State Discourse on Internal Security and the Politics of Punishment in Post-Independence Mozambique (1975–1983)

Abstract

This article explores state discourse on domestic security threats and the way the Mozambican party-state sought to counter them in the decade after independence. It analyses the ways in which government forces dealt with ideological enemies, crime and social disorder. It is argued that Frelimo's quest for hegemony and its obsessive aim of building a state-nation under the project of ‘socialist revolution’ led to harsh intolerance of all that was considered a hindrance to these objectives. As obstacles to the project arose from the outset, the party-state developed a political analysis of security that did not distinguish internal from external security threats. The result was the institutionalisation of a politics of punishment as a state instrument of power and social control aiming to repress, deter and educate party-state opponents and all individuals outside the realm of socialist and revolutionary principles defined by the party-state. The article demonstrates that much of this politics of punishment represented to considerable sections of Mozambican society a return to the ‘old regime’ insofar as the post-independence state reproduced some colonial mechanisms of punishment and social control.

Notes

¹ The question of whether Mozambique was a socialist/socialist oriented country or not between 1975 and 1987 has raised a wide but inconclusive debate among scholars of contemporary Mozambique. For different claims, see, among others, M. Cahen, ‘Check on Socialism. What Check? What Socialism?’, Review of African Political Economy, 57 (1993), pp. 46–59, and J. Saul, ‘Eduardo Mondlane and the Rise and Fall of Mozambican Socialism’, Review of African Political Economy, 104/5 (2005), pp. 309–15.

^*I am indebted to Professors João Paulo Borges Coelho and David Hedges for their academic guidance and assistance. Professor David Hedges thoroughly edited and discussed with me fundamental aspects of the language, which is foreign to me. I am grateful to Zenobia Jeffries for her friendship and patience in correcting the language of first drafts of this article. A special thank you to Arild Ulset, Jorge Njal, and Dr Victor Igreja, whose invaluable comments gave shape to this article.

² See A. Isaacman and B. Isaacman, Mozambique: From Colonialism to Revolution: 1900–1982 (Boulder, CO, Westview Press, 1983); B. Munslow, Mozambique: The Revolution and its Origins (London, Longman, 1983), J. Saul (ed.), A Difficult Road: The Transition to Socialism in Mozambique (New York, Monthly Review Press, 1985); and J. Hanlon, Mozambique: Revolution under Fire (London, Zed Books, 1984). For a critical review of these books, see J. Penvenne, ‘A Luta Continua: New Literature on Mozambique’, The International Journal of African Historical Studies, 18, 1 (1985), pp. 109–38, and A. de Bragança and J. Depelchin, ‘Da Idealização da Frelimo à Compreensão da História de Moçambique’, Estudos Moçambicanos, 5/6 (1986), pp. 29–52.

³ See various contributors in S. Thiranagama and T. Kelly (eds), Traitors: Suspicion, Intimacy, and the Ethics of State-Building (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009).

⁴ T. Kelly and S. Thiranagama, ‘Introduction: Spectres of Treason’, in Thiranagama and Kelly (eds), Traitors, p. 3.

⁵ T. Kelly and S. Thiranagama. ‘Introduction: Spectres of Treason’, in Thiranagama and Kelly (eds), Traitors, p. 11.

⁶ L. Buur, ‘Xiconhoca: Mozambique's Ubiquitous Post-Independence Traitor’, in Thiranagama and Kelly (eds), Traitors, pp. 24–47.

⁷ Buur, ‘Xiconhoca’, p. 40. For a detailed description of the Xiconhoca image, see H. Ossemane, ‘Xiconhoca – O Inimigo’ e o Processo de Criação do Homem Novo (Licenciatura dissertation, Maputo, Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, 2003).

⁸ For the history of Tempo and its role in the Mozambican revolution see E. Machiana, A Revista ‘Tempo’ e a Revolução Moçambicana: Da Mobilização Popular ao Problema da Crítica na Informação (Maputo, Promédia, 2002).

⁹ De Bragança and Depelchin, ‘Da Idealização da Frelimo’, p. 33.

