because they could form 'friendships' with border guards.
173. Regular raiding of the Namaacha market led to its relocation and military protection in the course of the war.
174. A. Vines, 'Mozambique: Slaves and the Snake of Fire', Anti-Slavery Reporter, 13, 7 (1991), p. 43.
175. Manhique, 'Impacto da Guerra', provides a fascinating account of the operation of one such dealer in Matola.
176. The complex and varied processes of conflict and exclusion, accommodation and incorporation with local communities in the years after the peace accord are described in McGregor, 'Staking their Claims'.
177. Renamo's construction of administrative structures after the war, and Frelimo's re-construction of rural authority are too complex to be summarised here.