Summary
To talk about Mozambique and in particular about the Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado is to enter into a hornet’s nest. It gets even more acute with the current climate of friction between FRELIMO and RENAMO militants who contested the local elections in October 2023. The case of Cabo Delgado is a separate issue, as its problems have already gained a “white beard”. In addition, the climate of instability in Mozambique is not good, precisely because of the challenges presented by the opposition and a large part of civil society.
It should be noted that the Catholic Bishops of Mozambique in their pastoral letter of August 2023, immediately prior to the elections, called on candidates and voters to do everything in their power to avoid episodes of violence, disturbance, provocation and aggression that happened in the past. “For parties and candidates, our appeal is that the motto of their ethical conduct be: ‘knowing how to win, knowing how to lose’.” Unfortunately, the electoral processes have repeatedly threatened the peace that should be alive and well in Mozambique. “Our democratic experience confirms this, as we could all sadly see in previous elections″.
We present these lines of reflection here, seeking to raise the awareness of politicians and community leaders in Cabo Delgado to promote an environment of peace and more effective and equitable justice. While it is an experience of people in a very particular region, it is still a problem that bears upon the entire Southern Africa. As part of the Church in the region, the Bishops expressed their concern for Cabo Delgado.
Keywords: Cabo Delgado, poverty, displacement, war, natural resources, exploitation
Overview
To contextualise, the Cabo Delgado conflict, in its modern configuration, began in 2017. When radicalized Muslim youths attacked the local police station and the military post in Mocímboa da Praia. Since then, violence in Cabo Delgado has caused more than 3,900 civilian casualties. High levels of poverty and disputes over access to land and work contributed to local discontent. At first, the authorities did not want to request external help to confront the insurgents, but in 2021 they changed their minds. Accordingly, Rwanda and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) sent troops to fight the jihadists. A strategy that bore fruit in the short term.
The importance of Cabo Delgado for the government’s economic strategy is clear. At the same time, however, it is a source of frustration for the local population. Its importance lies in the rich offshore reserves of natural gas that are being explored in collaboration with multinational companies. If this insurgency is not controlled, it could not only threaten national stability, but also risks spreading the instability of Sahelization along the coast of Southern and Eastern Africa, providing new territories for the expansion of the Islamic State (IS/ISIS). According to the opinion of Juan Alberto Mora Tebas “the origin of the conflict must be sought in an amalgam of causes, but there is one aspect that seems to stand out: access to land and its resources.”
Since October 2017 Cabo Delgado has been plagued by armed violence. As a result, many people were displaced to the southern region of the province and other areas of the country. In the meantime, fatalities were recorded.
In the first days of 2020 rumours were already being heard of the tragedy in Cabo Delgado of jihadist groups that were ravaging the north of the province, massacring people and burning villages. Since Mozambican troops sealed off the region, no journalist managed to get through, and only isolated reports were heard, with the authorities always guaranteeing that everything was nothing more than mere banditry. Until, finally, the bishop of Pemba, Dom Luiz Fernando Lisboa, went public to denounce the scale of the tragedy. Accordingly, a tide of refugees was fleeing their homes and flooded the district capital. Help was needed immediately. There were already at least 500 dead in the province, said the Bishop, whose message resonated in the international press.
It was not an accusation without consequences. The last time Jornal I spoke to Dom Luiz, they accused him of alarmism. “The bishop sows hatred”, accused the Mozambican newspaper Público, which called for his expulsion from the country. Since then, there were thousands dead and hundreds of thousands displaced. Dom Luiz, Brazilian priest who came to Pemba as a missionary, never retracted.
The impact of these conflicts is steady and structural violence in Cabo Delgado, a violence reproducing itself over time and space in a dispersed, subtle, apparently insignificant and invisible way, but ends up penetrating individuals and societies which constitutes damage that, sooner or later, manifests itself as lethal.
Furthermore, the Cabo Delgado problem cannot be seen as a problem for Mozambique, but as a problem for the region. That is why the Church does not feel far from those people and conveys to them a message of hope, praying with them so that ways can be found to solve their political, economic and social challenges.
