Zimpapers Logo

ON November 5, Haru Mutasa a reporter with Al Jazeera lamented on her blog about how Mozambique’s story was not being told. Haru says in part, “I don’t have an answer as to why some stories are told, and many others aren’t; why world leaders have summits that gloss over issues in some countries while focusing on others. Maybe it’s done so as to not scare away investors? Mozambique is rich in coal and gas.

“Maybe it’s to keep tourists coming to the country and southern Africa as a whole? Let’s face it, many holidaymakers won’t come to a troubled spot. Those who do are probably wired differently.

“Luckily, the skirmishes are so far limited to a few areas. It will be a pity if one day we wake up and the occasional clashes we are seeing now between Frelimo and Renamo have turned into a war.

“How long will the situation in Mozambique stay under the radar before more effort is made internationally to avert a ticking time bomb from exploding? Or is it that people living outside the country and the region don’t want to know or care?”

I understand Haru’s frustrations. They are genuine concerns and they are a call to action. Despite the just-ended Sadc-international conference on the Great Lakes region held in South Africa noting with concern the activities of Renamo and calling on the group to stop its rebellion activities, the major problem for most people is lack of authoritative information on the escalation of hostilities between Renamo and the Mozambican government.

Haru has asked one of the many questions that are floating around? The others are, where is Afonso Dhlakama hiding? Renamo wanted dialogue with government, but they are now refusing to go on the negotiating table. Is it because they don’t know the whereabouts of the chief negotiator, Dhlakama or it is a game changer?

Who is sponsoring Renamo’s terror activities? Are we back to the Cold War days when Renamo was created as an insurgency to fight against so-called Communists (liberation movements in Zimbabwe, Mozambique and South Africa?)

Why was the claim of unilaterally ending the 1992 Rome accord easily parroted by the international media despite the fact that Renamo members of parliament have not pulled out of government?

But more specifically, who will tell the Mozambican story if we can’t do it ourselves? For how long should the primary sources to the narrative be international news agencies, and all that we do is add local voices to stories meant to fit their own agendas?

Here is a sample of headlines from the past week: “French embassy warns against Mozambique region travel; Mozambique opposition ends peace deal after military attack; Mozambique president urges dialogue to end political crisis; AU condemns attempt to undermine peace in Mozambique; UN chief voices concern over violence in Mozambique; Mozambique ex-rebels want slice of resource cake: analysts; Rio Tinto evacuates expat families amid Mozambique unrest; Mozambique rebel movement rejects peace talks”.

All the stories came from Western news agencies – AFP and Reuters while some were from the Chinese official news agency Xinhua.
Thus Haru’s sentiments struck a chord with this writer, and maybe a few others who care about regional peace and security for on November 16, 2012, I wrote on this column a piece titled: “Renamo: Gimmicks or it’s not over until it’s over?” I reproduce excerpts of the article:

“Recent reports that the infamous Renamo leader Afonso Marceta Macacho Dhlakama has not only established a bush camp in Gorongosa, his former stronghold, but is also training some of the former rebels are not worrying many of us.

“Instead, they are brushed aside on the premise that the region is tired of war, and thus it would never countenance Renamo’s return to cause instability in Mozambique and be a threat to regional peace and security. Dhlakama’s age and that of the former rebels have also become major selling points of such a school of thought.

“But, have we ever thought that Dhlakama returned to the bush in dramatic fashion, which in itself was a tactical move to force the Frelimo government to speak out and in the process, state their position regarding his demands?”

The second dramatic factor is that Dhlakama did not just wake up one fine day and say he would leave his Nampula home and return to his former base in bushy Gorongosa. This was not nostalgia, especially when it comes from a man who was on a killing path from 1977 to 1992.
He made sure that the international media captured his moves and articulated his demands to the Mozambican government and Sadc leaders.

Dhlakama is not as senseless as some of us would want him to be, and neither is he a spent-force. And, to demonstrate that he has become a negative regional issue, some of South Africa’s major business papers picked the story. They did not in any way celebrate him as the Western media did. As they informed, they were also telling Sadc to be wary of Dhlakama’s actions.

Indeed, the pictures I have seen show a few middle-aged men and some women undergoing training with some old AK-47 assault rifles. You work with what you have or you do that in order to dupe the world.

But, why should we trust Dhlakama now, if he spent close to two decades destroying those elements of trust and brotherhood that had come with Mozambique’s independence? Why should we not take him seriously if the Rhodies and the Boers (in apartheid South Africa) made him believe that fighting his own people on behalf of others would reverse the gains of independence?

If we do not know how rebels like Dhlakama were initially created, for they are never their own men, how can we just brush them aside? Isn’t it also amazing that Dhlakama – who will turn 60 on January 1, 2013 – actually started his insurgency activities in 1977 when he was 24 years old?

How old was he when he was co-opted to lead the rebel movement? He was probably a child soldier first since the first rebel leader was Andre Matsangaissa.

Why would it be different with Dhlakama if he fits the agenda of his creators? If he drove the Rhodesian and apartheid agendas in the Cold War era with his so-called “anti-Communist movement”, what can stop him from becoming a devil in the detail again in this neo-colonial stage of Africa’s political economy?

Initially, Dhlakama said that he did not want war, but in that same statement, he also said he would not stop his supporters if they opted to fight government. He told AFP that he was “willing to provoke a fresh bloodbath and to divide the country if the government does not meet his demands.” No one is putting terms like “provoking (sic) a fresh bloodbath and to divide the country” in his mouth.

Neither should we think that we should not lose sleep over the rantings of a 60-year old man so used to shedding human blood.
He added, “I am training my men up and, if we need to, we will leave here and destroy Mozambique . . . If it is necessary we can go backwards. We prefer a poor country than to have people eating from our pot.”

Tough talk in my view because if it was not, the international media would not have bothered. And, what does a Mozambique, which is deliberately being taken backward mean for Sadc and Africa as a whole?

When Dhlakama decamped at Gorongosa the first time, in my stream of consciousness, I posed the following questions, considering that I know some of the atrocities that were committed by Renamo, and the economic losses to a new Zimbabwean economy, which a good number of us would rather forget: is Dhlakama calling the Mozambican government’s bluff, or is he serious?

What does this mean for a Mozambique that is now beginning to reap the fruits of peace? What does this mean for regional peace and security? What does Dhlakama’s action mean for Zimbabwe’s peace and security, including its internal politics? And most critically, who is financing Dhlakama?

Will the mineral resources found along the border of Mozambique and Zimbabwe become another stage of contestation as Renamo pillages and plunders them in order to finance its insurgency?

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, illegal mining of the country’s rich mineral resources funds rebel activities. We have to wake up and smell the coffee!

It is this naiveté in our approach to critical issues like banditry elements that display whether we have learnt any lessons from past activities.

There are also other aspects. Dhlakama’s decamping coincided with a number of historical events on the Mozambican and regional calendars. Firstly, it coincided with the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Rome Peace Accord. It also coincided with the 26th anniversary of the murder of Cde Samora Machel by the apartheid regime in South Africa. Such coincidences are usually hard to come by.
One year on, Dhlakama and his Renamo have finally attracted the regional bloc’s attention. Mozambique became an agenda item at the South African meeting. Maybe he is inching closer to his desire to have international mediators refereeing the peace talks.

But when all is said and done, the “new political order” he seeks is illegal regime change and destabilisation of the region, and reading between the lines, this is another errand for some unknown powers.