The Battle for Mozambique: The Frelimo–Renamo Struggle, 1977–1992 - Softcover

Emerson, Stephen A.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1909384925 ISBN 13: 9781909384927

Publisher: Helion and Company, 2014

Synopsis

Nominated for the Association of Third World Studies Toyin Falola Africa book award for 2014.
The sixteen-year-long war in Mozambique between the Frelimo government and Renamo rebels remains one of the most overlooked and misunderstood of the conflicts that raged across Africa during the height of the Cold War. While usually viewed as mere sideshow to more high-profile wars in Angola, Rhodesia and within apartheid South Africa itself, it nonetheless is noteworthy in its complexity, duration and destructiveness.

Before it was all over in 1992 at least one million Mozambicans would be dead, millions more homeless and the country lying in ruins. Ultimately Frelimo would get its victory not on the battlefield but rather at the polling booth in 1994.

Based on more than a decade of meticulous research, a review of thousands of pages of military records and documents, and dozens of in-depth interviews with political leaders, diplomats, generals, and soldiers and sailors, this book tells the story of the war from the perspective of those who fought it and lived it. It follows Renamo's growth from its Rhodesian roots in 1977 as a weapon against Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwean nationalist guerrillas operating from Mozambique through South African patronage in the early 1980s to Renamo's evolution as a self-sufficient nationalist insurgency.

In tracing the ebb and flow of the conflict from the rugged mountains and Savannah forests of central Mozambique across the hot, humid Zambezi River valley and down to the very outskirts of the Mozambican capital in the far south, it examines the operational strategy of Frelimo and Renamo commanders in the field, the battles they fought and the lives of their troops. In doing so it highlights personal struggles, each side's successes and failures, and the missed opportunities to decisively turn the tide of war. Accordingly, this book provides the first real comprehensive military history of a war too long neglected and under appreciated in the chronicles of modern African history.

About this title

From the Author:

Why write a book about a seemingly minor sideshow to larger, better known conflicts in Angola, Ethiopia or South Africa?

As a political-military analyst writing about the Mozambican war for senior American policymakers in Washington back in the mid-1980s I thought I had a very clear and accurate understanding of events, personalities, and the ebb and flow of the fighting. I was mistaken. And the more I delved into the existing literature while living in southern Africa in the mid-1990s the more I discovered that I was not alone. Many others--including some notable academics, scholars and journalists--had gotten it wrong too. Some had become caught up in embracing a cause and their writing was deliberately skewed to make 'their side' look better. Others, in a desperate search for any scrap of seemingly reliable information on an underreported conflict, found themselves caught up in apartheid South Africa's sophisticated campaign of disinformation and unwittingly repeated stories hook, line and sinker. Thus, many of the so-called 'facts' surrounding the war and the people in it are more myth than reality. Moreover, to this day controversy continues to surround many pivotal events and the real story has yet to be revealed.

This critique is not intended to downplay the hard work and cutting edge scholarship on the war or the insurgency that was undertaken in the past. Many of these groundbreaking accounts contain highly useful and relevant information and, accordingly, are cited extensively within this work where appropriate. Nonetheless, many popular accounts of the war are fraught with major inaccuracies. Over time, unfortunately, these flawed works have come to be widely accepted as a true reflection of the historical record without critical examination by those seeking to better understand the conflict. The pages of this book hopefully provide a desperately needed reality check.

From the Back Cover:

"Steve Emerson has written the most comprehensive account of the civil war in Mozambique that has yet been attempted. In particular he has made extensive use of interviews with participants in trying to uncover the details of what happened in this savage and often secret conflict. The Mozambican civil war remains highly controversial with very differing interpretations which find its causes either in popular grievances against the Frelimo socialist reforms or in foreign intervention pure and simple. It is now widely accepted that the war changed character as it continued and that it has to be understood in the wider context of the closing phases of the Cold War and of the White supremacist regimes in Africa. However, it was also a very 'African' conflict, culturally rooted in the history of Mozambique and linked in many aspects to civil conflicts elsewhere in Africa in the 1980s and 1990s. Steve Emerson's account is largely a military history but as such is invaluable for any understanding of the post-colonial history of southern Africa." - Dr. Malyn Newitt, Emeritus Professor of History at King's College London

About this edition

• Publisher: Helion and Company
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1909384925
• ISBN 13: 9781909384927
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288