Causes of conflicts in Cabo Delgado
To allow us to have a relatively complete picture of the situation, it can be stated that the current tensions are multifaceted phenomena that have their roots in latent secular conflicts, revived by recent extractive activities, such as gas, mining, logging, and policies applied in the region. However, the situation appears to be much more complex, and several reasons are highlighted as possible causes of this persistent violence. This constellation of causes could be grouped under several different approaches.
1. Discontent against the government
It would be a popular revolt against abuses of power and the lack of expectation for improvement of living conditions. It should be noted that Mozambique continues to experience a climate of instability as a result of many demonstrations after the municipal elections in October 2023. The opposition does not accept, to this day, that the elections were fair. Many international organizations and local religious entities, in their statements, called on the current governing party, FRELIMO, the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique, to work to guarantee fairness and transparency in the elections. The contestation of the elections is almost general. Apparently, FRELIMO wants to remain in power at all costs, even without the consent of the people and does everything and anything to stay there. Among the issues that have generated discontent with the government are the following.
- Disputes over land. Caused by the movement of people by extractive companies, installed in Cabo Delgado. Losing land is worse than losing property, as identity, way of life, dignity and access to material and immaterial goods are also lost.
- Endemic corruption. This is a poverty that affects not only Mozambique, but a large part of African countries and governments. Particularly in Mozambique, this crisis led to a sharp drop in economic growth, causing a governance crisis and a prolonged economic slowdown.
- Unemployment
- Deterioration of living conditions and spread of poverty
- Lack of participation in political decision-making
- Abuse of power. Executions carried out by both the private security companies of transnational companies and the government worsened the situation, causing serious discontent and subsequent protests. An example of this was the expulsion, in early 2017, of artisanal miners in favour of commercial mining concessions. According to a report by Amnesty International, state security forces carried out vicious attacks against civilians accused of collaborating with or supporting Al-Shabaab. Military and police officers allegedly committed extrajudicial executions, acts of torture and ill-treatment.
2. Discovery and exploration of resources
The link between war and natural resources is recurrent in analyses of the Cabo Delgado case, perhaps even the main cause. This is an interpretation that seeks to relate the causes of the war with the discovery of gas and the exploitation of natural resources, including rubies and precious wood. Increased foreign investment in Cabo Delgado also fuelled unrest, as local communities’ high income and employment expectations were not met. A recent survey by the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) shows that the inhabitants of Cabo Delgado consider the discovery and management of resources (gas and rubies) as one of the most important causes of the insurgency.
The problem of people forced to flee violence involves forced displacement. It is important to understand their lives from a procedural perspective, in constant change, and how memory acts on them, generating adaptive responses to new situations as well as influencing their expectations for the future. The displaced person builds new worlds of life based on memory, tradition and their capabilities. Displacement is a traumatic experience and constitutes a reference for reorganizing and reinterpreting one’s history, culture, society and identity in a broad sense.
3. Religious reasons
Wahhabi fundamentalist ideas spread among the kimwani, fishermen in the coastal districts. To this was added the hatred, due to historical and recent complaints, against the Makonde, Christians of the interior, who have always been closely linked to power. In 2015, women and girls began to be seen wearing the niqab and stories emerged of young people and children aged 13 to 14 who received scholarships to study the Quran in other countries.
Among the causes of violence that have been identified are:
- religious conflicts between different Islamic denominations, interests in land and natural resources in the region, the presence of large extraction projects, with the largest investment in the history of Southern Africa in the gas extraction project from Rovuma Basin, poverty and inequality, illegal trafficking of drugs, ivory and precious stones, among others.
- Islamic jihadist uprising. With Salafist connotations, led by Mozambicans radicalised in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and other African countries and who, in ideological connection with Tanzanian followers, began violent actions in 2017 and later, in 2019, transformed it into a jihadist war, already in collusion with the Islamic State. The reasons follow.
- Social tensions. Generational and ideological struggle within the Muslim (Sufi) community of northern Mozambique and a feeling of marginalisation towards Christian ethnic groups generated a religious movement that became the current extremist insurgency. Northern Mozambique is home to most of the country’s Muslim minority, which has long been marginalized by central political power. The fact that there is a Catholic minority (32.9%) and a Muslim majority (54%) makes it fertile ground for jihadists.