¹⁰ The coup d'état in Lisbon in 1974 put an end to the Portuguese colonial-fascist regime and opened a new era in the metropolis and in so-called Portuguese Africa. Talks were initiated between the new Lisbon administration and nationalist movements, leading to the transfer of power and subsequent independence of Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and Angola. Mozambique proclaimed its independence on 25 June 1975, after a year of transitional government, headed by Joaquim Chissano as Prime Minister since 20 September 1974.

¹¹ C. Darch and D. Hedges, ‘“Não Temos a Possibilidade de Herdar Nada de Portugal”: As Raízes do Exclusivismo e Vanguardismo Político em Moçambique, 1969–1977’, in G.V. Boas (ed.), Territórios da Língua Portuguesa. Culturas, Sociedades, Politicas. Anais do IV Congresso Luso-Africano-Brasileiro de Ciências Sociais, Rio de Janeiro, 1 a 5 de Setembro de 1996 (Rio de Janeiro, UFRJ-IFICS, 1998), pp. 135–49.

¹² A. de Bragança, ‘Independência sem Descolonização: A Transição do Poder em Moçambique, 1974–1975. Notas sobre os seus Antecedentes’, Estudos Moçambicanos, 5, 6 (1985), pp. 7–28.

¹³ In the depths of despair, white extremist groups (the Dragons of Death and the Free Mozambique Movement – wings of the anti-Frelimo settler party FICO) attempted a coup, seizing the radio station and the airport in Lourenço Marques, and appealing to South Africa to send troops to occupy the city and avoid the possibility of Frelimo taking power. A.D. Harvey, ‘Counter-coup in Lourenço Marques: September 1974’, International Journal of African Historical Studies, 39, 3 (2006), pp. 487–98.

¹⁴ Darch and Hedges, ‘Não Temos a Possibilidade de Herdar Nada de Portugal’, p. 146.

¹⁵ These crimes were punishable under decree-laws 8/74 and 11/74. See J.C. Trindade, ‘Rupturas e Continuidades nos Processos Políticos e Jurídicos’, in B. de Sousa Santos and J.C. Trindade (org.), Conflito e Transformação Social: Uma Paisagem das Justiças em Moçambique (Porto, Afrontamento, 2003), p. 102.

¹⁶ J.M. Cabrita, Mozambique. The Tortuous Road to Democracy (New York, Palgrave, 2000), p. 81.

¹⁷ See B. Egerö, Moçambique: Os Primeiros Dez Anos de Construção da Democracia (Maputo, Arquivo Histórico de Moçambique, 1992).

¹⁸ FRELIMO, O Partido e as Classes Trabalhadoras Moçambicanas na Edificação da Democracia Popular: Relatório do Comité Central ao Terceiro Congresso (Maputo, 1977), pp. 95 and 112.

¹⁹ J.G. Cravinho, Modernizing Mozambique: Frelimo Ideology and the Frelimo State (Ph.D. Thesis, University of Oxford, 1995).

²⁰ J.P. Borges Coelho, ‘Um Itinerário Histórico da Moçambicanidade’, in F. Rosas and M.F. Rollo (coord.), Portugal na Viragem do Século. Língua Portuguesa: A Herança Comum (Lisboa, Pavilhão de Portugal – Expo’ 98/Assitio and Alvim, 1998), pp. 87–126.

²¹ For the evolution of Frelimo's ideology see, among others, S. Kruks, ‘From Nationalism to Marxism: The Ideological History of FRELIMO: 1962–1977’, in I.L. Markowitz (ed.), Studies in Power and Class in Africa (1987), pp. 237–56.

²² A. Mbembe, Afriques Indociles: Christianisme, Pouvoir et État en Societé Post-coloniale (Paris, Karthala, 1988), p. 128, cited in E. Morier-Genoud, ‘Of God and Caesar: The Relations between Christian Churches and the State in Post-colonial Mozambique, 1974–1981’; Le Fait Missionnaire, 3 (September 1996), p. 47.

²³ FRELIMO, O Partido e as Classes, p. 94.

²⁴ See P. Virtanen, ‘Defining the “Other”: Democracy in Mozambique within a Historical Perspective’, African and Asian Studies, 2, 3 (2003), p. 247.

