‘It Will Be Our Time To Eat’: Former Renamo Combatants and Big-Man Dynamics in Central Mozambique

Former Military Networks a Threat to Peace? The Demobilisation and Remobilization of Renamo in Central Mozambique

“…As I have argued elsewhere, these relationships are rooted in military structures, as well as shaped by friendship, reciprocity, and asymmetric relationships of dependency (e.g. patron-client relationships) (Wiegink 2015). In this article I also incorporate the blurring of categories of civilians and combatants, to understand the impact of these networks on a place like Maringue.…”

“…Applying such an understanding of networks to the former Renamo networks, one notes that ex-Renamo combatants find themselves in a variety of changeable horizontal and vertical relationships, which are informally and formally situated in a political party structure and Maringue's political context at large (Wiegink 2015). There is no one Renamo Network, but rather a range of interrelated sets of relationships that transformed in the post-war period and continue to do so, as exemplified by Renamo's recent remobilization.…”

“…I found that the main social environment for veterans in Maringue was what I call 'Renamo networks', which consisted of fellow veterans, former commanders, politicians, and civilians who were related to the former rebels. I saw these networks as being based on comradeship and patronage dynamics, resembling to some extent kinship networks that many of the former combatants lacked (Wiegink 2015). In fact, I regarded these networks as central to what may be called ex-Renamo combatants' reintegration processes.…”

“…In Mozambique, the soldiers did not 'fade away' as Alden (2002) argued. Rather, networks of former combatants continued to exist, for example, around the call for pensions (Wiegink 2013b), and as 'big man' networks (Wiegink 2015).…”

“…4 Although it left several urgent military matters such as the demobilization of the Renamo combatants unaddressed, the peace agreement allowed for Renamo's participation in the elections in October 2014, in which the former rebels gained significantly with respect to previous elections. 5 In this article I will focus on an aspect that is largely ignored in post-war analyses of the country, which is the continuing participation of former low and mid-ranked Renamo combatants in networks based on the former armed group (see also Wiegink 2015). By drawing out several post-war social dynamics in which the former armed group is a central feature, this paper aims to disclose certain assumptions underlying the nature of Armed Non-State Actors (ANSA) and provide a critical perspective on the concept and practice of demobilising combatants.…”