4. Political motives: a historical overview of their antecedents
Just like Angola, with which Mozambique shares many similarities, not only because they were both colonized by Portugal, the Marxist-Leninist inspired single-party system and the prolonged post-independence civil war, as well as the temporal simultaneity of transitions, we find other elements in common. After independence in 1975, Mozambique experienced internal conflict when the Marxist government, supported in part by the Soviet Union and Cuba, fought against anti-communist forces financed by South Africa and former Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, for control of the country. The conflict formally ended with the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in Rome on 4 October 1992, but many of its effects persisted and political struggles between the main opposition forces and the central government continued.
Cabo Delgado is a province that has long been ripe for conflict. In fact, the first demonstrations of revolts and violence dating back to 2007 in the northwest were carried out by radicalised Mozambicans, mainly in madrasas and mosques (Wahhabis) in Saudi Arabia. They did not find favourable ground in Mozambique, nor in Cabo Delgado, for the implementation of their religious ideals and social behaviour, and were in fact rejected by local Muslim leaders (Sufis) related to the government. In 2007 frustrated young Muslims in the province’s southern districts dominated by the Kimwani or Makua ethnic group broke away from the Islamic Council of Mozambique, CISLAMO, to form the fundamentalist sect Ansar al Sunna, also known as Al Sunnah wa Jama’ah, ASWJ, and began to challenge the authority of local religious leaders. The escalation of violence between the religious movement and security forces became a full-blown insurrection.
In 2015, tensions between FRELIMO and the opposition party RENAMO, Resistência Nacional Moçambicana, escalated into armed clashes. In December 2016 the parties agreed to a ceasefire and, after long negotiations, on August 6, 2019, the Maputo Agreement was signed in a last ditch effort to put an end to the intermittent violence that had persisted since the end of the civil war in 1992.
5. Ethnic and linguistic divisions
Some analysts believe that this is a rebellion by the Kimwani or Makuas against what they consider to be an invasion by the Makonde people, the majority of FRELIMO, who have been unable to correct ethnic and social discrepancies for almost five decades. In fact, the insurgents’ attacks reveal an ethnic dimension, as reports confirm that during the attacks on villages inhabited by Kimwani and Makonde, “the houses they burned belonged to predominantly Christian (Makonde) members.”
6. External influences
There is always an external hand influencing the direction of conflicts that occur in Africa. In this specific case, Wahhabi education financed by the Gulf countries fuelled religious discord and economic discontent among young people. Many of the local fighters were taken in by pre-existing Salafist-jihadi networks in East Africa, which sent them to other countries for training.
Consequences
- Problems of the humanitarian crisis of displaced people, fleeing armed violence in the northern districts of Mozambique. The attacks throughout the last week of February 2024 left the village, where everyone in the various communities dedicate themselves to agricultural fields, empty. The solution was to flee to the town of Chiùre, today the last stronghold of security nearby. Still, it is a three-day journey on foot through agricultural fields and roads in a movement of thousands of people at the same time. The new wave of attacks caused the flight of 58,116 displaced people in just over two weeks, according to a new report released on Tuesday, February 27 by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), while the government points to 67,321 displaced people. “If these attacks increase in intensity, as appears to be happening, they could even harm the province of Cabo Delgado politically and make it unviable or limit the exercise of electoral rights in some regions or places in the province, both by voters and competing parties”, according to the director of programs at IMD.
- The historical recurrence of violence
- Low levels of human development indicators and escalating poverty
- The intensification of extractive exploitation of natural resources and changes in the ways of organising the territory
The role of the Church in the context of Cabo Delgado: proposals for the Church in the region
The Church is essential in building a peaceful environment in Cabo Delgado specifically, and Mozambique, in general. The Church presents itself, par excellence, as dedicated to reconciliation, seeking to act so that the parties in conflict understand each other and find fair conditions for peace. Perhaps for this reason the Church’s preferred place is precisely among the weakest, the oppressed and the invaded, even as the invaders appeal for democratic ideals.
From this perspective, church mediation responds to the cry for justice and combating the causes of conflicts. The Church works with the idea that the first look to act in any conflict, is focused on the way Jesus acted, since the Gospels point to the fact that Christ lived in a terribly conflicted society.
The Catholic Church’s ties with Mozambique date back to the Age of Discoveries. Not only that, it is the only religion with territorial expression. During his visit to the country between 16 and 18 September 1988 the Holy Father, recalling the strength of these same ties, expressed concern about the situation of the conflict and highlighted the need for the Church to contribute to its resolution – always, however, respecting what belongs to Caesar.