²⁵ J. Alexander, ‘The Local State in Post-war Mozambique: Political Practice and Ideas about Authority’, Africa, 67, 1 (1997), p. 3.

²⁶ J.P. Borges Coelho and P. Macaringue, ‘The Role of Mozambique's Armed Forces in a Changing Security Context’, in P. Batchelor, K. Kingma and G. Lamb (eds), Demilitarisation and Peace-building in Southern Africa: The Role of the Military in Stat Formation and Nation-building, Vol. III (Aldershot, Ashgate, 2004), pp. 38–9.

²⁷ See D.A. Robinson, Curse on the Land: A History of the Mozambican Civil War (Ph.D. thesis, The University of Western Australia, School of Humanities, 2006); and D.A. Robinson, ‘A Case of Assassination? President Samora Machel and the Plane Crash at Mbuzini’, Postamble, 2, 2 (2006), pp. 45–64.

²⁸ J.P. Borges Coelho, ‘As Duas Guerras de Moçambique’, in S. Pantoja (org.), Entre Áfricas e Brasis (Brasília, Marco Zero, 2001), p. 84.

²⁹ The invasion of Angola by South African troops in August 1975 was illustrative of what the apartheid regime was able to do. Only with the support of Cuban forces could the MPLA expel the invaders in March the following year. D. O'Meara, Forty Lost Years: The Apartheid State and the Politics of the National Party (Johannesburg, Ravan Press, 1996), p. 222.

³⁰ Borges Coelho and Macaringue, ‘The Role of Mozambique's Armed Forces’, p. 38.

³¹ S. Machel, ‘We Are Declaring War on the Enemy Within’, in B. Munslow (ed.), Samora Machel: An African Revolutionary. Selected Speeches and Writings (London, Zed Books, 1985), p. 92.

³⁶ Cawthra and Chachiua, ‘Internal Security in Mozambique and South Africa’, pp. 121–2.

³² Morier-Genoud, ‘Of God and Caesar’, p. 41.

³³ Y. Adam, Escapar aos Dentes do Crocodilo e Cair na Boca do Leopardo: Trajectória de Moçambique Pós-colonial (1975–1990) (Maputo, Promédia, 2006), p. 67.

³⁴ G. Cawthra and M. Chachiua, ‘Internal Security in Mozambique and South Africa’, in P. Batchelor and K. Kingma (eds), Demilitarisation and Peace-building in Southern Africa: National and Regional Experiences (Aldershot, Ashgate, 2004), p. 120.

³⁵ See discourses in S. Machel, ‘We Are Declaring War on the Enemy Within’; ‘Prepara-se Nova Agressão Contra a R.P.M.: Comunicado do Serviço Nacional de Segurança Popular’, Tempo, 1 July 1979, p. 2; and ‘Rompamos Definitivamente com a Burguesia para Consolidar o Poder Popular. Documento do Presidente Samora Machel no Comício de 22 de Junho em Maputo’, Tempo, 8 August 1982, pp. 33–48.

³⁸ ‘Como Age o Inimigo? Análise Política da Situação Económica e Social do País em Comunicado do Conselho de Ministros’, Tempo, 24 July 1977, pp. 58–64. For further references to this document, see P. Meyns, ‘Liberation Ideology and National Development Strategy in Mozambique’, Review of African Political Economy, 22 (1981), pp. 42–64.

³⁷ ‘To ensure political trust, the new army would be formed on the basis of the 10,000-strong guerrilla force that had fought the liberation war’, as decided in 1975. But new developments proved this ambition to be unrealistic and efforts had to be made to get support from friendly countries (particularly the Soviet Union) to build the new army. Borges Coelho and Macaringue, ‘The Role of Mozambique's Armed Forces’, p. 39.

³⁹ Morier-Genoud, ‘Of God and Caesar’.

⁴⁰ See ‘Rompamos Definitivamente com a Burguesia’, Tempo, 8 August 1982.

⁴¹ Around 100,000 Mozambicans had participated voluntarily in organisations that supported the fascist-colonial regime in the administration; in the security structures (the paramilitary organisation for civil Defence OPVDC and the repressive political police PIDE/DGS informers); in the army (especially the groups of commandos created in the context of Africanisation of colonial troops from late 1960s and early 1970s: the GEs, GEPs, Flechas, as well as the Godmothers of War and militias). J. Hanlon, Mozambique: The Revolution under Fire (London, Zed Books, 1984), p. 171.

