Dialogue with RENAMO deadlocked over armed forces

Renamo, however, continues to demand what it calls a “model for integration”, a term which cannot be found anywhere in the agreement on cessation of hostilities signed by President Armando Guebuza and Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama on 5 September.

At the end of the meeting, the deputy head of the government delegation, Transport Minister Gabriel Muthisse, said the Renamo demand was just a code for sharing out the top positions in the military and the police.

Indeed, this was made quite explicit by the head of the Renamo delegation, Saimone Mauiana, a fortnight ago, when he said that in all military and police units “when the commander comes from the government, his deputy should come from Renamo and vice versa”.

“When Renamo talks of a model, they are demanding parity in the FADM”, said Muthisse. “We do not favour organizing the army of a country on the basis of political party colours”.

“If Renamo were to draw up a model which does not include a share-out or parity in the armed forces, we could assess it”, he added. “But while the question of a model appears as a disguise, we will not agree to it”.

Muthisse said Renamo was trying to return to the model used in creating the FADM under the 1992 peace agreement. “There was a specific situation which determined a certain parity in the way in which the FADM would be formed”, he said. “For Renamo, that specific situation at the end of the war should be the basis on which the army must continue to be organised”.

“We do not intend to form our army on the basis of political party colours”, he insisted. “Promotion and entry into the FADM should be on merit. We cannot allow our FADM to be influenced by political party colours”.

“In the annual intake of recruits to the FADM, Renamo wants us to look at what party they’re from”, Muthisse said. “When students enter the Military Academy in Nampula, we must look at the political affiliation of the applicants. When the time comes to promote a second lieutenant to lieutenant, a lieutenant to a captain, a captain to a major, we must always look at the political colour of the candidate”.

That was no way to run the armed forces. Muthisse accused Renamo of wanting to continue to use the criteria of the peace agreement in forming the FADM more than 20 years later.

The peace agreement stated that the FADM would consist of 30,000 troops, half of them drawn from the existing government army, the FAM/FPLM, and half from Renamo. But they all had to be volunteers. In 1994, when the two forces were demobilised, there were nowhere near 30,000 volunteers.

That was why the FADM was formed out of just 11,579 troops, around two thirds from the FAM/FPLM and one third from Renamo. Subsequently the FADM has grown by recruiting young Mozambicans who were in neither of the warring armies. Since 1997 conscription has been in force, but a significant number of people have also volunteered for a military career. The Renamo proposal ignores them altogether.

Renamo alleges that many of its men in the FADM have been forcibly retired, or marginalized in desk jobs as “advisers”. The government argues that nothing unusual has happened, and routine retirement and placement on the reserve list affects soldiers regardless of whether they were originally in Renamo or the FAM/FPLM.

Muthisse said it seemed that Renamo was primarily concerned, not with its “residual forces”, but with the men who were already in the FADM whom it wished to promote.

“Only in a second stage would the residual forces, currently assembled in about four provinces, be integrated. They would go into the police”, he continued. “So from Renamo’s point of view, the priority is to solve the problem of the soldiers whom they claim are marginalized in the army”.

Macuiana said “We think this position is negative. We want the principle of sharing responsibility in the FADM and the police to be respected”.

“It’s difficult to understand how our brothers have been in the army for more than twenty years and have received no service orders recognizing them”, he said. “Many officers, almost all of them from Renamo, integrated under the peace agreement have received no service orders because it is considered that their ranks were not attributed by the government”.

It is indeed the case that nobody knows on what basis ranks were awarded in the Renamo forces. More importantly, when the FADM was formed there were simply far too many lower and middle ranking officers. This was an army that had more officers than privates.