Mozambican Civil War
The Mozambican Civil War began in 1977, two years after Mozambique had fought for independence from Portugal , and lasted until 1992. The Frente de Libertação de Moçambique (FRELIMO), which was successful in the War of Independence , was the ruling party in Mozambique at the time. From 1977 it was fought by the Resistência Nacional Moçambicana (RENAMO). RENAMO was founded by Rhodesia and was actively supported by this neighboring country of Mozambique; South Africa later took over this function. The civil war cost up to 900,000 lives through fighting and famine. Over five million civilians have been displaced and numerous people have been mutilated by landmines , which continue to claim civilian casualties.
Civil war
In 1977, Rhodesia founded RENAMO to militarily fight FRELIMO, which has ruled Mozambique since independence in 1975. The reason was that the Frelimo in turn supported the Zimbabwean National African Liberation Army (ZANLA), which was fighting against the rule of the whites in Rhodesia, with weapons and areas of retreat in the Mozambican border area. In 1980 this goal was achieved, the rule of whites in Rhodesia came to an end and the country was now called Zimbabwe . From then on South Africa took over the support of RENAMO. The apartheid government in South Africa wanted to prevent fighters from the South African opposition African National Congress (ANC) from setting up retreat bases in Mozambique. Furthermore, the Mozambican civil war had the character of a proxy war, since the ruling FRELIMO was Marxist oriented and was supported by the Soviet Union , while the RENAMO received arms supplies from the USA .
The Gersony Report, a "Summary of Mozambican Refugee Numbers Due to the Conflict in Mozambique", presented to the US State Department in April 1988 , reported eyewitness reports or other credible evidence of the refugees about RENAMO murders by shooting, knife / ax / bayonet attacks, burning alive, beating to death, forcible suffocation, forced starvation, and occasional shooting at civilian villagers during their attacks. Mozambican civilians were RENAMO's main target in the war, although government facilities and economic infrastructure were also attacked. The Renamo was also notorious for using child soldiers .
The FRELIMO government, led by President Samora Machel , was economically ruined by the RENAMO rebels. The military and diplomatic alliance with the Soviet Union could not make up for the economic damage and the hunger it caused. Ultimately, President Machel had to sign the non-aggression pact Nkomati Accord with South Africa on March 16, 1984 . In it, the South African government in Pretoria promised economic aid in exchange for the insurance of FRELIMO to prevent the ANC from using Mozambique as a retreat base for raids on South Africa. After the Nkomati Accord , the support of RENAMO by the South African government actually waned, but documents that were captured during the capture of a RENAMO headquarters in Gorongosa in Central Mozambique in August 1985 prove that the South African government continued to communicate with RENAMO and it also sent arms deliveries. In the field of Niassa province an armed attack (occurred on December 6, 1984 attack in Unango ) on a vehicle convoy in which DDR - aid workers died and others. The origin and motives of the assassins remained unclear. As a result of this event, the GDR reduced its development cooperation with Mozambique and about six months later 1,000 people left the African country.
On October 19, 1986, Samora Machel died in a plane crash in South Africa near the Mozambican border. An international investigation later stated that the crash was caused by crew errors, but this remains a matter of dispute to this day. Machel's successor was Joaquim Alberto Chissano , who had been Foreign Minister from 1975 until Machel's death. Chissano continued Machel's policy and tried to expand Mozambique's international ties, especially to the west; he also carried out internal reforms.
When the Cold War finally came to an end in 1990 and the apartheid regime collapsed in South Africa and as a result there was no support for the RENAMO from South Africa and the USA, the first direct talks between FRELIMO and RENAMO took place. The FRELIMO draft of a new constitution in July 1989 also paved the way for a multi-party state, which was finally enshrined in the new constitution in November 1990. Mozambique was thus a multi-party state with regular elections and guaranteed democratic rights. On October 4, 1992 , the civil war officially ended with the signing of a peace treaty between the parties in Rome , the Rome General Peace Agreement . The peace treaty entered into force on October 15, 1992. A 7500-strong UN - peacekeeping force ( ONUMOZ ) was sent to Mozambique and monitored for two years the path to democracy . The first elections from October 27-28, 1994 were also monitored by 2,400 international observers. The last ONUMOZ forces left the country in the spring of 1995.
Consequences of the civil war to this day
One of the consequences of the civil war is the contamination of large parts of the country with landmines . In March 2010, the National Mine Removal Institute declared 63 of Mozambique's 128 districts mine-free. According to official figures, 15 people were killed by landmines in 2009. On September 17, 2015, the Mozambican government declared the country mine-free. Almost 171,000 landmines had been removed since 1992.
On the South African side, refugees who crossed the Mozambican-South African border at the time of the civil war were threatened by the use of firearms , since around 1985 by an electric fence with fatal effects or by questionable living and housing conditions as a result of their refugee status not being recognized .
See also
literature
- Lance S. Young: Mozambique's Sixteen-Year Bloody Civil War. United States Air Force, 1991
- Olaf Tataryn Juergensen: Angonia: Why RENAMO? . Southern Africa Report Archive, 1994
swell
- ↑ Information at poptel.org.za
- ^ Mozambique declared free of landmines. at bbc.com on September 17, 2015 (English), accessed on October 11, 2015
- ^ SACBC: SACBC Statement on Electric Border Fence between South Africa and Mozambique (18/9/89) . on www.sacbc.org.za ( Memento from February 8, 2015 in the Internet Archive )