The known history of Mozambique is closely linked to the presence of the Church. Even with limitations, she wanted and wants to contribute to weaving its story. By her nature the Church respects institutions and their authority (cf. 1 Pet. 2, 13 ff.). She does not aspire to manage temporal affairs nor to identify with a particular policy. Her specific contribution is always to strengthen the spiritual and moral foundations of society. It is a service that aims to raise awareness and form, clarifying and pointing out ethical imperatives and, if necessary, denouncing deviations and violations of human dignity.
John Paul II’s message was that everyone should embrace the cause of man. This would be exactly the spirit that the Community of Sant’ Egidio would adopt in the peace negotiations and the same currently embraced by the Church of the southern region.
The Catholic Church can and should be central to the negotiated solution of the conflict in Cabo Delgado, both in the action of bringing the conflicting parties to the negotiating table and in its role as mediator in the negotiations themselves, similar to what it did in Rome via Sant’ Egidio, whose ties with Mozambique date back to 1976. The Church can continue to play a constructive role in supporting democratisation and become the main actor in civil society, despite political-military instability.
The Church’s call is always to peace. This is what the Episcopal Conference of Mozambique defends in the Pastoral Letter issued in Maputo on June 16, 2020: “The continuation of this inhumane suffering is unacceptable and frustrates the dream of being a nation of peace, concord and independence, just and in solidarity. For this reason, we must unite all efforts to find ways to solve this misfortune, not relying solely on the use of military force.”
According to the Bishops, terrorist incursions sow destruction and the violent deaths of innocent children, women and men and people of good will, as was the case of a sister murdered in an attack on the Catholic Mission of Chipene in the Diocese of Nacala.
Some concrete proposals for action in this line of work would be:
- strengthen and promote community mediations and inter-religious, inter-ethnic and multi-actor dialogues to advance the end of the armed conflict;
- developing reflective processes and proposals for peace through discussion groups or community forums, with the effective participation of young people and women;
- stimulate conversations with other community networks and social movements from other parts of the world that have experience in local peacebuilding;
- carry out training and community empowerment processes on peace topics;
- articulate projective and proactive conversations to agree on an action plan for peace defined by social and community organisations in Cabo Delgado.
It is essential that the international community and national authorities adequately consider these other ways of achieving peace in Cabo Delgado.
At the same time the Church has to be involved in the strengthening of instruments, mechanisms and tools for coexistence between displaced and host communities to mitigate the risks of conflict. Coexistence is a fundamental element for building peace and social cohesion. In a context marked by poverty and inequality, with historical and profound difficulties in accessing resources, goods and services essential for life, conflicts over access to these resources are common phenomena. It is necessary to invest in dialogue mechanisms and community work strategies to mitigate such inequalities.
The Church has to articulate a line of action research on memory and local construction for peace with a situated, participatory and decolonial methodology. The costly military operations for maintaining peace are not contributing beyond the containment of direct violence in the affected areas, therefore, it is necessary to open other ways to advance the negotiated end of this armed conflict and work on local construction for peace. Community proposals for dialogue and negotiation to put an end to the conflict, the construction of a shared memory and the search for truth, the articulation of peaceful coexistence, social cohesion and a sustained culture for peace in Cabo Delgado must be on the agenda.
The Church in the Southern African region is struggling with a profound problem of justice and peace as paths to the promotion and effective appreciation of the dignity of human beings. In other words, if, on the one hand, in the past the Church was committed to the first evangelization, transmission of the faith, even in less clear periods of its action, in the fight to end the civil war, in the construction and edification of Christian communities, today, the Church is called, on the other hand, to contribute, with its prophetic voice, to a more just and equal society where everyone can have what is necessary for subsistence and where everyone lives together as true children of God and members of the same nation. Therefore, just as society has the duty to care for and provide for the needs of its children, the Church is equally called, by virtue of her identity and mission, to fight for the well-being of each member of society, to educate for respect for life, culture and the dignity of human beings, promoting mechanisms to help society be more democratic and tolerant. And this is more urgent in Cabo Delgado, looking at the current situation in which this part of Mozambique is immersed.