⁴² DGs were party committees created by Frelimo in residential and working places. During the transition to independence they performed multiple political and administrative functions. C. Collins, ‘Mozambique: Dynamising the People’, Journal of Opinion, 8, 1 (1978), pp. 12–16.

⁴³ Machel, ‘We Are Declaring War on the Enemy Within’, p. 93.

⁴⁴ Machel, ‘We Are Declaring War on the Enemy Within’, p. 95.

⁴⁵ Trindade, ‘Rupturas e Continuidades’, p. 106.

⁴⁶ ‘Vigilância Popular Detecta Roubos e Subornos’, Tempo, 23 July 1978, pp. 23–32.

⁴⁷ Statistics are always problematic and deserve cautious treatment, especially the statistics of this revolutionary period, where mobilisation and high numbers, rather than results, were the most important aspects. However, these numbers, real or not, are indicative of the level of the militarisation of society by involving large sections of the population in state security programmes. See ‘Grupos de Vigilância Integram Milhares de Pessoas’, Tempo, 13 August 1978, p. 9.

⁴⁸ See D. Hedges and A. Chilundo, ‘A Contestação da Situação Colonial, 1945–1961’, in D. Hedges (coord.), História de Moçambique Volume 2: Moçambique no Auge do Colonialismo, 1930–1961 (Maputo, Livraria Universitária, 1999), pp. 215–19.

⁴⁹ Cabrita, Mozambique: The Tortuous Road, p. 93.

⁵⁰ Cabrita, Mozambique: The Tortuous Road, p. 69.

⁵¹ Cabrita, Mozambique: The Tortuous Road, p. 93.

⁵² Cabrita, Mozambique: The Tortuous Road, p. 122.

⁵³ The state violence against the Jehovah's Witnesses was far from being an isolated case. It was a by-product of the competition between the state (particularly its Marxist ideology) and religious faith, as Morier-Genoud argues. Tensions between Frelimo and religion existed during the liberation struggle and continued to grow after independence, to the disadvantage of religion. Almost all the churches faced the state's pressure, as soon after independence many churches were closed and their properties nationalised. ‘In some missions, the fathers were literally thrown out of their churches and the latter turned into a military quarter after its “closure”’. Morier-Genoud, ‘Of God and Caesar’, p. 53.

⁵⁵ Cabrita, Mozambique: The Tortuous Road, p. 96.

⁵⁴ J.P. Borges Coelho, ‘Da violência Colonial Ordenada à Ordem Pós-colonial Violenta: Sobre um Legado das Guerras Coloniais nas Ex-colónias Portuguesas’, Lusotopie (2003), p. 191.

⁵⁶ Hanlon, Mozambique: The Revolution under Fire, p. 171.

⁵⁷ ‘Vocês Ganharam uma Pátria’, Tempo, 13 June 1982, pp. 6–9. Although dangerous, the process of ‘integration’ of former colonial soldiers in Mozambique was relatively fortunate if compared to that of Guinea-Bissau, where several African commandos were arrested and summarily executed after independence. See J.P. Borges Coelho, ‘African Troops in the Portuguese Colonial Army, 1961–1974: Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique’, Portuguese Studies Review, 10, 1 (2002), p. 149.

⁵⁸ Borges Coelho, ‘Da Violência Colonial Ordenada’, p. 191.

⁵⁹ Borges Coelho, ‘Um Itinerário Histórico da Moçambicanidade’.

⁶⁰ ‘Para Compreender a Lei dos Crimes Contra o Povo e do Estado (1)’, Tempo, 18 March 1979, pp. 18–22.

⁶¹ ‘O que é o Crime? A Posição do Nosso País Perante esta Questão’, Tempo, 19 October 1980, pp. 11–14.

⁶³ Machel, “We Are Declaring War on the Enemy Within', p. 94.

⁶² Trindade, ‘Rupturas e Continuidades’, p. 111.

