Renamobilised: former combatants and an armed opposition party in Mozambique

Abstract

In this article I argue that the resurge of political violence by Renamo combatants in central Mozambique in the period 2013–2016 should not be merely understood in terms of a remobilisation of former combatants. Rather, the trajectories of Renamo’s combatants are better understood when considered in relation to the continuation of Renamo as a political party, an armed movement, and a social and economic network, all at the same time, over the course of war and peace. Based on ethnographic research in the district of Maringue in central Mozambique, I show how Renamo maintained its armed wing from 1992 onwards; how former combatants remained part of so-called ‘Renamo networks’ in multiple ways; how the wider social context of Maringue was intertwined with Renamo during the war and how in post-war Maringue people, places, and institutions became politically divided between the Frelimo state and Renamo. Considering Renamo in terms of an armed political party within wider social and economic networks, offers new outlooks on the more recent armed conflict and the position of combatants. Conceptually this process is not easy to capture in terms of demobilisation and remobilisation (hence the title–renamobilised). Theoretically, this analysis of the trajectories of former combatants in Mozambique contributes to literature on the continuation of wartime networks and details the manifold ways by which these are intertwined with social life after war’s end.