A Piece of Land in a Land of Peace? State Farm Divestiture in Mozambique

Abstract

In the first two years following the peace accord in Rome on 4 Ocotber 1992 between Mozambique's governing party, the Frente de Libertação de Moçambique (Frelimo), and the Resistência National Moçambicana (Renamo) guerrilla leadership, over one million refugees returned to the country while as many as three million moved back to the areas they were forced to flee during the war. With the post-accord commitment of the United Nations to monitor the ‘peace process’ as well as the political transition to a multi-party democratic régime, the international community invested itself strongly in supporting Mozambicans in their attempt to rebuild their war-torn country. The United Nations Operation in Mozambique (Unomoz) presented an acid test for the future of UN-sponsored ‘peacekeeping’ initiativesthe recent difficulties or failures in Angola, Somalia, and Bosnia having thrown into question the sensibility of such expensive operations with little probability of producing sustainable results. For the donor community, the end of the war signalled an opportunity to advance discussions and practical steps towards liberalising the Mozambican economy and decentralising state power — thereby offering a new laboratory for model testing.

Flooding, resettlement, and change in livelihoods: evidence from rural Mozambique

“…• Prioritisation of the needs of poor Portuguese farmers by colonial government (West and Myers, 1996). • Rationalisation of state control at the local level (Kyed and Buur, 2006).…”

A climate of control: flooding, displacement and planned resettlement in the Lower Zambezi River valley, Mozambique

“…The phenomenon began in the 1930s, following the formation of Portugal's so‐called ‘New State’ ( Novo Estado) , when many poorer Portuguese farmers were encouraged to settle in Mozambique. These measures led to land being withdrawn from indigenous agriculture in favour of the colonists in many of the country's major river valleys, including the Zambezi's (West and Myers ). Following independence in 1975, most indigenous farmers endeavoured to return to their lands.…”

“…The eventual failure of Frelimo's state‐run farming system in the mid 1980s signalled the demise of the Party's socialist experiment and resulted in the mass divesture of land from government back to private and ‘family’ farms (West and Myers ). However, as Bowen () explained, the formal adoption of free market policies in the late 1980s set the scene for a new set of economic and political interventions in rural Mozambique carried out under the rubric of financial liberalisation and decentralisation.…”

Creative Destruction and Sorcery of Construction. Power, Hope and Suspicion in Post-War Mozambique

“…23 Rather than a coherent strategy to address the problems of the Mozambican economy, the PRE constituted, in large measure, a concession to the western donors which could save Mozambique from impending famine and ever-deepening crisis. It created the conditions under which inefficient units within the state sector of the economy would collapse, and officials at all levels of government would-with or without legal sanction-dismantle and distribute state assets (West and Myers 1996;Myers 1995;Myers, Eliseu and Nhanchungue 1994;Myers, West and Eliseu 1993). In most cases, high ranking members of the party/state were best positioned to assert control over the disposition of these assets.…”