Swords into ploughshares? The united nations and demilitarization in Mozambique

Abstract

The demilitarization of war is a crucial component in the international community's efforts to resolve regional and sub‐regional conflicts. Framed by the prevailing political context, demilitarization is the process of dismantling the physical instruments of conflict, that is, the military and its weaponry, and fostering the circumstances for long‐term stability. The 1992 Mozambique peace agreement between Frelimo and Renamo marked the beginning of a process of reconciliation which, with the intervention of the United Nations, culminated in the country's first ever elections in October 1994. While the official establishment of a multi‐party democracy in Mozambique appears to solve the outstanding political problems of the last decades, the inheritance of a brutal past and the failure to address its military legacy threatens to subvert the recent political gains.