⁶⁴ ‘Maputo Imposes Pass Laws to Halt Rural Influx’, The Guardian, 15 June 1982. If travelling from one residential area or province to another, one had to carry a guia de marcha issued by the party committee to be presented to the head of the destination district/locality. See Cabrita, Mozambique: The Tortuous Road, p. 87.

⁶⁵ ‘População de Manhiça e Marracuene vai Receber Armas. Anunciou Presidente Samora Machel em Comício Popular’, Tempo, 30 December 1984, pp. 2–3.

⁶⁷ ‘Segurança: Do povo, para o Povo, com o Povo’, Tempo, 30 May 1982, pp. 14–21.

⁶⁶ In 1980 SNASP became a department of the newly created Ministry of Security.

⁶⁸ ‘Candongueiro é Bandido Não Armado. Marcelino dos Santos Reuniu com Trabalhadores da INVESTRO’, Tempo, 7 April 1985, pp. 3–4.

⁶⁹ ‘Candonga: A Raiva da “Grande Família’”, Tempo, 31 January 1982, pp. 14–17.

⁷⁰ ‘Rompamos Definitivamente com a Burguesia’, Tempo, 8 August 1982.

⁷¹ D. Hedges and A. Rocha, ‘Moçambique durante o Auge do Colonialismo Português, 1945–1961: A Economia e a Estrutura Social’, in Hedges (coord.), História de Moçambique, pp. 129–96.

⁷² ‘Povo é Construtor da Paz’, Tempo, 27 February 1983, pp. 14–23.

⁷³ ‘TMR: Candongueiro e Bandidos Condenados à Morte’, Tempo, 10 April 1983, pp. 5–6.

⁷⁴ ‘O Dia-a-Dia numa Cadeia de Mulheres’, Tempo, 16 March 1986, pp. 17–23.

⁷⁵ Compare to M. Niger-Thomas, ‘Woman and the Arts of Smuggling’, African Studies Review, 44, 2 (2001), pp. 43–70.

⁷⁶ ‘Cidade de Maputo Tem Gente a Mais: Afluxo de Campo e Desemprego Sobrecarregam Infra-estruturas’, Notícias, 2 June 1983.

⁷⁷ Trindade, ‘Rupturas e Continuidades’, p. 111.

⁷⁸ Robinson, Curse on the Land, p. 235.

⁷⁹ See J. Penvenne, ‘Aqui Todos Andavam com Medo: O Sistema de Trabalho em Moçambique e os Trabalhadores de Lourenço Marques, 1945–1962’, in J. Penvenne, Trabalhadores de Lourenço Marques (1870–1974) (Maputo, Arquivo Histórico de Moçambique, Estudos 9, 1993), pp. 155–204.

⁸⁰ See J. Penvenne, ‘Aqui Todos Andavam com Medo: O Sistema de Trabalho em Moçambique e os Trabalhadores de Lourenço Marques, 1945–1962’, in J. Penvenne, Trabalhadores de Lourenço Marques (1870–1974) (Maputo, Arquivo Histórico de Moçambique, Estudos 9, 1993), p. 168.

⁸¹ Hedges and Rocha, ‘Moçambique durante o Auge do Colonialismo Português’, pp. 95–6; 140.

⁸² Hedges and Rocha, ‘Moçambique durante o Auge do Colonialismo Português’, p. 162.

⁸³ Robinson, Curse on the Land, p. 235.

⁸⁴ ‘Um Caso Exemplar’, Tempo, 28 August 1983, pp. 24–5.

⁸⁵ ‘Desempregados a Caminho do Futuro’, Tempo, 21 August 1983, pp. 22–4.

⁸⁶ ‘Medidas para Corrigir Erros na “Operação Produção”: Postas em Liberdade Mulheres Detidas Irregularmente’, Notícias, 14 July 1983.

⁸⁷ ‘Operação Produção: Uma Missão Histórica’, Tempo, 14 August 1983, pp. 14–19.

⁸⁸ During supervisory visits undertaken by brigades of the Operational Commando, several chronic asthmatics, tuberculosis patients, physically deficient and aged people were sent back home from production camps. ‘Retirar da Produção Doentes e Idosos que Foram Evacuados: Determina Delegação do Comando Central Operativo em Cabo Delgado’, Notícias, 27 July 1983.