The government will obviously seek to minimize the impact of last week’s attacks against parts of Erati and Memba districts in Nampula Province, resorting to vague statements suggesting the situation is under control, and as was said on Tuesday by Army Commander Major-General André Mahunguane, that the attackers were hiding in a nearby mountain.
The General added that pursuit actions were underway, but it is most likely that they will yield nothing. It would be expected of the government to try and avoid panic among the population, but the reality is that the situation is very worrying and graphically illustrates how the war against the insurgency remains a complex challenge for the government.
After launching their attacks in 2017 in northern Cabo Delgado Province, insurgents have managed to cross the Messalo River, and now the Lúrio, to penetrate Nampula Province to the south, along the coast. Unlike the Renamo guerrilla war from 1976 to 1992, which played out mainly in the forests of Mozambique’s countryside, the current war has happened largely along the eastern seaboard, reflecting the need to resort to the vast and largely unguarded body of water as the insurgents’ logistical hubb.
Resorting to religion as their main weapon of mobilization, they have sought to take advantage of the presence of a large section of the Muslim population along this corridor to gain sympathy, and with their particular methods of violence recruit more young people who, deprived of any resources, join their ranks with the belief that they are fighting for a noble cause that will break the cycle of poverty in which they find themselves entrapped. But that drives them even deeper into a level of destitution that is worse than what they have ever seen before. At worst they become cannon fodder for an imaginary cause, but which really remains unknown to them.
This is how the business of war works. Its real bosses, in the comfort of their marble and gold mansions, do the math of the hundreds of millions of dollars they earn from their bloody business, at the expense of the exploitation of foot soldiers who are themselves the victims of the misfortunes of their own people.
Indeed, the so-called insurgents are doubly victims of being exploited by the masters of the war, on the one hand, and of belonging to the very people who will become even poorer because of their own actions, on the other.
The Mozambican government continues to say that it does not know the face of the leadership of this war, let alone what it is meant to achieve. Again, a cautious approach by the government may make perfect sense, but for any attentive observer, it is possible to see that there are political objectives underpinning this war, which justify all the investment that is being made to fuel it.
Reports from local sources indicate that the latest attacks on Memba and Erati were carried out by local youths who had previously been recruited to join the insurgents, and after their radicalization returned to carry out a recruitment drive of their own. The population, even if they know who the insurgents are or their leaders, will still not reveal that to anyone due to one of these reasons: either because they believe in the cause of the insurgency or because they fear reprisals.
Whatever the motivation, the fact is that the insurgency is taking root in the population, making it increasingly difficult for government forces to take action to combat it. As a result, there is a demographic transformation in the coastal districts of Mozambique affected by the insurgency, as populations are forced to abandon their homes and take refuge in other relatively safer regions. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, in the space of one week alone at least 128 000 people have fled their homes due to the attacks.
The authorities seem to have a diminished ability to find solutions, including to defend the populations, and there is no promise of improvement in the near future. A political solution is urgent, but the question is, where to start.